Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Along the Mississippi River, 1863–1865 201
Both men were Mississippians who knew the country between Satartia and
Vicksburg. Dressed in the rags of plantation slaves, which they had recently
been, the two sergeants walked until they came to a plantation where they were
able to steal four horses—enough to provide them with remounts and to deter
pursuit by putting the horses’ owners on foot. Mounted, Trendall and Vincent
covered the distance to Vicksburg in ten hours. After delivering Coates’
dispatch, they joined the main body of the 1st Mississippi Cavalry (AD) at
Haynes’ Bluff, where the regimental quartermaster inspected their horses and
branded them U.S. 26
Up the Yazoo at Liverpool Heights, the effort to stop Coates’ advance had
depleted the Confederates’ artillery ammunition, so General Ross let the federal
vessels pass on the morning of 4 February with no resistance but rifle shots
from the riverbank. The Union soldiers on board returned fire from behind
cotton bales and hardtack boxes stacked on deck. Ross thought that the Confederate
volleys “must have done much execution,” but Coates reported only
five men wounded. The flotilla reached Yazoo City, found Ross’ brigade there,
and dropped back down the river once again. Coates’ two regiments, reinforced
by five companies of the 1st Mississippi Cavalry (AD), which had marched
overland to join them, did not return to occupy the town until 9 February. By
that time, the Confederates had moved east, anticipating orders to oppose Sherman’s
march to Meridian. In order to learn where Ross’ men had gone, General
Hawkins at Haynes’ Bluff ordered the 3d Arkansas (AD) and the 11th Louisiana
(AD) to scout from there east toward the Big Black River. They covered
the fifty miles to the river and back in five days without event. The enemy they
were looking for was some fifteen miles farther north. 27
Coates led his force up the Yazoo to Greenwood, which it reached on 14
February. Two days later, he sent Osband and two hundred fifty cavalrymen in
the direction of Grenada. The party returned the next day and reported that the
Confederate Maj. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest had made that town his headquarters.
Coates’ expedition then floated and marched back to Yazoo City, arriving there
on 28 February with its transports and gunboats bearing 1,729 bales (432 tons)
of cotton seized from secessionist planters. 28
By this time, Sherman’s raid on Meridian was over and his returning army
had reached Canton, some twenty miles north of Jackson, with five thousand
freedpeople and one thousand white refugees in tow. On the Confederate side,
Ross’ Texas cavalry brigade had received orders to return to Yazoo City. A few
miles east of town, the force encountered a scouting party of the 1st Mississippi
Cavalry (AD). “I immediately ordered [the 6th and 9th Texas Cavalry], which
happened to be nearest at hand, to charge them,” Ross reported. “The negroes after
the first fire broke in wild disorder, each seeming intent on nothing but making
his escape. Being mounted on mules, however, but few of them got away. The
26 Descriptive Book, 3d USCC, Regimental Books, RG 94, NA; Main, Third United States
Colored Cavalry, pp. 97–99.
27 OR, ser. 1, vol. 32, pt. 1, pp. 317, 389 (quotation), and pt. 2, p. 392; NA M594, roll 210, 46th
and 49th USCIs.
28 OR, ser. 1, vol. 32, pt. 1, pp. 320–23.