Battle of Raymond - The Untold Turning Point of the Civil War

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The Civil War

The crude road ahead, meanwhile, promised headaches that only American woodsmen could provide. But Burgoyne had decided that retracing his steps to Lake George would send the wrong message to both his men and the enemy. There they again plunked themselves down, happy to rest until enough provisions arrived to get them to Albany. True, as he learned to his exasperation on August 3, Howe was headed south to Philadelphia, rather than north, but Burgoyne still had St.

With a little haste he could trap Schuyler between his army and St. To do that he needed more of everything he lacked—immediately. Accordingly, Burgoyne ordered a raid on the American supply depot at Manchester, Vermont. Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Baum, accompanied by Skene, would lead the expedition.

He had a lengthy to-do list. With some men including footsore German dragoons who lacked horses , plus any loyalists who signed on, Baum was to clean out Manchester and then probe east before looping southwest to meet the army at Albany. Burgoyne expected him to return with at least 1, horses, along with oxen and sturdy American wagons packed with provisions. As Baum was about to depart on August 13, he received new orders—for Bennington, Vermont, a handful of houses and a packed storehouse 30 miles to the southeast.

He would subsequently assert that he had targeted Bennington all along. Reidesel, citing mixed intelligence reports and the distance involved, protested—to no avail. The mission bore considerable risk. The Americans could hardly have failed to appreciate the lure of either village. And by now they had had five weeks to prepare. Then, in early , he had quit the army, lost in the shuffle of political favorites promoted ahead of him.

And at Fort No. By the end of July Stark had sent men to Warner. When Stark marched for Manchester on August 3 with more, recruits were still coming in. There, after his advance party traded shots with a handful of thoroughly unsurprised rebels, Baum learned that up to 1, Americans awaited him at Bennington.

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A similar scene played out the next morning at the mill village of Sancoick. Baum subsequently dashed off a note informing Burgoyne of his intent to attack the enemy the following morning. Sancoick provided Baum with a hefty haul of flour and wheat. Gathered livestock was stretching his column. But the colonel, who spoke no English, had his hands full. The Indians in his command—who expected immediate payment for horses they rounded up—were petulantly driving them off as the expedition commander demurred.

All the while, antsy locals were eyeing the British and German troops with curiosity. It was up to Skene, who had been away from the region for most of the last two years, to distinguish loyalist from rebel. Certainly, there was no doubting the intent of rifle-toting men who wrecked the bridge out of Sancoick. At this point, with any hope of surprising the enemy dashed, Baum should have exercised more caution. But, reassured by Skene, he marched on. At its head were Stark and Warner. It was some of these men who had dashed in and out of Sancoick ahead of the Germans.

Stark then withdrew a mile to consider his options, leaving skirmishers on harassment duty until dark. On the lower portion of this rise, overlooking the junction, Baum posted his two guns. Meanwhile, across 25 miles of terrain, Baum was trading slow-moving messages with Burgoyne. On the night of the 14th Burgoyne asked for all available cattle and wagons. With men and two 6-pounder guns, Breymann would strike out after Baum the next morning.

Peering east into the darkness, Baum fully grasped the threat before him. The problem was, Baum was essentially on an island, a fact that some of his jittery subordinates recognized. Wasmus, a German surgeon. We would be much safer there than here where every 40 paces a man is standing behind a tree.

August 15 brought enough rain to swamp both armies. Atop the wooded hill that shadowed the bridge, loyalists muscled mud and logs into a broad barricade facing northwest, behind which Baum shifted 60 of his dragoons and one cannon. In between, Baum stood with tense British and German troops. A handful of others guarded piles of baggage and scores of unlucky oxen and horses. Baum lacked the numbers to hold such an extended position for long. Barring disaster, however, he would not need to. Disaster is what he got. The next day, sunshine drove off the rain and Stark went to work.

10 Facts: The Vicksburg Campaign

It was not complicated: Some men—under Lieutenant Colonel Moses Nichols, circling to the northwest, and Colonel Samuel Herrick, slashing up across the river—would pinch off the northern redoubt. Into the early afternoon American flanking troops shuffled throu gh underbrush toward their jump-off positions.

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The shouts of startled dragoons filled the air as Americans opened fire on the hilltop redoubt from two sides. The Philadelphia-born Pemberton was keenly aware that abandoning Vicksburg might be viewed as an act of treason. He'd faced similar criticism in when he advocated the withdrawal from Charleston—much to the chagrin of South Carolina's governor. What's more, a directive from the President of the Confederacy was not something he could simply ignore. Nevertheless, Pemberton attempted to mollify his commanding officer.

