Battle of Champion Hill

Background

By mid-May 1863 Union forces had occupied Jackson, Mississippi, on 14 May. General Joseph E. Johnston, who commanded the Confederate forces in the department, retreated up the Canton Road with most of what he had and ordered Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, with about 23,000 men in three divisions, to leave Edwards Station and attack the Union troops at Clinton.

Pemberton and his generals thought this likely to end in disaster, and chose instead to strike the Union supply trains that were moving from Grand Gulf to Raymond. On 16 May he received a second message from Johnston repeating the original orders. Pemberton had already started after the trains and was on the Raymond–Edwards road, so he ordered a countermarch. His rear, including the supply wagons, became the vanguard of an army now turning to face the enemy, and that rear stood at a crossroads about a third of a mile south of the crest of Champion Hill.

Sidney Champion's house stood on the high ground between Bolton and Edwards, and the battle takes its name from the hill beside it. The two armies met there on the morning of 16 May.

The armies

Grant's Army of the Tennessee numbered about 32,000, in three corps under McClernand, McPherson and Sherman. Sherman's corps was well behind, having left Jackson that morning, so the fighting was done by McPherson's and McClernand's men, with Hovey's and Logan's divisions (McPherson) leading the attack. Marcellus Crocker's division arrived late in the day.

Pemberton had about 22,000 in the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana. His main commanders were Carter Stevenson, John Bowen and William Loring, with brigades under Stephen D. Lee and Lloyd Tilghman. Pemberton's army was in the middle of a countermarch when the Union troops came up, and he formed a defensive line about three miles long along a ridge overlooking Jackson Creek.

The quality of the two armies is not described in the sources I read. Grant's own judgement, in his memoirs, was that Pemberton had chosen his position well, 'whether taken by accident or design'.

The battle

Contact (about 7 a.m.) Union and Confederate vanguards skirmished at sunrise. Pemberton's force formed a roughly three-mile defensive line along a ridge overlooking Jackson Creek, with Stephen D. Lee's Alabama brigade holding Champion Hill itself. After Lee warned of a Union column advancing along the Jackson Road against his unprotected left, Pemberton shifted troops north to cover Champion Hill and the road. Grant later described the position as well chosen, one of the highest points in the area. Union artillery at the Champion house opened fire.

The attack (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) Grant reached Champion Hill about 10 a.m. and ordered the attack. McClernand attacked weakly on the left; McPherson attacked aggressively on the right. At 11:30 Hovey's and Logan's brigades reached the Confederate main line. About 1 p.m. the Union troops took the crest as Stevenson's division retired in disorder, and McPherson's corps captured the crossroads where the Middle and Jackson roads meet, closing the Jackson Road escape route.

Bowen's counter-attack (afternoon) Bowen's division counter-attacked in support of Stevenson and pushed the Union troops back beyond the crest, nearly to the Champion house. Bowen's men were too few to hold the ground, the surge halted, and Grant counter-attacked with Crocker's division and other troops that had just arrived from Clinton by way of Bolton, while McClernand's corps threatened the Confederate right. Meanwhile Pemberton had ordered Loring to bring troops from the southern line, where they were lightly engaged with McClernand, to reinforce the hill. Loring refused, citing a strong Union presence in front of him.

The withdrawal (late afternoon) Pemberton's line could not stand against the larger Union assaults, and he ordered a withdrawal across the one remaining escape route, the Raymond Road crossing of Baker's Creek. Loring later decided to obey, but marched towards the fighting by a circuitous route which kept his division out of action. Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman's brigade formed the rearguard and held the crossing at heavy cost; Tilghman was killed by artillery fire. Union troops seized the Baker's Creek bridge late in the afternoon and occupied Edwards by midnight. The Confederates fell back to the Big Black River in front of Vicksburg, while Loring's division, cut off, later joined Johnston north of Jackson. The next day's fight at the Big Black River Bridge was Pemberton's last chance to escape.

This is the single CDB90 engagement 'CHAMPION'S HILL' (10:30 to 16:00), which is shorter than the 7 a.m. to evening fight described here.

Aftermath

The Union lost 2,457 and the Confederates 3,840, most of the latter prisoners. Pemberton's army was also split: Loring's division, blocked from crossing the creek, marched away and joined Johnston, so it was not available for the defence of Vicksburg. The next day, 17 May, Grant's men fought Pemberton's rearguard at the Big Black River Bridge, which was described as Pemberton's last chance to escape. Pemberton then fell back into Vicksburg, and the siege began.

Historians argue about three points. Johnston's conflicting orders and Pemberton's decision to march out are presented as the root of the confusion. Loring's refusal to reinforce the hill and his separate march are the central command controversy on the Confederate side. On the Union side, Grant criticised McClernand for a lack of fighting spirit, because he had not killed or captured Pemberton's entire force.

The battlefield, about 4,000 acres, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and made a National Historic Landmark District in 1977. Residential development has encroached on parts of it. The American Battlefield Trust and its partners have protected more than 1,222 acres.

Wargaming it

Champion Hill suits a brigade-scale game on a large table, or a regimental game of any one of its three phases: the Union attack on the crest, Bowen's counter-attack, or the rearguard fight at the Baker's Creek crossing. The key terrain is the ridge and its crossroads, the Jackson Road along which the Union attack reached the Confederate left, and the single crossing of Baker's Creek on the Raymond Road.

The interesting rules are command and timing. Grant arrives about 10 a.m. and the Union player must decide how hard to press with McClernand on the left, where Grant later judged the attack too weak, and how fast to bring up Crocker's late-arriving division and Sherman's corps. The Confederate player has the opposite problem: the army has just countermarched, the left is open, and Loring on the southern line may or may not obey an order to reinforce. A simple way to model this is a die roll for Loring's division each turn, with a bonus if Pemberton's orders are clear.

The 'what ifs' are plain. If Loring had come up, Bowen's counter-attack might have held the hill, and Pemberton's army might have escaped across Baker's Creek as one force. If McClernand had pressed his attack, the Confederates might not have escaped at all, which is Grant's own complaint. Victory conditions could be built around the Raymond Road crossing: a Confederate player who gets most of the army across it has avoided disaster.

Maps and pictures