The tug that takes
this is instructed to wait for you. A full supply of axes will be
required.
Very respectfully,
U. S. GRANT, Major-General.
This letter was instantly (8 a.m.) sent to Colonel Giles A. Smith,
commanding the Eighth Missouri, with orders to prepare immediately.
He returned it at 9.15, with an answer that the regiment was all
ready. I went up to Milliken's Bend in the tug, and had a
conference with the general, resulting in these orders:
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE
BEFORE VICKSBURG, March 16, 1863
Major-General W. T. SHERMAN, commanding Fifteenth Army Corps.
GENERAL: You will proceed as early as practicable up Steele's
Bayou, and through Black Bayou to Deer Creek, and thence with the
gunboats now there by any route they may take to get into the Yazoo
River, for the purpose of determining the feasibility of getting an
army through that route to the east bank of that river, and at a
point from which they can act advantageously against Vicksburg.
Make such details from your army corps as may be required to clear
out the channel of the various bayous through which transports
would have to ran, and to hold such points as in your judgment
should be occupied.
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