On May 12th McPherson's leading division, under command of the gallant and irrepressible Logan, encountered the enemy in strong force under Gregg and Walker, recently arrived from Port Gibson and Georgia, posted on the north side of Fondreau's Creek, near Raymond, and after a brilliant combat of several hours, in which a part of Crocker's division became finally engaged, drove them from the field, with the loss of 120 killed and 750 wounded and prisoners. Our losses were 69 killed (from Colonel Richards's Twentieth Illinois Infantry and Major Kaga's Twentieth Ohio), 341 wounded, and 32 missing. The Confederate force was about 6000 strong, and fought well. McPherson and Logan behaved with great gallantry and displayed excellent generalship in this affair, while Stevenson, Dennis, Lieutenant-Colonel Sturgis of the Eighth Illinois, and all the officers and men showed the highest soldierly qualities.
This battle, in which a second detachment of the enemy had been routed, gave Grant great confidence in the following steps of the campaign. Instead of pushing McClernand and Sherman, who had both crossed Fourteen-mile Creek and got within seven miles of Edwards's Depot, directly upon the latter place, he determined to make sure of Jackson first, and to scatter the force now known to be assembling there under Johnston in person. To this end McPherson was pushed toward that place by the Clinton road; Sherman was ordered to move rapidly by the way of Raymond and Mississippi Springs, to the same place; while McClernand was directed to withdraw by his right flank from his menacing position in front of Edwards's Depot, and to march to Raymond, whence he could support either McPherson or Sherman. These movements were made with precision and celerity, and on the 14th Grant entered Jackson in triumph, after a sharp fight of several hours between McPherson's leading division under Crocker and a force under Johnston. The latter, finding that the city could not be held, had posted guns in front of Sherman and thrown this force out upon the Clinton road for the purpose of resisting McPherson's advance long enough to permit the evacuation of the city by the Canton road. Large quantities of military stores, including six or eight guns and an abundant supply of sugar, fell into Federal hands. Grant was one of the first to perceive the ruse which his wily antagonist had adopted, and at once galloped into the town, followed by the troops.
Charging Sherman with the demolition of the bridge across Pearl River, and the destruction of Confederate military property not needed by the army - not forgetting the railroads north, south, east, and west - Grant apprised McClernand that evening of his success, and directed him to move Carr, Osterhaus, and Hovey, the next morning, toward Bolton Station, and A. J. Smith toward Edwards's Depot. General Francis P. Blair, commanding a division of Sherman's troops, not yet arrived, and Ransom, with a brigade of McPherson's corps, were also directed to move upon the same point. Soon after arriving at Jackson, Grant learned that Johnston had sent, the night before, three different couriers with positive orders for Pemberton, requiring him to march out and fall upon the rear of the National army. Without giving McPherson an hour's rest, Grant directed him to countermarch his corps and push with all possible haste toward Bolton, for the purpose of uniting with McClernand's corps and anticipating the attack. Sherman was left to finish the work which he had so thoroughly begun, and then to follow the main body of the army by the Clinton road.
Grant in person left Jackson on the morning of the 15th, and encamped that night at Clinton. Before daylight on the 16th he was informed by two citizens just from Vicksburg that they had passed Pemberton's entire army, estimated at twenty-five or thirty thousand men, the evening before, at Baker's Creek, and still marching toward Bolton. Their information was so explicit and circumstantial that Grant despatched a staff officer at once to McPherson and McClernand with orders to prepare for a general battle, but not to bring on the action till all the troops were thoroughly in hand. A short time afterward he rode rapidly to the front himself, arriving on the field about ten o'clock. He found Hovey's division with artillery posted and drawn out in line of battle at Champion's plantation, on the Edwards Depot road, two miles east of Baker's Creek; McPherson's corps was in readiness to support Hovey; McClernand, with Carr and Osterhaus, occupied a position on the same line, on the middle road from Raymond to Edwards's Depot, but about a mile and a half to the left of Hovey; while Blair and A. J. Smith were still farther to the left, converging on the same point. Sherman at the same time was well on the way from Jackson.
“God is a skilful physician. He knows what is best. God observes the several tempers of men, and knows what will work most effectually. Some are of a more sweet disposition, and are drawn by mercy: others are more rugged and knotty pieces: these God deals with in a more forcible way. Some things are kept in sugar, some in brine. God doth not deal alike with all, he hath trials for the strong, and cordials for the weak.”
–Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial