{{Short description|1863 Union attack during the American Civil War}} {{About|Grierson's famous 1863 raid|Grierson's 1864–1865 raid|Battle of Egypt Station}} {{Infobox military conflict |conflict = Grierson's Raid |image = Col Grierson on Horseback Harpers Weekly 1863.jpg |image_size = 200px |caption = Col. Benjamin Grierson leading his 6th Illinois Cavalry |partof = the [[American Civil War]] |date = {{Start date|1863|04|17}} – {{End date|1863|05|02}} |place = ''Start:'' [[La Grange, Tennessee]]<br>''End:'' [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]] |result = [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] victory |combatant1 = {{flagicon|USA|1863}} [[United States]] ([[Union (American Civil War)|Union]]) |combatant2 = {{flagicon|CSA|1863}} [[Confederate States of America|CSA (Confederacy)]] |commander1 = [[Benjamin H. Grierson]] |commander2 = [[William Wirt Adams|W. Wirt Adams]]<br>[[Robert V. Richardson]]<br>''and others'' |units1 = |units2 = |strength1 = 3 regiments |strength2 = ''Unknown'' |casualties1 = |casualties2 = |campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Grant's Operations Against Vicksburg}} }}

'''Grierson's Raid''' was a [[Union Army|Union]] cavalry raid during the [[Vicksburg Campaign]] of the [[American Civil War]]. It ran from April 17 to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from [[Major General#United States|Maj. Gen.]] [[Ulysses S. Grant]]'s main attack plan on [[Vicksburg, Mississippi]].<ref name=brown>{{cite book|author=Dee Brown|title=Grierson's Raid: A Cavalry Adventure of the Civil War|year=1954 |edition=reprint|isbn=978-0-89029-061-3|author-link=Dee Brown (writer) |publisher=University of Illinois Press }}</ref><ref name=harpers>{{cite web|url=http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/june/grierson-raid.htm|title=Civil War Harper's Weekly|date=June 6, 1863|access-date=October 7, 2007}}</ref>

==Background== Early in 1863, [[Charles Smith Hamilton|Major General Charles Hamilton]], the commander of the Corinth section of Grant's division, suggested what would eventually become Grierson's Raid. Subsequently, due to Hamilton's insistence on procuring a command that would garner him more glory, Hamilton offered his resignation. Grant quickly accepted.<ref name=PUSG>{{cite book |editor=John Y. Simon|title=Papers of Ulysses S Grant Volume 7|date=1967 |isbn=978-0-8093-0880-4|page=318|publisher=SIU Press }}</ref>

In the [[Western Theater of the American Civil War]], Confederate cavalry raids under commanders such as [[Lieutenant General (CSA)|Lt. Gen.]] [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]] and [[Brigadier General (CSA)|Brig. Gen.]] [[John Hunt Morgan]] had harassed Union expeditions, namely at the [[Battle of Parker's Crossroads]], where Forrest captured three hundred Union soldiers under [[Brigadier General#United States|Brig. Gen.]] [[Jeremiah C. Sullivan]], but lost all of the artillery pieces belonging to his own command.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=David G. |title=The Vicksburg Campaign: April, 1862 – July, 1863 |date=1990 |publisher=Gallery Books |location=New York |isbn=0-8317-9127-6 |page=76}}</ref> The task of drawing the attention of Confederate raiders away from the [[Siege of Vicksburg]] fell to [[Colonel (United States)|Col.]] [[Benjamin Grierson]], a former music teacher who disliked horses after being kicked in the head by one as a child. Grierson's cavalry [[brigade]] consisted of the [[6th Illinois Cavalry Regiment|6th]] and [[7th Illinois Cavalry Regiment|7th Illinois]] and [[2nd Iowa Cavalry]] regiments.

