In late March, Grant had already dispatched troops under McClernand to New Carthage, south of Vicksburg, having previously explored the possibility of operating from here. McClernand took New Carthage on April 6 but did not move as quickly against Grand Gulf as Grant wanted. Moreover, Grant had planned to operate against Port Hudson, Louisiana, in conjunction with Banks, using Grand Gulf as a jumping-off point. Port Hudson was the other significant Confederate Mississippi River bastion. It was just north of Baton Rouge, about 140 miles due south of Vicksburg. After Port Hudson fell, the intention was to have Banks garrison it, then march the rest of his men north and join Grant in moving against Vicksburg.

Grant could do none of this without support from the navy, aid that Admiral Porter eagerly supplied. Porter’s vessels ran the guns of Vicksburg on the night of the sixteenth, losing a transport to enemy fi re. Grant joined McClernand at New Carthage on the seventeenth, discovering for himself the hindering effects of bad roads and the flooding caused by broken levees. Reassessing the situation, he decided that it was now impossible to move against Port Hudson. He returned to his base at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, a few miles northwest of Vicksburg, and once there issued Special Orders No. 110, announcing his intention “to obtain a foothold on the east bank of the Mississippi River, from which Vicksburg can be approached by practicable roads.” This was a turning point.

First, however, the Union had to discover a suitable landing place. Unable to find the right spot above Grand Gulf, they chose Hard Times Plantation on the Mississippi’s west bank, nearly across the river from Grand Gulf. Union troops arrived there on the twenty-seventh.

This was only part of Grant’s plan. He kept Sherman’s troops up the Yazoo River on the northeast of Vicksburg, on the eastern bank, with orders to take the city if Pemberton’s position weakened sufficiently. To keep Pemberton guessing about what the Union was doing, Grant sent cavalry under Colonel Benjamin Grierson on a raid into the heart of Mississippi. Additionally, he had Sherman feint a sudden lunge at the Confederate fortifications at Haines’s Bluff, about 15 miles northeast of Vicksburg, to pin Pemberton’s troops in and around the city until Grant could secure a beachhead on the eastern shore.

Grant’s communications regarding Sherman’s movements reveal his understanding of what effects the Northern press was having on public opinion and the army. He told Sherman that he did not want to order a “heavy demonstration” because that was all it would be, rather than a genuine invasion, and the “people at home would characterize it as a repulse.” He therefore advised Sherman to publicize his order before he set off, making it clear that his was a reconnaissance mission and not an attack on Vicksburg.

Sherman, who once threatened to hang all the reporters in his camp, showed his usual eagerness to get on with the job at hand. “We will make as strong a demonstration as possible,” he replied to Grant. “The troops will all understand the purpose, and will not be hurt by the repulse.” As for the people, he maintained that they “must find out the truth as they best can; it is none of their business.” To Sherman, if a feint was what was necessary to help Grant take Vicksburg, that was reason enough; there was no need to justify it before public opinion.

Grant planned to have Porter bombard the Grand Gulf guns and then storm the town. But the gunboats’ April 29 attack against the Confederate position failed, forcing Grant to abandon this idea. He wasted no time in finding another. He decided to cross his army below Grand Gulf, move inland, then head north, “cutting off Grand Gulf and taking it from its unprotected rear.” On April 30, Grant’s troops landed at Bruinsburg, 10 miles south of Grand Gulf and on the eastern side of the Mississippi. Grant saw this as a critical moment. “When this was effected I felt a degree of relief scarcely ever equalled since. . . . I was now in the enemy’s country, with a vast river and the stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base of supplies. But I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy. All the campaigns, labors, hardships and exposures from the month of December previous to this time that had been made and endured, were for the accomplishment of this one object.”