MENU SELECTION:  DixieBoys WW1 Aviation The Italian Campaign WW2 Books GI Biographies Websites

Dated:  February17, 2017

Loring's Division at Fort Pemberton
(Vicksburg Campaign)
March 12-19, 1863

See A Brief History of Fort Pemberton, below.

     Major General William Loring

          1st Brigade: Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman
              54th Alabama Infantry- Colonel A. Baker
              8th Kentucky Infantry- Colonel H.B. Lyon
              20th Mississippi Infantry- Colonel D.R. Russell
              23rd Mississippi Infantry- Colonel J.M. Wells
              26th Mississippi Infantry- Colonel A.E. Reynolds
              Company C, 14th Mississippi Artillery Battalion- Captain J. Culbertson

          2nd Brigade: Brigadier General Winfield S. Featherston
              3nd Mississippi Infantry- Colonel T.A. Mellon
              22nd Mississippi Infantry- Lieutenant Colonel H.J. Reid
              31st Mississippi Infantry- Colonel J.A. Orr
              33rd Mississippi Infantry- Colonel D.W. Hurst
              1st Mississippi Sharpshooter Battalion- Major W.A. Rayburn
              Company C 1st Mississippi Light Artillery- Captain L.A. Collier

          3rd Brigade: Brigadier General John C. Moore
              37th Alabama Infantry- Colonel J.F. Dowdell
              42nd Alabama Infantry- Colonel J.W. Portis
              35th Mississippi Infantry- Colonel W.S. Barry
              40th Mississippi Infantry- Colonel W.B. Colbert
              2nd Texas Infantry- Colonel Ashbel Smith
              Bledsoe's Missouri Battery- Captain H.M. Bledsoe

          Miscellaneous Units
              37th Mississippi Infantry- Colonel O.S. Holland
              7th Tennessee Cavalry- Colonel J.G. Stocks
              Waul's Texas Legion- Colonel T.N. Waul
              Company B, Pointe Coupee Artillery- Captain W.A. Davidson
              Company A, Pointe Coupee Artillery- Lieutenant J.J. Thompson
              Tobin's Tennessee Artillery- Captain T.F. Tobin
              Detachment of the 21st Louisiana
              Company A, 22nd Louisiana Infantry- Lieutenant J.E. Lambert
              Naval Detachment- Lieutenant F.E. Shepperd
              2nd Missouri Cavalry- Colonel R. McCulloch
              2nd Arkansas Cavalry- Colonel W.F. Slemons
              Blythe's Battalion, Mississippi State Troops- Major G.L. Blythe
 

 Notes:  
      The following cavalry regiments that fought at Fort Pemberton were also with General Forrest at the Battle of Fort Pillow: Willis Texas Cavalry and 2nd Missouri Cavalry.  Waul's Texas Legion included four companies of cavalry.  Sometime after the Battle of Fort Pemberton, the cavalry was split away and named Willis Texas Cavalry Regiment.
   (See Confederate Casualties of Fort Pillow.)
     
Source:  "The Vicksburg Campaign" by Edwin Bearss


General Loring
  General William W. Loring
         
        "Old Blizzards"



   When the war began, William Loring was the youngest Colonel in the US Army.   A veteran of the Seminole War and the Mexican War, he lost his arm at the battle of Mexico City.
   
At the Battle of Fort Pemberton, General Loring commanded the 5,000 Confederate infantry and artillery.  During the battle, he was heard urging his trops with:
   
  "Give them  Blizzards!"
     
"Give them  Blizzards!"

  This earned him the nickname "Old Blizzards".  

  He was wounded at the Battle of Ezra Church on July 28, 1864.  He returned to the Hood's Army to fight in the Battles of Franklin and Nashville.
   After the war,  Loring served for nine years in the Egyptian army.



A Brief History of Fort Pemberton

Location:  Greenwood, MS, at junction of U.S Hiways 82 and 49E.

   In the 1863 Vicksburg Campaign, General Grant tried several attacks on the city on the bluff.  One plan was to send troops on transports down the Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers into the back door instead of down the heavily defended Mississippi River.  He cut the Mississippi River levee in February which flooded the several bayous between the Mississippi and Tallahatchie Rivers, making a navigable connection. Twenty-two transports (with 5000 troops), two ironclads, two rams and six light draft gunboats made up the first expedition, which was later reinforced with another brigade and additional vessels. It took several weeks to make the 200-mile trip as the bayous were narrow and tortuous.  The flooded rivers allowed the gunboats to clear the river bottoms but it also caused many to loose their smokestacks and upper structure when they contacted the low-hanging trees.
   Appraised of the Federal plans the Confederate General John C. Pemberton ordered a fort to be constructed to block the enemy forces. The engineers selected a location where the Tallahatchie makes an abrupt easterly turn and, after joining with the Yazoo River, it loops back within a few hundred yards of the Tallahatchie. This allowed room for only two gunboats at a time to approach the Confederates works and attack with only their forward guns.  The fort was hastily built of cotton bales covered with earth, and named Fort  Pemberton. It had but a few light guns, and a very accurate 8-inch rifle. The fort was manned by 1500 men  under command of Brig. Gen. W.W. Loring.   The flooded the area limited any infantry movement by land.  To further impede the enemy's advance down the Yazoo River, the steamship "Star of the West" was loaded with cotton bales and sunk in the channel. This "Star of the West" was one of the Federal mechant ships captured at Galveston, Texas.  The Federal Flotilla arrived at Fort Pemberton on March 11th, and the two ironclads attacked at 1000 yards, but both were damaged after several attempts to reduce the fort. The Confederate gunners placed one well-aimed shot through the forward gun port of the first ironclad.  The Federal fleet retired to the Mississippi. Grant's attempt to reach Vicksburg by the Tallahatachie-Yazoo route had failed.


Return to  DixieBoys  Main Menu.