Japhy
Banned
On May 18th, 1862, one year to the day before Grant would place the city under Siege, the first Union Force arrived at the Confederate city on the Mississippi river. One Brigade of troops under Brigadier General Thomas Williams, with a group of Ships from New Orleans under Commodore Samuel Phillips Lee arrived at the city, guarded by Confederate General Martin Luther Smith. An attempt was made to bombard the city into submission but it failed, and General Williams chose not to attack in the face of the powerful Confederate Artillery covering the city, thus ended the drive from the Sea that had led to the captures of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The Confederate Garrison would be built up further and a long campaign would be needed to take it.
But where did those cannons on the Bluffs come from? New Orleans. After the Union navy broke past the river Forts, the garrison was abandoned, and the majority of its weapons were shunted up to Vicksburg, where they would withstand Lee and Williams three weeks later. The interesting thing is that they almost didn't. In Richmond and in the West, talk was underway suggesting that Artillery and Infantry should be sent to Mobile, both to protect the port and to be there when the Army of Tennessee escaped Corinth and made their wide loop for Chattanooga. Had that happened, the Port would be better defended, and the AoT would have been better armed, but General Smith would not have been in Vicksburg, and the City's Military Governor, Colonel James L. Autrey would have lacked the heavy guns that saved the city, or the troops to threaten the Union Brigade on scene with. The City could have fallen right then.
And at this point the Mississippi was just a short time from being open, the CSS Arkansas is incomplete and broken down on a Yazoo River Sandbar, A Squadron of Cottonclads and the evacuating Garrison of Fort Pillow are all that stands between the Union River Navy and Memphis, and the Army of Tennessee is bogged down at Corinth, preparing to make an escape from that city. With all three Western Union Armies in At Corinth under Halleck, (With Grant sitting behind a desk) what happens now?
But where did those cannons on the Bluffs come from? New Orleans. After the Union navy broke past the river Forts, the garrison was abandoned, and the majority of its weapons were shunted up to Vicksburg, where they would withstand Lee and Williams three weeks later. The interesting thing is that they almost didn't. In Richmond and in the West, talk was underway suggesting that Artillery and Infantry should be sent to Mobile, both to protect the port and to be there when the Army of Tennessee escaped Corinth and made their wide loop for Chattanooga. Had that happened, the Port would be better defended, and the AoT would have been better armed, but General Smith would not have been in Vicksburg, and the City's Military Governor, Colonel James L. Autrey would have lacked the heavy guns that saved the city, or the troops to threaten the Union Brigade on scene with. The City could have fallen right then.
And at this point the Mississippi was just a short time from being open, the CSS Arkansas is incomplete and broken down on a Yazoo River Sandbar, A Squadron of Cottonclads and the evacuating Garrison of Fort Pillow are all that stands between the Union River Navy and Memphis, and the Army of Tennessee is bogged down at Corinth, preparing to make an escape from that city. With all three Western Union Armies in At Corinth under Halleck, (With Grant sitting behind a desk) what happens now?
