Instead, they they were again under marching orders. They expected to move yesterday morning at 6 o'clock, but for some reason the forward movement did not begin until this morning. By 8 o'clock the entire column was in motion.
The expedition, commanded by General Sherman, started after Confederate General Joe Johnston who, during the siege, had been threatening Grant from the rear and on the line of the Big Black River.
Under a broiling hot July sun the Union soldiers took up the line of march and followed the Confederates to Jackson, Mississippi. The weather was excessively hot and many of the men fainted and fell out of the column. They were not in marching shape, as they had not done any marching for the past several weeks. Also, water was very scarce.
William Wiley, from the 77th Illinois Infantry, recalled the difficult conditions they faced:
We were marched at a very rapid pace as Gen Sherman was trying to steal a march on Gen Johnson before he learned of the fall of Vicksburg. As the day got very hot and the road terribly dusty and water was very scarce and the boys being rather soft on the march after lying in the trenches around Vicksburg so long.The first part of column reached the spot selected for the camp around the middle of the afternoon, and the rest of the column continued to come in until midnight. They would spend tomorrow, July 6th, resting in this camp.
