"Grant's crown of immortality was won, and the jewel that shone most brightly in it was set
there by the blood of the men of Champion Hills ...... Six thousand blue and gray-coated men were lying there in the woods, dead or wounded, when the last gun of Champion Hills was fired.

Major S. H. M. Byers, Fifth Iowa Infantry

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"Our part of the line seemed to monkey or maneuver all forenoon, and finally took position in an open cornfield, on a sloping, sandy hillside, where the burning rays of a Mississippi sun had a fair sweep at us."

The two armies camped on the night of May 15 in close proximity. The pickets were very active, and their firing was brisk all night, and as the dawn of the 16th approached, clear and hot, the clatter of the picket-line soon swelled into the road of the battle. We were now fighting a new foe, Pemberton instead of Johnston, with Johnston somewhere in our rear, likely at any moment to open upon us. It soon developed that that the heat of the battle was to the left of us, and in front of Gen. Hovey’s Division.

Our part of the line seemed to monkey or maneuver all forenoon, and finally took position in an open cornfield, on a sloping, sandy hillside, where the burning rays of a Mississippi sun had a fair sweep at us. Here we lay down and spread out, and were lulled to sleep by the sweet songs of rebel bullets as they hummed like honey bees through the air overhead, and occasionally fell in front of us, knocking sand in our eyes, interrupting our slumbers and disturbing our dreams of flowing brooks and gurgling springs of clear, cold water.

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A disagreeable rain set in which lasted all night. It added greatly to the fatigue and discomforts of the marching troops, but did not materially delay them. All were in position on the morning of the 16th, excepting McClernand. Some of his divisions were behind and otherwise out of place, although he marched on a shorter line than McPherson to the point of convergence. Thus he unwittingly added to the long list of shortcomings another black mark in Gen. Grant’s book of remembrance. I messed that night and next morning at Gen. Logan’s headquarters, slept under the friendly shelter of one of his tents, and was up early anticipating coming events. Grant and Staff spent the night at Clinton.

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Alvin P. Hovey Reminisces the
Vicksburg Campaign

by Rebecca Blackwell Drake

During the Vicksburg Campaign, General Alvin P. Hovey was commander of the 12th Division, XIII Corps, Army of the Tennessee. On May 16, 1863, his division bore the burnt of the Battle of Champion Hill. In 1885, when Hovey gave this interview with the Indianapolis Journal, he was 64 years old and a practicing lawyer in Mount Vernon, Indiana. The following year, he was elected to Congress and served from 1887 until 1889. In January of 1889, he reached the peak of his political career when he was elected to serve as the 21st governor of Indiana.

Following a five year stint as U. S. Minister to Peru (1865-1870), Alvin P. Hovey returned to the United States prepared to carve out another chapter in life, this time not as a general in the Union Army but as a lawyer, congressman and governor of Indiana.  During the winter of 1885, Hovey met with a reporter from the Indianapolis Journal and by way of conversation inquired, “Have you heard anything today about Grant’s condition?” Aware that Grant was suffering from throat cancer, the reporter replied, “No, I have not.” In a voice thick with emotion Hovey spoke nostalgically of his former commander-in-chief: “Well, the old hero is not afraid of death.  I touched Grant many times during the war. I thought then he was something of a fatalist. Now, at Vicksburg - but I mustn’t get started in on a war story.”

By Rebecca Drake and Margie Bearss

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