Prince’s worries over an enemy guard vanished with the return of the ferry and a lieutenant from Company I. There were no Confederate soldiers at all on the other side of the river; the lieutenant had made a thorough search and had found no evidence of anyone except the ferryman’s family and a few Negroes.
Immediately after the second boatload had crossed, one of the second battalion’s rear-guard pickets came riding up with a captured rebel. The man confessed to being a courier racing to warn the ferryman that the Yankees were coming. Prince had saved the ferry by half an hour, proof that the raiders’ luck and timing still held.
At daybreak, while Prince was preparing to load the last company and post a guard at the landing, the main column came trotting down the muddy trail that cut through the river approaches. Colonel Grierson was riding with the advance, and though his first act probably was to congratulate Prince for securing the ferry, he later failed to do this in his official report: “As soon as Colonel Prince had crossed his two battalions, he was ordered to proceed immediately to the New Orleans Railroad.”3
Grierson now took command of the river crossing himself. From a Confederate courier captured after Prince’s departure from Williams’ Plantation, Grierson had information of an enemy gunboat carrying two six-pounders several miles upstream, and as soon as Captain Smith arrived he was ordered to take a pair of his mounted guns two or three miles up the river and lay behind the bank to engage the boat if it should steam down and attempt to break up the river crossing.
Only one thing had gone wrong that morning. A deputy sheriff captured the day before by Sergeant Surby and the scouts had escaped, taking with him a prized horse belonging to Grierson’s orderly. If Grierson considered the sheriff’s escape of minor importance, two of the Butternut Guerillas certainly would not—before this day was done.
As soon as the ferrying of the Sixth Regiment appeared to be operating smoothly, Grierson and some of his officers crossed over to the ferryman’s house. “Our troops were taken for the First Alabama Cavalry from Mobile,” Grierson wrote afterward. “I receipted to the ferryman for the passage of the command in the name of that regiment, and as the crossing was slow, accepted an invitation to breakfast with my officers at a fine home near the ferry. The breakfast was well served, the ladies were all smiles, when up came some blunderhead and blurted out something to me about the ‘Sixth Illinois Cavalry,’ and what they were doing. The countenances of the hosts changed and some persons immediately left the room.”4
Sometime during his stop at the ferry, Grierson decided to send a fake telegram to General Pemberton’s Confederate headquarters in Jackson, then only twenty-five miles away. Grierson may have recalled how Morgan’s Confederate raiders had pulled that same trick repeatedly in their northern forays against the Yankees, and possibly he thought it was high time the score was evened.
It is not clear whether Grierson gave the message directly to Colonel Prince or sent it to him by messenger after Prince’s departure from the ferry for the New Orleans & Jackson Railroad. All that can be determined definitely from the various accounts is that Sergeant Surby later received the message directly from Colonel Prince. At any rate it was a clearly worded and shrewdly timed message: “The Yankees have advanced to Pearl River, but finding the ferry destroyed they could not cross, and have left, taking a northeasterly direction.”5 It was designed to scare the buttons off Pemberton, make him see visions of Yankees galloping into his very headquarters before nightfall.
II
The crossing of Pearl River in the single flatboat was a tedious operation requiring almost eight hours, but the delay probably saved Company B from being cut off again from the main column and stranded in the Piney Woods.
Misfortune had overtaken the company shortly after Sergeant Stephen Forbes and his two companions had started their successful ride to overtake the brigade. Stopping at a small farm to feed, Captain Henry Forbes had accepted the services of the owner who volunteered to guide them by a shortcut through the woods to the main road which Grierson was traveling.
