On September 6,2023, Jim Woodrick presented “Raiding on the M&O Railroad: Grierson’s Winter Expedition, 1864-65" as part of the History Is Lunch series.
In the spring of 1863, Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson led a cavalry expedition in Mississippi that disrupted Confederate communications and distracted Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton from his task of defending Vicksburg against U.S. Grant's approaching army. “That action has been the subject of numerous books and articles and is perhaps the best-known cavalry raid of the Civil War,” said Woodrick, author of The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi. “But it was not the only raid led by Benjamin Grierson in the state.”
That second cavalry expedition launched in the winter of 1864-65. Its success in destroying Confederate rail facilities and manufacturing led a contemporary to describe it as “second in importance to none during the war.” While the Union raiders faced remnants of the Confederate army at this late stage of the war, there was sharp fighting at Egypt Station in Chickasaw County and Franklin Church in Holmes County.
“The makeup of the forces engaged in these battles was unusual,” said Woodrick. “Some soldiers on the Confederate side were former Union prisoners of war who had been released on the condition they fight against their former comrades, while Grierson's command included a superb regiment of United States Colored Troops that was heavily engaged at Franklin Church.”
Meridian native Jim Woodrick retired in 2021 as deputy state historic preservation officer and director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Historic Preservation Division. He is a licensed battlefield guide and volunteer at Vicksburg National Military Park and a member of the Historians of the Western Theater. Woodrick is a member the Mississippi National Register Review Board and serves on the Architectural Review Board for the City of Ridgeland, where is working with the Ridgeland Historical Society to establish a history trail. Woodrick earned his BA in political science from Millsaps College.
History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson and livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook.
