"The Mississippi corridor between Vicksburg and Port Hudson wasn't exactly a no-man's land, but every Federal ship that had ever ventured into its waters had failed to return. Both the Queen of the West and the Indianola, sent to cut off enemy supplies coming in from the Red River, had been attacked captured. More recently, Admiral David Farragut, commanding the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, had steamed north past Port Hudson and made it to Grant's troops opposite Vicksburg. He returned to the Red River, taking one of Admiral David Dixon Porter's ships with him for support.
So it was true that, so far, if a ship went south of Vicksburg, it would not (for whatever reason) return. In light of this, Porter was a little uneasy about Grant's proposed plan to move three transport vessels loaded with provisions past the Vicksburg batteries to John McClernand's troops, below at New Carthage.
Grant had requested to have two ironclad gunboats act as escort. Porter, on the other hand, thought it would take more, and attached eight, including his own flagship Benton. Helping him to make the decision was a message from Naval Secretary Gideon Welles, who wanted Porter south of Vicksburg so that Admiral Farragut could return to New Orleans and the rest of his squadron.
Porter had wanted to make the run on the 14th or 15th, but bad weather postponed it until this date. He desperately wanted to slip past the batteries without being noticed, but that was probably asking too much. The Confederates, however, unknowingly helped in this. The 16th was the date of a grand ball and, as darkness fell, many of the artillery officers left their commands for a night of beautiful women and dancing.
As the afternoon churned into evening, Admiral Porter ordered the boilers in his ships to get up steam. To the captains and pilots of the eight vessels, he instructed that they stick to the western, Louisiana bank so that the moon shadows of their ships would be camouflaged by the trees. But, if they were spotted by the Rebels, the entire fleet was to steer across the river and keep close to the Vicksburg side. This seemed almost counter-intuitive, but he believed that the Rebel guns atop the bluffs could not be depressed enough to hit them if they were directly below them.
The Confederate guns numbered thirty-seven, but, because of the ball, many were not commanded. Porter brought with him seventy-nine guns, all manned and ready to defend the fleet and the three supply transports. At 9:15pm, they began their descent from the mouth of the Yazoo…"
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Question from an ignorant: If the Rebels command both banks of the river and they know that the enemy would tried to pass near Vicksburg, why they not put a long line of heavy chains on little boats to made a defensive cord that could stop the advance of the enemy ships or at least give a strong alarm to the defenders.?
How about barrels with powder as mines in that part if the enemy tried to pass throught.
At that stage of war (not the first days of it when you made much more mistakes) who in command of that important garrison allow that 3/4 of his men went to a ball?.
On those days, didn't exist the hand grenades as in Napoleonic Era?. I mean to be used against the transport ships from the banks or little boats.
Many thanks in advance for your guidance.
Amicalement
Armand