Whether he was blundering or treacherous they never certainly knew, but he led them after dark into an old tornado track, or windfall, as it is called; and there, twisting and turning, this way and that, through the tangle of fallen tree trunks, they lost, not only their way, but all sense of direction likewise. Some of the men begged, in his hearing, to be allowed to kill the guide, and terror reduced him to temporary idiocy. There was nothing to do but to bivouac in the rain and wait for morning to come. Every one went to sleep, guards and all, and when the captain awoke at dawn, their guide had abandoned them and their prisoners had escaped, bearing with them, of course, news of the company’s numbers, whereabouts, and predicament. By a rapid scout after daylight they discovered the trail of the column and once more rode steadily on in the hope that their messengers of the day before had not failed in their mission.6
About midday, Company B finally reached Strong River where Sergeant Stephen Forbes, his two companions, and the detachment left by Colonel Grierson were anxiously waiting. The men celebrated their reunion by galloping on to the Pearl, arriving at the ferry landing at two o’clock—as the last companies of the Sixth Regiment were crossing.
Captain Forbes went over with the next load to report in person to Colonel Grierson. “We were now once more with friends on the west side of the Pearl,” said the captain. “We had been absent five days and four nights; we had marched fully three hundred miles in ten different counties, had captured and paroled forty prisoners, confronted and evaded several thousand of the Confederate troops at Macon and Enterprise; slipped through the home guards of six county towns, been twice misled and once lost; had had but eighteen hours of sleep, while rations for man and horse had been for the most part conspicuous by their absence. We simply had not had time to eat. The men who did this work were a year and a half from the plow-tail, and their chief claim to consideration is that they were representative men—fair types of our American citizen-soldiery.”7
Colonel Grierson gave a detailed account of Captain Forbes’s exploits in his official report of the raid, concluding as follows: “He was obliged to march 60 miles per day for several consecutive days. Much honor is due Captain Forbes for the manner in which he conducted this expedition.”8
In his Record of Services, Grierson added: “I still have the soiled scrawl so hastily penciled, ‘Col. Goodwin’s compliments to General Grierson commanding United States forces, and asks permission to consider his demand for one hour.’”9
III
Colonel Prince and his Second Battalion meanwhile were driving ahead out of the valley of the Pearl toward Hazlehurst, fourteen miles west of the river, on the New Orleans & Jackson Railroad. The drizzle had stopped, but clouds rolled across the sky and a warm wind from the Gulf of Mexico brought perspiration through the men’s woolen uniforms.
The familiar longleafs thinned and disappeared before an army of scrub pines; the small fields were gray and yellow and stony under strips of cotton and corn; the undulating land was marked with ridges and gashed by deep narrow gulches.
Once again the Butternut Guerillas were patrolling the front, and about four miles from the ferry crossing they began picking up fleeing civilians who had received news of the Yankees’ approach. Some of them were armed but none suspected the true character of the scouts until too late. “One small man,” said Sergeant Surby, “with sandy whiskers and foxy eyes, trying to look as savage as a meat-axe, had secured in an old belt around his waist two large old flint-lock dragoon pistols, and slung over his shoulder a large leather pouch and powder-horn, and on his left shoulder, with his hand resting on the stock, an old United States musket, flint-lock.”
As the scouts approached him, the man brought his gun to carry arms, greeting the disguised strangers with a grin. “I’ve jist bid the old woman good-bye, and told her that she need not expect me back until I had killed four Yankees.”
Using a trick which had been successful s
everal times before, Surby dismounted and approached the rebel, complimented him on the efficient appearance of his arms, and asked permission to inspect them. “Without any hesitation he passed over his musket to me; the other men in the meantime had his pistols. I informed him he was a prisoner, and would soon have a chance to see the General.”
Two miles farther on the scouts came upon a dozen men, some mounted and some seated on pieces of timber in front of a small building which resembled a blacksmith shop. The men watched the scouts approaching, curiosity rather than fear or animosity upon their faces. As soon as he halted, Surby discovered that the place was being used as a gunsmith’s shop. “They had flocked here,” he said, “with their old shotguns, muskets, rifles and pistols, some of which looked as if they were made in the year one.”
The rebels inquired if the scouts had seen any signs of the Yankees. Surby replied that they had not; but he had heard they were supposed to be advancing toward Pearl River. As soon as his men were properly disposed around and inside the building, he gave a signal; the scouts drew their revolvers and the rebels were quietly informed that they were prisoners of the Union Army.
