We at once steamed to Admiral Porter's flagship, which was lying just above Grand Gulf, and Grant sent for McClernand, ordering him to embark his men without losing a moment. In spite of this order, that night at dark, when a thunderstorm set in, not a single cannon or man had been moved. Instead, McClernand held a review of a brigade of Illinois troops at Perkins's about four o'clock in the afternoon. At the same time a salute of artillery was fired, notwithstanding the positive orders that had repeatedly been given to use no ammunition for any purpose except against the enemy.
When we got back from the river to headquarters, on the night of the 26th, we found that McPherson had arrived at Smith's plantation with the first division of his corps, the rear being not very far behind. His whole force would have been up the next day, but it was necessary to arrest its movements until McClernand could be got out of the way; this made McClernand's delay the more annoying. General Lorenzo Thomas, who was on the Mississippi at this time organizing negro troops, told me that he believed now that McPherson would actually have his men ready to embark before McClernand.
Early the next morning, April 27th, I went with Grant from Smith's plantation back to New Carthage. As soon as we arrived the general wrote a very severe letter to McClernand, but learning that at last the transport steamers and barges had been concentrated for use he did not send the rebuke. Grant spent the day there completing the preparations for embarking, and on the morning of the 28th about ten thousand men were on board. This force was not deemed sufficient for the attack on Grand Gulf, so the troops were brought down to Hard Times landing, on the Louisiana side, almost directly across the river from Grand Gulf, where a portion of them were debarked, and the transports sent back for Hovey's division, six thousand strong. We spent the night at Hard Times waiting for these troops, which arrived about daylight on the morning of the 29th.
There were now sixteen thousand men at Hard Times ready to be landed at the foot of the Grand Gulf bluff as soon as its batteries were silenced. At precisely eight o'clock the gunboats opened their attack. Seven, all ironclads, were engaged, and a cannonade was kept up for nearly six hours. We soon found that the enemy had five batteries, the first and most formidable of them being placed on the high promontory close to the mouth of the Big Black. The lower batteries, mounting smaller guns and having no more than two pieces each, were silenced early in the action, but this one obstinately resisted. For the last four hours of the engagement the whole seven gunboats were employed in firing at this one battery, now at long range, seeking to drop shells within the parapet, now at the very foot of the hill, within about two hundred yards, endeavoring to dismount its guns by direct fire. It was hit again and again, but its pieces were not disabled. At last, about half past one o'clock, Admiral Porter gave the signal to withdraw. The gunboats had been hit more or less severely. I was on board the Benton during the attack, and saw that her armor had been pierced repeatedly both in her sides and her pilot house, but she had not a gun disabled; and except for the holes through her mail, some of them in her hull, she was as ready to fight as at the beginning of the action.
The batteries having proved too much for the gunboats, General Grant determined to execute an alternative plan which he had had in mind from the first; that was, to debark the troops and march them south across the peninsula which faces Grand Gulf to a place out of reach of the Confederate guns. While the engagement between the gunboats and batteries had been going on, all the rest of McClernand's corps had reached Hard Times, having marched around by land, and three divisions of McPherson's corps had also come up. This entire body of about thirty-five thousand men was immediately started across the peninsula to De Shroon's plantation, where it was proposed to embark them again.
Late in the evening I left Hard Times with Grant to ride across the peninsula to De Shroon's. The night was pitch dark, and, as we rode side by side, Grant's horse suddenly gave a nasty stumble. I expected to see the general go over the animal's head, and I watched intently, not to see if he was hurt, but if he would show any anger. I had been with Grant daily now for three weeks, and I had never seen him ruffled or heard him swear. His equanimity was becoming a curious spectacle to me. When I saw his horse lunge my first thought was, "Now he will swear." For an instant his moral status was on trial; but Grant was a tenacious horseman, and instead of going over the animal's head, as I imagined he would, he kept his seat. Pulling up his horse, he rode on, and, to my utter amazement, without a word or sign of impatience. And it is a fact that though I was with Grant during the most trying campaigns of the war, I never heard him use an oath.
In order to get the transports past Grand Gulf, Porter's gunboats had engaged the batteries about dusk. This artillery duel lasted until about ten o'clock, the gunboats withdrawing as soon as the transports were safely past, and steaming at once to De Shroon's plantation, where General McClernand's corps was all ready to take the transports. The night was spent in embarking the men. By eleven o'clock the next morning, April 30th, three divisions were landed on the east shore of the Mississippi at the place General Grant had selected. This was Bruinsburg, sixty miles south of Vicksburg, and the first point south of Grand Gulf from which the highlands of the interior could be reached by a road over dry land.
I was obliged to separate from Grant on the 30th, for the means for transporting troops and officers were so limited that neither an extra man nor a particle of unnecessary baggage was allowed, and I did not get over until the morning of May 1st, after the army had moved on Port Gibson, where they first engaged the enemy. As soon as I was landed at Bruinsburg I started in the direction of the battle, on foot, of course, as no horses had been brought over. I had not gone far before I overtook a quartermaster driving toward Port Gibson; he took me into his wagon. About four miles from Port Gibson we came upon the first signs of the battle, a field where it was evident that there had been a struggle. I got out of the wagon as we approached, and started toward a little white house with green blinds, covered with vines. The little white house had been taken as a field hospital, and the first thing my eyes fell upon as I went into the yard was a heap of arms and legs which had been amputated and thrown into a pile outside. I had seen men shot and dead men plenty, but this pile of legs and arms gave me a vivid sense of war such as I had not before experienced.
As the army was pressing the Confederates toward Port Gibson all that day I followed in the rear, without overtaking General Grant. While trailing along after the Union forces I came across Fred Grant, then a lad of thirteen, who had been left asleep by his father on a steamer at Bruinsburg, but who had started out on foot like myself as soon as he awoke and found the army had marched. We tramped and foraged together until the next morning, when some officers who had captured two old horses gave us each one. We got the best bridles and saddles we could, and thus equipped made our way into Port Gibson, which the enemy had deserted and where General Grant now had his headquarters. I rode that old horse for four or five days, then by a chance I got a good one. A captured Confederate officer had been brought before General Grant for examination. Now this man had a very good horse, and after Grant had finished his questions the officer said:
"General, this horse and saddle are my private property; they do not belong to the Confederate army; they belong to me as a citizen, and I trust you will let me have them. Of course, while I am a prisoner I do not expect to be allowed to ride the horse, but I hope you will regard him as my property, and finally restore him to me."
"Well," said Grant, "I have got four or five first-rate horses wandering somewhere about the Southern Confederacy. They have been captured from me in battle or by spies. I will authorize you, whenever you find one of them, to take possession of him. I cheerfully give him to you; but as for this horse, I think he is just about the horse Mr. Dana needs."
I rode my new acquisition afterward through that whole campaign, and when I came away I turned him over to the quartermaster. Whenever I went out with General Grant anywhere he always had some question to ask about that horse.