==The Raid== [[File:Grierson's Raid.pdf|thumb|right|300px|Grierson's Raid. {{legend|#0000ff|Union}} ]] Grierson and his 1,700 horse troopers, some in Confederate uniforms serving as scouts for the main force, rode over {{convert|600|mi}} through hostile territory (from southern [[Tennessee]], through the State of [[Mississippi]] and into Union-held [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]]), over routes no Union soldier had traveled before. They tore up railroads and burned crossties, freed [[Slavery|slaves]], burned Confederate storehouses, destroyed locomotives and commissary stores, ripped up bridges and trestles, burned buildings, and inflicted ten times the casualties they received, all while detachments of his troops made feints confusing the Confederates as to his actual whereabouts, intent and direction. Total casualties for Grierson's Brigade during the raid were three killed, seven wounded, and nine missing. Five sick and wounded men were left behind along the route, too ill to continue. Grierson reported to have killed and wounded 100 Confederates, captured 500, destroyed between 50 and 60 miles of railroad, destroyed over 3,000 stands of arms (a rifle plus all its accompanying kit<ref>{{cite web | url=https://civilwartalk.com/threads/what-is-a-stand-of-arms.84395/ | title=What is a "stand" of arms? &#124; Small Arms & Ammunition | date=20 May 2013 }}</ref>), and captured 1,000 horses and mules.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_griersons_raid.html | title=Grierson's Raid }}</ref>

[[Confederate States Army]] [[Lieutenant General (United States)|Lt. Gen.]] [[John C. Pemberton]] (1814-1881), commander of the [[Vicksburg, Mississippi|Vicksburg]] garrison on the east bank of the [[Mississippi River]] behind heavily fortified trenches, had few cavalry and could do nothing to stop Grierson from rampaging further east in the state's interior. [[File:Grierson's raiders.jpg|thumb|right|Grierson's raiders.]]Around the same period, on April 21, 1863, Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]] (1821-1877), had however pursued and captured another Union Army cavalry raider, Col. [[Abel Streight]] (1828-1892), further east in [[Alabama]] following a different poorly supplied and poorly planned raid ([[Streight's Raid]]) by the generally more powerful and well-supplied [[Union Army]].

Although many other divergent Confederate Army cavalry units pursued Col. Grierson vigorously across the state (most notably [[Wirt Adams' Cavalry Regiment]] and [[Robert V. Richardson]]'s Tennessee Cavalry), they were unsuccessful in stopping the raid driving southward.<ref name=brown/> Grierson and his troopers, exhausted by days in the saddle, ultimately rode into Union-occupied [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]], the capital of the state in early May.<ref>{{cite book|author=D. Alexander Brown|title=Grierson's Raid: A Cavalry Adventure of the Civil War|date=1981|publisher=Morningside Bookshop|location=Dayton, Ohio|isbn= 0317527533|pages=216–19}}</ref> With an entire division of Pemberton's Southern soldiers tied up and dug-in defending the vital Vicksburg-Jackson east/west railroad from the evasive Grierson on mobile horseback, combined with Northern Maj. Gen. [[William T. Sherman]]'s (1820-1891) feint to the northeast of Vicksburg (in the [[Battle of Snyder's Bluff]]), the beleaguered Confederates were unable to muster the forces necessary to oppose Gen. Grant's eventual bypassing landing below Vicksburg on the east side of the lower Mississippi at [[Bruinsburg, Mississippi|Bruinsburg]].

==In popular culture== The 1956 [[historical fiction|historical novel]] ''The Horse Soldiers'' by [[Harold Sinclair (novelist)|Harold Sinclair]], and the 1959 [[The Horse Soldiers|film of the same name]] loosely based on it &ndash; directed by [[John Ford]], and starring [[John Wayne]], [[William Holden]] and [[Constance Towers]] &ndash; are somewhat fictionalized versions of Grierson's Raid and the [[Battle of Newton's Station]].

==See also== * [[Battle of Newton's Station]] * [[Clan Grierson]]

==References== '''Notes''' {{Reflist}}

'''Further reading''' * Laliki, Tom (2004). ''Grierson's Raid: A Daring Cavalry Strike Through the Heart of the Confederacy''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. {{ISBN|0-374-32787-4}}. * Lardas, Mark (2010). ''Roughshod Through Dixie – Grierson’s Raid 1863'', Osprey Raid Series #12; Osprey Publishing. {{ISBN|978-1-84603-993-5}}

{{Mississippi in the Civil War|state=expanded}}

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[[Category:1863 in the United States]] [[Category:Vicksburg campaign]] [[Category:Cavalry raids of the American Civil War]] [[Category:1863 in Tennessee]] [[Category:1863 in Louisiana]] [[Category:Military operations of the American Civil War in Tennessee]] [[Category:Military operations of the American Civil War in Louisiana]] [[Category:April 1863]] [[Category:May 1863]]