American Civil War, Western Theater, Vicksburg Campaign. The Battle of Raymond occurred on May 12, 1863, during Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to take the strategically vital city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, located high on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River.
On April 29, 1863, Major General Grant started successfully crossing his Union army from the west to the east bank of the Mississippi River, south of Vicksburg, arriving first at Bruinsburg, Mississippi.
Grant adroitly and with rolling momentum maneuvered his various corps along roads northeastward into Mississippi’s interior a few miles, as he had planned to do, clearing Confederate forces out of the way as he went, his strategy being to then come at Vicksburg from the east.
Confederate forces under the command of Brigadier General John Gregg advanced to Raymond, Mississippi, some 15 miles east-southeast of Vicksburg, to resist elements of Grant’s advance. Gregg’s men made contact with elements of the XVII Corps under the command of Major General James B. McPherson.
Grant summarized the ensuing May 12 battle in his Personal Memoirs:
McPherson encountered the enemy, five thousand strong with two batteries under General Gregg, about two miles out of Raymond. This was about two P.M. [Major General John A.] Logan was in advance with one of his brigades. He deployed and moved up to engage the enemy. McPherson ordered the road in rear to be cleared of wagons, and the balance of Logan’s division, and [Brigadier General Marcellus M.] Crocker’s, which was still farther in rear, to come forward with all dispatch. The order was obeyed with alacrity. Logan got his division in position for assault before Crocker could get up, and attacked with vigor, carrying the enemy’s position easily, sending Gregg flying from the field not to appear against our front again until we met at Jackson.
In this battle McPherson lost 66 killed, 339 wounded, and 37 missing—nearly or quite all from Logan’s division. The enemy’s loss was 100 killed, 305 wounded, besides 415 taken prisoners.
I regarded Logan and Crocker as being as competent division commanders as could be found in or out of the army and both equal to a much higher command.
….
When the news reached me of McPherson’s victory at Raymond about sundown my position was with [Major General William Tecumseh] Sherman. I decided at once to turn the whole column towards Jackson[, Mississippi, the state’s capital,] and capture that place without delay.
Source: Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1885), 1:497–500, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010484130&view=1up&seq=9&skin=2021.
Image: The battle of Raymond / sketched by Mr. Theodore R. Davis, wood engraving, Harper’s Weekly, v. 7, no. 337 (June 13, 1863), 372, Library of Congress, https://lccn.loc.gov/2008680155.
