Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Along the Mississippi River, 1863–1865 225
condition; but he expected Osband’s brigade to arrive from Vicksburg within
a week. He would then mount an expedition to destroy the Mobile and Ohio.
Believing that time was of the essence, Halleck told him to do the best he could
with the force at hand. 93
Dana set out to increase his mounted strength. To lead the expedition, he waylaid
General Grierson, who was passing through Memphis with his cavalry division.
“I think the detention is made in accordance with some orders from Washington,”
Grierson explained to Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson, who expected him and his division
at Nashville. Dana also sent one of his officers as far upriver as Cairo, Illinois,
to reroute cavalry regiments that were on their way from Missouri to Nashville. By
the time Osband and his brigade, which included the 3d USCC, arrived at Memphis
in mid-December, enough mounted troops had assembled to launch the expedition. 94
Then the rain began. By 21 December, Dana reported, “the weather for ten
days has been intolerably rainy, and the whole country is overflowed, the roads
knee-deep in mud.” That morning, the expedition left its wagons and artillery behind
and set out, thirty-five hundred troopers with rations, mainly hardtack and
coffee, and extra ammunition carried on about one thousand pack animals. Nine
regiments of infantry accompanied Grierson’s command east along the line of the
Memphis and Charleston Railroad to attempt repairs along the track and confuse
enemy attempts to guess the column’s direction. Rain and sleet continued. Hundreds
of cavalry horses broke down on the march and had to be abandoned, their
places taken by animals seized at farms along the route. Despite those difficulties,
by Christmas Eve, Grierson’s cavalry had covered the eighty miles to Ripley, Mississippi,
and was within striking distance of the Mobile and Ohio tracks. 95
During the next forty-eight hours, Osband’s brigade alone destroyed nearly
half a mile of bridges and trestles on the line south of Tupelo. In succeeding days,
the expedition moved farther along the railroad, destroying a Confederate supply
depot that included two hundred wagons captured from Sturgis’ expedition the
previous spring and several trainloads of Confederate supplies. Meanwhile, Grierson’s
telegrapher tapped the line that ran along the tracks and learned that the
Confederate General Richard Taylor planned to reinforce the railroad’s defenders.
The raiders met the first serious resistance at Egypt, where the garrison surrendered
on 28 December minutes before relief arrived. Grierson’s cavalry fought the
reinforcements to a standstill and then turned due west, moving through Houston
before veering southwest toward Winona. There, the expedition struck the line of
the Mississippi Central Railroad. Grierson sent Osband’s brigade south and another
north to tear up track and burn bridges. The column reunited a few miles east
of Yazoo City and reached Vicksburg on 5 January. Grierson estimated the damage
to Confederate communications as nearly 4 miles of bridges and trestles burned,
another 10 miles of track torn up—ties burned to heat the rails so that they could
93 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, pp. 782, 799; vol. 45, pt. 2, p. 142. John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of
Ulysses S. Grant, 30 vols. to date (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press,
1967– ), 12: 289, 385–86 (hereafter cited as Grant Papers).
94 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, p. 902; vol. 45, pt. 2, pp. 90 (quotation), 106–07.
95 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 4, p. 902 (quotation); vol. 45, pt. 1, pp. 844–45. Main, Third United
States Colored Cavalry, pp. 219–20.