# Grierson's Raid

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1863 Union attack during the American Civil War

This article is about Grierson's famous 1863 raid. For Grierson's 1864–1865 raid, see [Battle of Egypt Station](/source/Battle_of_Egypt_Station).

Grierson's Raid Part of the American Civil War Col. Benjamin Grierson leading his 6th Illinois Cavalry Date April 17, 1863 (1863-04-17) – May 2, 1863 (1863-05-02) Location Start: La Grange, Tennessee End: Baton Rouge, Louisiana Result Union victory Belligerents United States (Union) CSA (Confederacy) Commanders and leaders Benjamin H. Grierson W. Wirt Adams Robert V. Richardson and others Strength 3 regiments Unknown

v t e Vicksburg campaign Sinking of USS Cairo Holly Springs Raid Chickasaw Bayou Arkansas Post Yazoo Pass Steele's Bayou expedition Steele's Greenville expedition Grierson's Raid (Battle of Newton's Station) Grand Gulf Snyder's Bluff Port Gibson Raymond Jackson Champion Hill Big Black River Bridge Milliken's Bend Lake Providence Richmond Goodrich's Landing Helena Vicksburg Jackson expedition

**Grierson's Raid** was a [Union](/source/Union_Army) cavalry raid during the [Vicksburg Campaign](/source/Vicksburg_Campaign) of the [American Civil War](/source/American_Civil_War). It ran from April 17 to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from [Maj. Gen.](/source/Major_General#United_States) [Ulysses S. Grant](/source/Ulysses_S._Grant)'s main attack plan on [Vicksburg, Mississippi](/source/Vicksburg%2C_Mississippi).[1][2]

## Background

Early in 1863, [Major General Charles Hamilton](/source/Charles_Smith_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.[3]

In the [Western Theater of the American Civil War](/source/Western_Theater_of_the_American_Civil_War), Confederate cavalry raids under commanders such as [Lt. Gen.](/source/Lieutenant_General_(CSA)) [Nathan Bedford Forrest](/source/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest) and [Brig. Gen.](/source/Brigadier_General_(CSA)) [John Hunt Morgan](/source/John_Hunt_Morgan) had harassed Union expeditions, namely at the [Battle of Parker's Crossroads](/source/Battle_of_Parker's_Crossroads), where Forrest captured three hundred Union soldiers under [Brig. Gen.](/source/Brigadier_General#United_States) [Jeremiah C. Sullivan](/source/Jeremiah_C._Sullivan), but lost all of the artillery pieces belonging to his own command.[4] The task of drawing the attention of Confederate raiders away from the [Siege of Vicksburg](/source/Siege_of_Vicksburg) fell to [Col.](/source/Colonel_(United_States)) [Benjamin Grierson](/source/Benjamin_Grierson), a former music teacher who disliked horses after being kicked in the head by one as a child. Grierson's cavalry [brigade](/source/Brigade) consisted of the [6th](/source/6th_Illinois_Cavalry_Regiment) and [7th Illinois](/source/7th_Illinois_Cavalry_Regiment) and [2nd Iowa Cavalry](/source/2nd_Iowa_Cavalry) regiments.

## The Raid

Grierson's Raid.
  Union

Grierson and his 1,700 horse troopers, some in Confederate uniforms serving as scouts for the main force, rode over 600 miles (970 km) through hostile territory (from southern [Tennessee](/source/Tennessee), through the State of [Mississippi](/source/Mississippi) and into Union-held [Baton Rouge, Louisiana](/source/Baton_Rouge%2C_Louisiana)), over routes no Union soldier had traveled before. They tore up railroads and burned crossties, freed [slaves](/source/Slavery), 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[5]), and captured 1,000 horses and mules.[6]

[Confederate States Army](/source/Confederate_States_Army) [Lt. Gen.](/source/Lieutenant_General_(United_States)) [John C. Pemberton](/source/John_C._Pemberton) (1814-1881), commander of the [Vicksburg](/source/Vicksburg%2C_Mississippi) garrison on the east bank of the [Mississippi River](/source/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.

Grierson's raiders.

Around the same period, on April 21, 1863, Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. [Nathan Bedford Forrest](/source/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest) (1821-1877), had however pursued and captured another Union Army cavalry raider, Col. [Abel Streight](/source/Abel_Streight) (1828-1892), further east in [Alabama](/source/Alabama) following a different poorly supplied and poorly planned raid ([Streight's Raid](/source/Streight's_Raid)) by the generally more powerful and well-supplied [Union Army](/source/Union_Army).

