Dee Brown had been a minor novelist and historian until the publication of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee in 1970. Cashing in on the political popularity of that work, publishers reissued some of his earlier books – such as Grierson’s Raid, an account of the 1863 cavalry raid by the Sixth Illinois, Seventh Illinois, and Second Iowa cavalry regiments from La Grange, Tennessee through Mississippi to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The publishers of the paperback version I picked up weren’t taking any chances – the words “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” take up more space on the cover than the actual title.


Good thing I got it cheap from a used book store, as it is one of the worst physical quality paperbacks I have ever seen. Admittedly this was printed in the days before acid-free paper, but it seems like extra acid was added to this one, as the binding and individual pages disintegrated under my touch. However crumbly the presentation may be the writing is good, solid history. Brown was working at the University of Illinois Library while writing, and had access to Grierson’s papers, including the manuscript copy of the memoirs and the only remaining copy of a privately printed account of the raid.


Colonel Benjamin Grierson was an unlikely choice for a cavalry leader; civil war history leads us to expect more flamboyant characters like Stuart and Morgan and Forrest and Mosby and Custer. In a classic example of bureaucratic good luck, Grierson, a music teacher who was afraid of horses (after being kicked in the head as an eight year old) volunteered to be a bandleader in an infantry regiment and was promptly assigned to the cavalry. He turned out to be quite good at it, substituting a canny deceptiveness for the more dashing qualities of the Confederate leaders. Brown (originally from Arkansas) makes an interesting observation of the horse skills of Union and Confederate troops. The South had its “cavaliers”, who had been “raised in the saddle” and knew how to race and hunt; the North (particularly the Western states, which in those days meant what’s now the Midwest) had farm boys who knew how to take care of horses – a job for slaves in the South. Thus Grierson’s troopers were able to ride 600 miles through enemy territory at the cost of three killed, seven wounded (two of these later died), nine missing, and five left behind sick. Grierson’s secret weapon seems to have been his scouting force under the redoubtable Sergeant Surby, (and later Sergeant Nelson, after Surby was wounded), who were adept at posing as southerners and getting information from unsuspecting Confederate soldiers and civilians they encountered. Grierson also made numerous temporary detachments to split off from the main body, raise some havoc in a small Mississippi town, burn the depot, cut the telegraph lines, and disappear again, leading the locals to believe that they were the entire force.


It was especially enlightening to read this shortly after Southern Storm, as Grierson’s success presaged Sherman’s. The defending forces in Mississippi had the same problem facing Grierson that the Georgians later had facing Sherman; there were too many officers giving conflicting orders (Pemberton at Vicksburg, Gardner at Port Hudson, and miscellaneous local Confederate and State commanders) and not enough troops to do anything about Grierson. Eventually substantial forces did get on Grierson’s trail, but they never could get in front of him. The fact that Grierson was constantly cutting telegraph lines meant the only way information of his whereabouts could be passed was by courier, and by the time the couriers reached their destination Grierson was somewhere else.


Unlike some of the spectacular but militarily dubious stunts of the Confederate cavalry leaders, Grierson’s raid had a significant impact on the outcome of the war. While Grierson was wandering around Mississippi, Grant was bypassing Vicksburg and landing downstream – a fact Pemberton was initially unaware of , since his cavalry was all out chasing Grierson. Grierson also cut the New Orleans & Jackson Railroad and the Vicksburg Railroad, which were the land supply routes for Vicksburg. By the time Pemberton figured out what was going on, Grant was besieging him.


The only real flaw is the small paperback format makes the campaign map hard to read. Like Trudeau in Southern Storm, Brown includes an individual map at the start of each chapter showing that day’s progress. It would have been nice to have larger scale maps to show the position of the Confederate forces trying to pin Grierson, but that’s probably asking too much for a 1972 reprint of a 1954 book. As a side note, the John Ford movie The Horse Soldiers is loosely based on Grierson’s raid. ( )