Grierson ' s Raid Grierson ' s Raid was a Union cavalry raid during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War . It ran from April 17 to May 2 , 1863 , as a diversion from Maj . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant ' s main attack plan on Vicksburg , Mississippi . Background . Early in 1863 , Major General Charles Hamilton , the commander of the Corinth section of Grant ' s division , suggested what would eventually become Grierson ' s Raid . Subsequently , due to Hamilton ' s insistence on procuring a command that would garner him more glory , Hamilton offered his resignation . Grant quickly accepted . Up until this time in the war , Confederate cavalry commanders such as Nathan Bedford Forrest , John Hunt Morgan , and J . E . B . Stuart had ridden circles around the Union ( literally , in Stuart ' s case ; see the Peninsula Campaign ) , and it was time to out - do the Confederates in cavalry expeditions . The task fell to Col . Benjamin Grierson , a former music teacher who , oddly , hated horses after being kicked in the head by one as a child . Grierson ' s cavalry brigade consisted of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments . The raid . Grierson and his 1 , 700 horse troopers , some in Confederate uniforms serving as scouts for the main force , rode over six hundred miles through hostile territory ( from southern Tennessee , through the state of Mississippi and into Union - held Baton Rouge , Louisiana ) , over routes no Union soldier had traveled before . They tore up railroads and burned crossties , freed slaves , burned Confederate storehouses , destroyed locomotives and commissary stores , ripped up bridges and trestles , burned buildings , and inflicted ten times the casualties they received , all while detachments of his troops made feints confusing the Confederates as to his actual whereabouts , intent and direction . Total casualties for Grierson ' s Brigade during the raid were three killed , seven wounded , and nine missing . Five sick and wounded men were left behind along the route , too ill to continue . Confederate Lt . Gen . John C . Pemberton , commander of the Vicksburg garrison , was short on cavalry and could do nothing to stop Grierson . The premier Confederate cavalry commander , Maj . Gen . Nathan Bedford Forrest , was off chasing another Union raider , Col . Abel Streight , in Alabama and thus had no opportunity to stop Grierson . While Streight ' s Raid failed , occupying Forrest probably ensured the success of Grierson ' s Raid . Although many Confederate cavalry units pursued Grierson vigorously across the state ( most notably those led by Wirt Adams and Robert V . Richardson ) , they were unsuccessful in stopping the raid . and Grierson and his exhausted troopers ultimately rode in to Baton Rouge , Louisiana ; With an entire division of Pemberton ' s soldiers tied up defending the vital Vicksburg - Jackson railroad from the evasive Grierson , combined with Maj . Gen . William T . Sherman ' s feint northeast of Vicksburg ( the Battle of Snyder ' s Bluff ) , the beleaugered Confederates were unable to muster the forces necessary to oppose Grant ' s eventual landing on below Vicksburg the east side of the Mississippi at Bruinsburg . In popular media . The movie " The Horse Soldiers " , directed by John Ford , and starring John Wayne , William Holden and Constance Towers , and the Harold Sinclair novel of the same name on which it is based , are fictional variations of Grierson ' s Raid .