Seizing all the weapons in the gunsmith’s shop, the Butternut Guerillas proceeded to destroy them by striking the stocks on the ground, breaking them off at the breech, and twisting the barrels until they were “no longer fit for anything but to shoot around corners.” They were thus busily engaged when Colonel Prince arrived with his first battalion.
“Colonel Prince handed me a written dispatch and ordered me to send two of my men with it to the station [Hazlehurst] to be handed to the telegraph operator.” With his six available scouts, Sergeant Surby hurried forward to the outskirts of Hazlehurst. Halting beside the railroad and telegraph line, Surby and four men dismounted to await the return of George Steadman and Lycurgus Kelly, selected for the mission to the Hazlehurst telegraph station.
Under a blackening sky that threatened a thunderstorm, Steadman and Kelly rode slowly into the town. Hazlehurst’s false-fronted, unpainted pine-board buildings clung in a narrow strip along the single line of rail track, resembling a western frontier town rather than a southern village. Few people were moving in the muddy street or along the planked sidewalks.
The railroad station and telegraph office was a square, buff-colored building surrounded by a string of freight cars, a water tank, and what seemed to be a protective guard of stores and warehouses and dwellings, so close were these other structures to the depot.
As Steadman and Kelly dismounted and hitched their horses to the rear railing, they saw half a dozen Confederate officers and soldiers lounging inside the station, obviously awaiting the arrival of a train. The scouts glanced at each other but did not hesitate; ignoring the rebels, they moved directly into the telegraph office, Steadman waving Colonel Grierson’s faked report to Pemberton with an exaggerated flourish.
The telegraph operator read the message with evident excitement, then asked the scouts several questions concerning their military unit and commanding officer, all of which were answered to his satisfaction. He turned to his instrument and began tapping out code over the line to the operator in Jackson.
Thunder was rumbling in the dark sky when the scouts stepped out upon the station platform. A hotel sign across the street reminded Steadman that he was hungry, and he suggested that they trade some of their Secesh money for some Secesh food before riding back to inform Surby he could cut the wires.
They were half way across the street, skirting the deeper mudholes, when a horseman came galloping around the corner of the hotel. Steadman lifted one hand in a casual greeting. His arm froze in mid-air. The horseman had pulled up sharply, staring at the scouts, his face flushing in sudden anger.
The rider was the deputy sheriff who eighteen hours ago had been captured by them only to escape later during the night from Williams’ Plantation. He was riding the horse stolen from Grierson’s orderly, and now began to brandish a saber also stolen at the same time.
“Help! Stop the Yankees!” the sheriff shouted in a voice high-pitched from sudden excitement. He shifted the saber awkwardly to his left hand, withdrawing a pistol from his belt with his right. His horse, feeling the bridle loosen, began to twist and stamp in the mud.
The scouts drew their revolvers and began backing toward the station. Standing in his stirrups now, the sheriff continued bellowing: “Help! Help! Stop the Yankees!” He did not fire his pistol, and the scouts guessed it was empty.
But his urgent clamor brought the Confederate soldiers out of the station just as Steadman and Kelly reached their horses and began jerking the hitches loose. The scouts were mounting when several Confederates came pounding around the depot.
Steadman fired his revolver above the rebels’ heads and sent them scurrying to cover, while he and Kelly lashed their horses into a gallop, using the line of side-tracked freight cars for a screen as they sped out of the town.
Coming up to Surby and the other scouts, they shouted a warning to cut the telegraph wires. Surby sent a man up the nearest pole and then listened to Steadman’s excited account of the adventure in Hazlehurst. The sergeant wasted no time. He sent one scout on the double to report the incident to Colonel Prince and ordered the others to follow him on a charge back into Hazlehurst. As they galloped into town, a sweeping gust of wind dashed big raindrops into their faces. The citizens of the town had taken cover from the storm, leaving the streets deserted.
