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142 6 Winslow’s Cavalry August 1863 to January 1864 In early August, Bussey lost command of his cavalry brigade at Vicksburg . The Fifth whispered of the Iowan’s incompetence and believed the rumors that alluded to his arrest and subsequent loss of command for his inaction at Canton. In actuality, Grant transferred Bussey with Steele’s troops to Arkansas. Bussey’s promotion to brigadier general astounded John Mann: “[Bussey] makes a poor Col and how . . . could he be appointed Brig Gen on merit. If he is fit for a Brig [Gen], I am more fit for a Major Gen.” A detachment of Bussey’s Third Iowa remained at Vicksburg and joined the transformed brigade with the Fifth Illinois and Fourth Iowa regiments, commanded by Col. Edward F. Winslow, Fourth Iowa.1 The brigade’s first challenge occurred in northern Mississippi, where their mission was to extradite rolling stock for the Mississippi Central and the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroads. The destruction of the Pearl River railroad bridge during the Jackson campaign had isolated more than four hundred locomotives and cars around Grenada and Water Valley, located one hundred miles north of Jackson. The only Confederate troops available to guard the four million dollars’ worth of stock remained James R. Chalmers ’s Second Brigade, totaling less than fifteen hundred men at Grenada. Federal authorities became aware of the stranded rolling stock in late July and devised a plan to send engineering troops from Memphis to rebuild the rail lines, while Winslow’s cavalry gathered all the abandoned stock from Yazoo City northward to Grenada. The two Federal forces would meet at Grenada and move the stock out of Confederate possession to Memphis, Tennessee. Sherman prohibited the cavalry from confiscating items from Mississippians during the expedition. Instead, the army allotted Winslow three thousand Confederate dollars to “provide liberally and fairly for August 1863 to JAnuAry 1864 143 the wants of your command by paying” for food, horses, and supplies. Winslow implemented Grant’s new policy toward Mississippians when he strictly prohibited any wandering from the column without permission from field officers. “It is all important that good order and discipline be observed on every occasion and at all times,” declared Winslow. Skiles believed the enforcement of Grant’s new policy to be the sole reason for the scout: “We are ordered on a scout. . . . [T]o show the citizens that we can be gentlemen & not Vandals, as represented, I think Grant is going to coax Mississippi back.”2 Stephen Hurlbut sent sixteen hundred men under Lt. Col. Jesse J. Phillips to meet Winslow at Grenada and cooperate in moving the rail stock to Memphis. Winslow’s expedition began at 4:30 a.m., Monday, 10 August, as eight hundred men rode out of their camps, with the Third Iowa in advance, followed by the Fifth Illinois (Companies A, B, F, and K, under Farnan), and the Fourth Iowa regiments. The commander permitted only the best conditioned soldiers and horses to accompany the column and disallowed any wagons, trains, or ambulances. The sick, weak, and injured men that remained in camp silently watched their comrades leave from the confines of their hospital beds. No cheering hordes followed the cavalry as they started out that hot summer morning. The Fifth carried rations for only four days in their haversacks, along with ample supplies of ammunition for their Cosmopolitan carbines and their newly acquired Sharps carbines and service revolvers. Weighing in at eight pounds and firing only a single .52 caliber bullet, the breech-loader could be loaded and fired up to five shots a minute. Winslow anticipated trouble from William H. Jackson’s cavalry, rumored to be at Brandon, and ordered the men to “attack promptly and resolutely, and so handle your forces that they cannot count your numbers.” The horsemen traveled on the Lower Benton Road until the heat forced them to make camp, eighteen miles from Haynes’ Bluff.3 The next morning, the men started early, before dawn and the sweltering sun. They passed through Mechanicsburg late in the morning, riding to within nine miles of Yazoo City. Winslow expected to find the promised Federal gunboats and transports when they rode into the city early Wednesday morning, 12 August, but the docks remained empty. A scout sent to Satartia returned with news that the expected boats had returned to Vicksburg with the soldiers’ rations. Additional bad news arrived when Winslow learned that Jackson’s cavalry was at Canton, only thirty miles southeast of...

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