When the junction of the
road going to Vicksburg with the road from Grand Gulf to Raymond and
Jackson was reached, Logan with his division was turned to the left
towards Grand Gulf. I went with him a short distance from this
junction. McPherson had encountered the largest force yet met since the
battle of Port Gibson and had a skirmish nearly approaching a battle;
but the road Logan had taken enabled him to come up on the enemy's right
flank, and they soon gave way. McPherson was ordered to hold
Hankinson's ferry and the road back to Willow Springs with one division;
McClernand, who was now in the rear, was to join in this as well as to
guard the line back down the bayou. I did not want to take the chances
of having an enemy lurking in our rear.
On the way from the junction to Grand Gulf, where the road comes into
the one from Vicksburg to the same place six or seven miles out, I
learned that the last of the enemy had retreated past that place on
their way to Vicksburg. I left Logan to make the proper disposition of
his troops for the night, while I rode into the town with an escort of
about twenty cavalry. Admiral Porter had already arrived with his
fleet. The enemy had abandoned his heavy guns and evacuated the place.
When I reached Grand Gulf May 3d I had not been with my baggage since
the 27th of April and consequently had had no change of underclothing,
no meal except such as I could pick up sometimes at other headquarters,
and no tent to cover me.
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