He moved his troops out of the Vicksburg trenches in the direction of Grant's army hoping to engage—and possibly defeat—the Yankees outside of Vicksburg, and thereby protect the city. Pemberton's movements, however, were slow and he made little effort to coordinate with Johnston. This half-hearted attempt to please both his military and civilian superiors placed Pemberton's army in a precarious position that the Federals would soon exploit. While groping through the countryside in search of Grant's army, word reached Pemberton that a portion of his opponent's supply train was lightly defended and within easy reach of his Confederate force.

Late on the morning of May 15, , Pemberton leisurely moves his army toward the target. Recent rains, however, have destroyed a bridge over Bakers Creek, forcing Pemberton to make a lengthy detour to cross the stream. When night falls on the 15th the Confederate army is badly spread out on narrow roads, with Bakers Creek to its rear.

In the mean time, Grant has acted swiftly. His three corps are moving west toward Vicksburg on three parallel axes. Pemberton's attenuated line lies directly across the path of the Federal juggernaut. At the same time, his two remaining columns are threatening the Confederate left flank near Champion Hill. The two sides vie for control of the hill for several bloody hours before the Federals' superiority in numbers compel the Confederates to withdraw.

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Only the skill of his junior officers and the bravery of his men save Pemberton from complete disaster, buying time for engineers to build a bridge over Bakers creek and allowing the bulk of Pemberton's army to escape intact. But the Confederates will never again have the chance to defeat the Union troops in the open field. Retreat to the trenches at Vicksburg is Pemberton's only option.

Seeing an opportunity to strike while his opponent was disorganized, Grant ordered a small-scale assault on three axes, the Graveyard Road, the Jackson Road, and the Southern Railroad on May Despite planting their colors on the Rebel works, the Yankee attackers were turned back with substantial loss.

On May 22, Grant tried again. After a massive bombardment, each of his three corps commanders—James McPherson, John McClernand, and Sherman—were ordered to attack in their respective sectors. On the right, Sherman's Fifteenth Corps' assault was torn to pieces as it advanced up the narrow defiles approaching the Stockade Redan.

McClernand sent back to Grant for additional help. A diversion by McPherson or Sherman, McClernand believed, would afford him the opportunity to complete the breakthrough. Grant, however, was slow to respond to his subordinate's call for aid. McPherson sends a division to McClernand, but it is too little too late--the Confederates in this sector rally and drive McClernand back. At the same time, Sherman throws more of his men at the Stockade Redan and is again repulsed. A combination of determined defense and command confusion led to another morale-sapping defeat for the Union forces.

All told, Grant lost more than 4, men in the May offensive. The Confederates lost less than Although the Union army had won a string of victories in the open field, the Vicksburg defenses proved impervious to hasty attacks. The May offensive convinced Grant to lay siege to the city and starve the Confederates out.

When David Dixon Porter was appointed to lead the Mississippi River Squadron, the naval detachment co-operating with Grant near Vicksburg, he was thrust into a command that far exceeded any he had held before, both in tonnage of ships and in importance of victory. Porter was a man of courage and skill, but he came to Vicksburg having made many enemies through his tendency to scorn superiors and play favorites among his inferiors. Nevertheless, the close working relationship that developed between Porter, Grant, and Sherman during the Vicksburg Campaign set the standard for joint operations in the West.

Porter's sailors were the first to occupy the abandoned Confederate base at Grand Gulf and, as Grant's army neared Vicksburg in mid-May, Porter set up a forward supply depot that allowed Grant to keep his troops supplied as they settled into final phases of the Vicksburg campaign. After the infantry invested the city in May, Porter's gunboats provided additional firepower to the Federal forces, lobbing roughly 22, shells into the Confederate fortifications over the course of the day siege—an average of per day.

After weeks of tunneling, they had arrived at a spot directly underneath the 3rd Louisiana Redan, a stronghold on the Confederate fortification line. They spent the next day moving 2, pounds of gunpowder into position under the redan. After a few tense moments the redan blew sky-high and Gen.

Logan 's infantry went into the resultant crater with a shout, supported by cannon and musketry from all along the Union line. However, the tumbling debris happened to form a new parapet that commanded the crater. Confederates swiftly occupied the parapet and began to roll artillery shells with lit fuses into the struggling mass of blue soldiers. The attack was cut up and stalled. Union engineers eventually moved into the crater and erected a shielding casemate of earth and wood debris, allowing the infantry to withdraw without further loss.

Such an assault would have had a good chance of seizing the entire city, but the events of July 3 rendered the network unnecessary. Despite middling success of this explosive attempt to break the siege, Grant nevertheless assented to a similar plan thirteen months later when his forces were stalled outside Petersburg , Virginia.

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