Rain was pouring in torrents when they dismounted and surrounded the station. Surby led the way inside, expecting resistance from the Confederate soldiers, but they had all vanished, along with the telegrapher and the deputy sheriff. Only two old men remained, sitting quietly on a bench in the waiting room. From them Surby learned that a train would soon be coming in from the north.
“The usual precaution was taken to secure it [the train]; but after waiting half an hour beyond the time for its arrival the command became careless, and no further attention was given it, supposing that news had reached the next station of our approach.”
During the wait for the train some of the men found several boxes of eggs, hams, sugar and flour stored in the railroad depot—a whole commissary waiting to be cooked up to serve the battalion. A detail was assigned to carry the food across the street to the Hazlehurst Hotel.
But in the midst of this activity a train whistle suddenly shrilled; the engine, boiling smoke and sparks, darted around a curve and began slowing for the Hazlehurst stop. At least a hundred Yankees began charging on the railroad, waving carbines.
The engineer reacted swiftly. In a moment he reversed his engine, and with a loud chugging and shrieking the train began to retreat, disappearing around the bend in a cloud of smoke and steam.
They had lost the train, but a good dinner was waiting in the hotel. And while they dined, the tall-tale spinners could amuse themselves and their listeners by inventing stories about what they had missed by not capturing the train. Sergeant Surby liked the one about the “eight millions in Confederate money, which was en route to pay off troops in Louisiana and Texas.”
As soon as the first groups had finished eating, details were assigned to search the town for hidden military stores. They found 500 loaded shells, several cases of ammunition, and a large quantity of commissary and quartermaster supplies in the freight cars, marked for shipment to Grand Gulf and Port Gibson. No arms were discovered in any of the business houses or residences, and since the railroad station was too near private buildings to be burned separately, Colonel Prince decided to set fire only to the freight cars. He ordered other squads out to cut telegraph wires and to pry up a few sections of railroad track.
While the cars were blazing at their highest, another windstorm swept in suddenly, showering sparks over Hazlehurst’s buildings. Flames burst upward from the roof of a drugstore on the east side of the depot, quickly spreading to two other buildings. This brought the timid citizens out of their homes to fight the fire, and for the next half-hou
r Yankees and Southerners worked side by side to extinguish the blaze and save Hazlehurst.
In the midst of the firefighting, ammunition and shells in the freight cars began exploding, and just as had happened at Newton Station the loud noise was heard by Colonel Grierson approaching with the main column. The companies came charging into town, too late for the fun, too late for a hotel dinner, astonished to find the boys of Prince’s Second Battalion scattered around the smoking, half-burned buildings, with water pails instead of carbines in their hands, laughing and swapping jokes with the townsfolk of Hazlehurst.10
It was, as the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle ruefully reported, “a gala day.”*
IV
Half an hour after the excited engineer had backed his train out of Hazlehurst in time to escape capture, he was bringing his locomotive to a stop in Crystal Springs, ten miles north. He leaped down from the cab and raced into the telegraph office. Thus did General Pemberton learn of the raiders’ presence in Hazlehurst early in the afternoon of April 27, some hours before Grierson gave the order to march out of the town.
To discover that enemy cavalrymen—which only last evening he had so assuredly placed at Enterprise a hundred miles to the east—were now suddenly only twenty-five miles to his south was a shocking surprise to the commanding general. Pemberton’s first thought was of Vicksburg’s security. An enemy cavalry force at Hazlehurst was little more than a day’s striking distance from the long railroad bridge across the Big Black River. If that bridge went, Vicksburg would be isolated, cut off completely from the Jackson supply depots.
For months the bridge had been under secure guard, but Pemberton hastened to warn his Vicksburg commander, Major-General Carter L. Stevenson, of the new danger from Grierson’s raiders: “It seems to me probable the intention is to reach Big Black Bridge,” he said. “Movements should be made to prevent it.” Later in the afternoon he sent a second message to Vicksburg: “I suppose you have field artillery at Big Black Bridge; if not, you must put some there.”