Living in the Deep South:

The forgotten battle of Champion Hill

Part of the campaign for Vicksburg, battlefield now a shroud of its former self

Chad Chisolm

DM Staff writer

"'There they lay,' he said of the dead and wounded all around him, 'the blue and the gray intermingled; the same rich, young American blood flowing out in little rivulets of crimson; each thinking he was in the right.'" Shelby Foote , author of "The Civil War," records a Union soldier's response to the devastation at Champion Hill.

The fields today are mostly covered with pine trees. Many of them are not very old at all, maybe 10 to 15 years. The only other things that have come to stay over the past 136 years are a small trailer park and a few scattered houses. Most of the hill was torn up to make gravel for the local roads in the 1930s and has almost disappeared.

There is no park in which children can play or families picnic. There are no statues for the heroes of the North and South.

The only evidence of the "young American blood" that was spilt over the field is the one monument dedicated to the battlefield. It sits beside the road.

"It's just a crime," said Ben Fatherree, history professor at Hinds Community College. He works just a few miles away from all of the battles of the Vicksburg campaign, including Champion Hill, and drives along the highway on which Major Gen. John McClernand marched and camped. "On the whole, we have done a great job of preserving, with the exception of Champion Hill."

Champion Hill is right between Jackson and Vicksburg, 17 miles from the heart of Jackson, and it is the same distance to the heart of Vicksburg. The field itself is east of Edwards, across from Baker's Creek.

"I think that the people who live there have almost no idea of what happened," Fatherree said. "I have students in my American History classes who drive through the battlefield on their way to school and have no idea until I tell them."

For the battle, Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton had 20,000 men marching from Vicksburg, and Major Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was marching towards Vicksburg with about 29,000 troops. With hardly any warning, the two armies stumbled into each other.

Pemberton's army was outnumbered, but as James Cooke, author and Ole Miss history professor, said: "This is not really a bad ratio, had it not been for just poor generalship. There were opportunities here [for the Confederates], primarily for this reason: Gen. Grant had ordered Gen. McClernand, a political general ­ he's not from Westpoint ­ to vigorously assault the Confederate lines."

But, McClernand's attacks were weak. Another federal corps under Major Gen. John McPherson broke through Confederate lines in the North.

Although, as Cooke points out, the possession of the hill changed eight to 10 times, the final result was a federal victory.

"The problem comes," says Cooke, "with very confusing Confederate orders. General Pemberton is not a good field commander ... it's just not what he was trained to do. He's a very brilliant engineer; he's devoted to the Confederate cause ... he's a good man. His heart is in the right place, but his training and capabilities do not measure up to somebody like Grant."

Because of Pemberton's confusing orders, one of the Confederate division commanders, W.W. Loring, was so confused that he ended up south in Crystal Springs instead of Champion Hill.

James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Battle Cry of Freedom," called Champion Hill "the key battle of the [Vicksburg] campaign."

"Some historians have said," Cooke emphasized, "that the Battle of Champion Hill was one of the most critical battles of the war because it does result in a Confederate defeat, and it opens the way for Grant to move on to Vicksburg rather quickly and began the operation that will eventually result in Vicksburg being taken, and the Mississippi River is then open to the federals and splits the Confederacy in two."

The casualties at Champion Hill were the highest of the campaign, to that point. The federal casualties were 2,441 men, and

The morale of Grant's army after the battle was extremely high. Foote recorded a soldier's letter home that said: "Vicksburg must fall now ... I think a week may find us in possession."

"I think it was decisive," Cooke said, "and what it does do is to allow Grant ­ the next day, the 17th ­ to smash through Confederate defenses on the Big Black."

After a defeat on the east bank of the Big Black River, the Confederates fell back into the fortifications of Vicksburg, where the river trapped them on the west side and Grant's army on the east side, sealing the fate of the Vicksburg campaign and ensuring "Sam" Grant's rising military and political future.

"It's [Champion Hill] never gotten the attention it deserves. It's the absolute worst example of historical preservation as far as I'm concerned," Fatherree said.

There are a number of reasons that the Champion Hill battlefield has never received attention.

"One reason," Fatherree said, "is that a lot of the old Confederate states weren't interested in preserving fields they lost on."

According to Fatherree, many of the old federal troops started to preserve some of the battlefields that they had fought on in the South, like Vicksburg, but "for some reason the Union veterans didn't push for restoration of Champion Hill and the Confederate veterans didn't want it."

The reason, according to Cooke, that Northern veterans may not have focused on Champion Hill may have been because "it [the Vicksburg campaign] is so spread out, that I think that they focused on Vicksburg itself to lay out the federal park."

One thing that makes Champion Hill the forgotten and not the vanished battle is the fact that the area has not been developed, yet.

"In this case, it's not too late to save history," Fatherree reminds us.

"I think that preservation is critical," Cooke said. "As you urbanize and you expand, if you're not careful, you're going to gobble up these areas. I think where there is significance, like Champion Hill, if you don't [preserve them], then you lose them."

Both he and Fatherree hope that a renewed interest in the Civil War may spark more restorations.

"Interest in the Civil War is at an all-time high," Fatherree continued. "There are more books of this era that are being published today than any historical event. I can't tell you a war that each side had such a combination of hatred and respect for each other."

Preservation may not be that far down the road.

"A lot of the land has been bought back by the state archives," Fatherree said. "It has the potential to be a major tourist sight. However, it's going to take a lot of money, a lot of commitment and a lot of years, but it's still possible."

Champion Hill helped to change the course, not just of Mississippi, but of our nation's future. However, all that marks the land are the young pine trees and one old, gray monument.

One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that Clinton ­ just to the east of the battlefield ­ is one of the fastest growing cities in Mississippi. One day preservation may be impossible, just like Atlanta, Jackson and Tupelo.