Although many other divergent Confederate Army cavalry units pursued Col. Grierson vigorously across the state (most notably [Wirt Adams' Cavalry Regiment](/source/Wirt_Adams'_Cavalry_Regiment) and [Robert V. Richardson](/source/Robert_V._Richardson)'s Tennessee Cavalry), they were unsuccessful in stopping the raid driving southward.[1] Grierson and his troopers, exhausted by days in the saddle, ultimately rode into Union-occupied [Baton Rouge, Louisiana](/source/Baton_Rouge%2C_Louisiana), the capital of the state in early May.[7] 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](/source/William_T._Sherman)'s (1820-1891) feint to the northeast of Vicksburg (in the [Battle of Snyder's Bluff](/source/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](/source/Bruinsburg%2C_Mississippi).

## In popular culture

The 1956 [historical novel](/source/Historical_fiction) *The Horse Soldiers* by [Harold Sinclair](/source/Harold_Sinclair_(novelist)), and the 1959 [film of the same name](/source/The_Horse_Soldiers) loosely based on it – directed by [John Ford](/source/John_Ford), and starring [John Wayne](/source/John_Wayne), [William Holden](/source/William_Holden) and [Constance Towers](/source/Constance_Towers) – are somewhat fictionalized versions of Grierson's Raid and the [Battle of Newton's Station](/source/Battle_of_Newton's_Station).

## See also

- [Battle of Newton's Station](/source/Battle_of_Newton's_Station)

- [Clan Grierson](/source/Clan_Grierson)

## References

**Notes**

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-brown_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-brown_1-1) [Dee Brown](/source/Dee_Brown_(writer)) (1954). *Grierson's Raid: A Cavalry Adventure of the Civil War* (reprint ed.). University of Illinois Press. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-89029-061-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-89029-061-3). {{[cite book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book)}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility ([help](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#invalid_isbn_date))

1. **[^](#cite_ref-harpers_2-0)** ["Civil War Harper's Weekly"](http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/june/grierson-raid.htm). June 6, 1863. Retrieved October 7, 2007.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-PUSG_3-0)** John Y. Simon, ed. (1967). *Papers of Ulysses S Grant Volume 7*. SIU Press. p. 318. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-8093-0880-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8093-0880-4).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Martin, David G. (1990). *The Vicksburg Campaign: April, 1862 – July, 1863*. New York: Gallery Books. p. 76. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-8317-9127-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-8317-9127-6).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** ["What is a "stand" of arms? | Small Arms & Ammunition"](https://civilwartalk.com/threads/what-is-a-stand-of-arms.84395/). 20 May 2013.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** ["Grierson's Raid"](http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_griersons_raid.html).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** D. Alexander Brown (1981). *Grierson's Raid: A Cavalry Adventure of the Civil War*. Dayton, Ohio: Morningside Bookshop. pp. 216–19. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0317527533](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0317527533).

**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](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-374-32787-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-374-32787-4).

- Lardas, Mark (2010). *Roughshod Through Dixie – Grierson’s Raid 1863*, Osprey Raid Series #12; Osprey Publishing. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-84603-993-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-84603-993-5)

v t e Mississippi in the American Civil War Combatants Confederacy State Troops Union Campaigns Vicksburg Yazoo Pass Bayou Greenville Grierson's Raid Jackson Meridian Yazoo City Tupelo Battles 1862 First Corinth Booneville Iuka Second Corinth Chickasaw Bayou 1863 Newton's Station Grand Gulf Snyder's Bluff Port Gibson Raymond Jackson Champion Hill Big Black River Bridge Vicksburg 1864 Aberdeen Okolona Yazoo City Brice's Cross Roads Oxford Seminary Senatobia Tupelo Egypt Station Aftermath Reconstruction Fourth Military District Meridian race riot of 1871 Mississippi Plan Vicksburg massacre Monuments and memorials List Beauvoir Estate Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Category Commons

Authority control databases National United States Israel Other Yale LUX

[32°52′0″N 88°49′13″W / 32.86667°N 88.82028°W / 32.86667; -88.82028](https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?pagename=Grierson%27s_Raid&params=32_52_0_N_88_49_13_W_type:event_region:US-MS_scale:3000000)

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