The First Assault on Vicksburg

With his men arrayed in ravines and gullies facing the fortifications, Grant ordered an assault at 2 p.m. on May 19. Gen. William T. Sherman's division was aimed at Stockade Redan, a rampart on Cemetery Road. Among his troops was Davies, who lay with his brigade in a ravine, exposed to the hot sun all the afternoon the perspiration oozing out at every pore. The brigade was several hundred yards behind the action, held in reserve for the moment when the troops in front would breach the redan, and those lying in comparative safety would leap to the support of the attackers. Davies described the battle:

Many were killed and wounded in the Brigade in crossing a ridge to the position and some owing to their eagerness to look over the hill on the columns struggling through the brush and falling timber and their withered branches toward the work … many of the Regt. succeeded in planting their Collors on the outer slope of the ramparts. Intervening ground which they have to traverse was broken and steep. All the timber had been cut down by the Rebels. These trees laying in every direction with their branches intermingling and a thick underbrush made it impossible for the troops to keep in line while the enemy poured grape and canister in showers on them.

Meanwhile, along the line to the south, the generals James B. McPherson and John A. McClernand were having the same problems with their respective targets. From within the redoubt on Jackson Road, immediately south of the Stockade Redan, Anderson admired the courage of McPherson's men as they scrambled up to the fortification at point-blank range, many of them dropping right in front of him. What was expected to be a relatively easy victory was turning into a rout. The Federals sent waves of troops up to the guns, but none of them got over the parapets, and as a result, Davies was permitted to remain sweating on the ground instead of getting shot.

Both armies spent the next two days reinforcing their positions, the Federals establishing their artillery while the Confederates enhanced the fortifications, all the while trading gunshots. Davies noted:

A portion of the Regt was engaged in firing from behind logs… I saw men picked off by the Rebel sharpshooters many of them.