The Prairie Boys Go to War: The Fifth Illinois Cavalry, 1861-1865

4. Under Grant’s Command: November 1862 to May 1863

82 4 Under Grant’s Command November 1862 to May 1863 When Withers and Farnan returned to Helena in November, they brought new recruits from Illinois. Including the sixteen who joined in August 1862, the regiment received forty-seven new souls: twenty-nine from Egypt, fifteen from central Illinois, one from Maryland, and two from unknown parts. These men replaced the sixty-three prairie boys who had died of disease during the summer and fall epidemics at Helena. The regiment also witnessed the advancement of two others within the regiment. Alexander Jessop received the captaincy of Company M, while the governor gave Calvin Mann the captain’s commission for Company K after Farnan’s promotion to third major. Steele also returned to command the Helena troops on 8 November.1 On 26 November, the Illinoisans saddled up for their first foray into Mississippi against the Mississippi Central Railroad. This move coincided with Grant’s thrust into central Mississippi against Van Dorn’s army. After the Confederates’ disastrous defeat at Corinth, Van Dorn retreated to Holly Springs and Grand Junction on the Mississippi Central Railroad. By the second week of November, Grant was moving his army south, dislodging the Confederates as they retreated south of Holly Springs and the Tallahatchie River. Grant’s swift move caused John C. Pemberton, new commander of the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, to fortify behind the Tallahatchie, near Abbeville. When Curtis learned of Grant’s movement, he formulated a plan to use the Helena troops, under Steele, to cut off the Confederate retreat by destroying major railroad bridges behind Confederate lines at Grenada. This small Mississippi town occupied a strategic position where the Mississippi Central met the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad, on the south bank of the Yalobusha River. Federals at Grenada would essentially trap November 1862 to may 1863 83 Pemberton’s army between themselves and Grant’s Army of the Tennessee moving down the Mississippi Central Railroad. With the destruction of any organized Confederate resistance, Grant would be free to capture Vicksburg and open the Mississippi River to the gulf. Steele’s forces under Hovey, with seven thousand infantry and artillery , and nineteen hundred cavalry under Washburn, were tasked with a quick strike against the railroad at Grenada. Hall Wilson commanded the First Brigade, which contained 212 men from the Fifth Illinois under Seley and detachments from the First Indiana with their four steel guns, the Ninth Illinois, and the Third and Fourth Iowa Cavalry regiments. The Second Brigade contained detachments from the Second Wisconsin, Sixth Missouri, and other cavalry regiments.2 . N Not to Scale Helen Delta 27 Nov Moon Lake Old Tow Yazoo Pass M is si ss ip pi & Te nn es se e R R a n Holly Springs Abbeville Pemberto Gran n t Mississippi Central RR Coffeeville Yalobusha R Oakland Garner Statio oknap awpha R Preston 30 Nov 's n Y at Tallahatchie R Coldwater R Charlesto Panol Grenada Griffith Washburn Washburn 28 No 3 Dec Mitchell's Crossroads a v n Map 4.1. C. C. Washburn’s Grenada, Mississippi, expedition, 27 November to 5 December 1862. Under Grant’s Command 84 Boarding transports, Washburn’s horsemen arrived at Delta, Mississippi , on the afternoon of 27 November, disembarked, and encamped. The next morning, Washburn moved his forces toward the confluence of the Coldwater and Tallahatchie Rivers, where they encountered a group of sixty Rebels across the waterway. Shells from the First Indiana’s steel guns, supported by the cavalry’s carbines, urged the Rebels to flee “with the utmost precipitation,” leaving behind arms and horses strewn over the ground. The Federal horsemen crossed the Tallahatchie by daylight, connecting with Hovey and the infantry.3 At daybreak, Washburn pushed his troops hard, following the road along the south bank of the Yoknapatawpha River (Yokna). Resistance occurred at Mitchell’s Crossroads when the Sixth Missouri skirmished with pickets from John S. Griffith’s Texas Cavalry Brigade on the Panola Road. After dislodging the Confederates, they headed south to Preston, a small town only sixteen miles from Grenada and four miles west of the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad, early 30 November. After failing to capture the train at Hardy Station, Washburn ordered two hundred men from the Second Wisconsin and the Fifth Illinois to ride to Garner’s Station and destroy bridges and the telegraph, and if possible, capture the northbound train. The raiders succeeded in destroying about one...