Grant's Trail Scenic Byway

Canemount Plantation Inn & Event Center photo

4003 Alcorn Road Highway 552 West
Lorman, MS 39096

601-940-7206

Canemount Plantation Inn is on 40 Acres of what was Canemount Plantation dating back to the late 1700s. Many of the original buildings are still standing today.

The grounds/lawn are a park like setting with many 200 year old live oaks draped in Spanish moss. The property is surrounded by 3,500 acres of the Canemount WMA (Wildlife Management Area). We’re located 2 miles from Alcorn State University and 3 miles from Windsor Ruins.

The main house dates back to 1851 and is on the historic register. Four other buildings date back to the late 1700 to early 1800.

The six Suites are in the 1820s carriage house. They are modern rooms with hardwood floors, wool area rugs, gas fireplaces, Jacuzzi whirlpool tub/shower and wet bar.

Enjoy the outdoors under a large covered area attached to the carriage house or on the wrap around covered gallery at the main house. Also, there are tables and chaise lounges around the pool patio area.

Click to visit their website

The Road to Vicksburg
On the afternoon of May 3, 1863, Union Gen. U.S. Grant rode west past this intersection to Grand Gulf while Gen. John A. Logan's division turned north toward Vicksburg. Logan was in pursuit of the Confederate force which had abandoned Grand Gulf early that morning. In the early hours of May 4, Grant returned here from Grand Gulf and joined his troops near Hankinson's Ferry, where Logan had captured a raft bridge over the Big Black River, opening the road to Vicksburg.

After Grant had crossed the Mississippi River unopposed on April 30, 1863 and had won the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1, the victorious Federals marched into Port Gibson the following day. In his memoirs Grant succinctly stated his next objective, "My first problem was to capture Grand Gulf to use as a base." But the Confederates had destroyed the two bridges where the centuries-old Natchez Trace crossed two rivers, Little and Big Bayou Pierre. As a result, Union pioneers were required to toil for twenty-two hours on these bridges, but at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, May 3, Grant moved rapidly and pushed his troops over the second water barrier, Big Bayou Pierre, using the charred but recently-repaired bridge at Grindstone Ford.

Grant's crossing of Big Bayou Pierre meant that the Grand Gulf Confederate garrison, if it were still there, was caught in a cul-de-sac formed by the Mississippi, Big Bayou Pierre, and Big Black Rivers. Grant realized this and peeled Maj. Gen. John Logan's division west from Willow Springs toward Grand Gulf to snag the prey, then hurried Brig. Gen. Marcellus Crocker's division north from Willow Springs toward Hankinson's Ferry on the Big Black to seal the only way out. Preceding Logan's infantry column on the road to Grand Gulf was a company of Ohio cavalry, and here, at a sharp curve four and one-half miles west of Willow Springs, the troopers ran headlong into a Confederate brigade.

The savvy Confederate Brig. Gen. John Bowen had positioned Missouri infantry and artillery here to protect the intersection of the Grand Gulf-Hankinson's Ferry road while he evacuated his garrison from Grand Gulf. Confederate Corp. Ephraim M. Anderson of the 2nd Missouri Infantry wrote, “We had been in line probably an hour, when the strokes of horses’ hoofs and the rattle of sabers were heard coming down, and the head of a regiment of Federal cavalry soon made its appearance in the turn of the road, a hundred yards distant . . . The artillery opened upon it about the same time that [the infantry], from the shrubbery in front, fired a volley into its ranks.” The Northern horsemen, after rounding the curve and being treated to a peppering of Southern canister and bullets, quickly fell back toward Willow Springs. Around 2 p.m. Logan's infantry column arrived to brush aside the pesky Rebels, but all that his men found were a few stragglers from a retreating column and an intersection littered with the jetsam of war. But this intersection was key, because from this obscure junction Grand Gulf was only seven miles to the west, and Hankinson's Ferry was only nine miles to the northeast. From Hankinson's it was only sixteen miles to Vicksburg.

Reports rippled down the column and soon Grant rode to the front and glanced downward at the thousands of footprints in the dust. The fresh signs of travel toward the ferry told his experienced eyes that Grand Gulf had been evacuated only hours before. Orders were snapped to Logan to pursue the fleeing Rebels, and Col. Manning F. Force of the 20th Ohio recalled that the troops "made a sharp turn and pushed for the ferry." Grant, however, continued straight ahead to Grand Gulf with a score of cavalrymen for protection. Governor Richard Yates of Illinois rode with Grant and recalled, "I saw guns scattered along the road, which the enemy had left in their retreat . . . I consider Vicksburg as ours in only a short time, and the Mississippi River as destined to be open from its source to its mouth." His words were prophetic. Grand Gulf was the back door to Vicksburg, and its abandonment had left that door open.

On to Vicksburg
After crossing the Mississippi River and fighting the battle of Port Gibson on April 30–May 1, 1863, Gen. U.S. Grant moved to capture Grand Gulf as a base of operations against Port Hudson, Louisiana. Capturing Grand Gulf on May 3, Grant learned that Union forces under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks were not yet in position at Port Hudson, and decided to move against Vicksburg instead. Grand Gulf then became Grant's forward supply base and by May 8 over 2,000,000 rations were stockpiled here for Grant's army.

From here, on May 3, 1863, Grant caught his first glimpse of four of Admiral David D. Porter’s ironclad gunboats and was pleased to see that the US Navy occupied the site of the burned-out town. The Confederate fortifications of Grand Gulf were now in Union hands and Grant finally had his critical base “on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy.” Here he could amass the necessary ammunition and food to support his army. Grant wrote, “When I reached Grand Gulf on May 3 I had not been with my baggage since the 27th of April and consequently had no change of underclothing, no meal except such as I could pick up sometimes at other headquarters, and no tent to cover me. The first thing I did was get a bath, borrow some fresh underclothing from one of the naval officers and get a good meal on the flagship (USS Louisville) . . . About twelve o’clock at night I was through with my work and started for Hankinson’s ferry, arriving there before daylight.”

Turn right at the marker and follow the “Grant’s March” directional signs along the Grand Gulf-Raymond Scenic Byway.

This historic road was used for generations to haul cotton from the Rocky Springs area to Grand Gulf for shipping south to the Gulf of Mexico and to Europe, Africa, and South America. In early May 1863 it was used by Grant’s quartermasters to transport ammunition, coffee, salt pork, and hardtack to the troops as they marched deep into Mississippi’s interior.

Grant having attended to every conceivable detail aboard Louisville, mounted up at midnight for the fourteen-mile ride to join McPherson's two divisions near Hankinson’s ferry on the Big Black River. Grant's late night ride to Hankinson's must have bewildered his staff officers, for in addition to the late hour, the entourage followed a route that Lt. Col James H. Wilson, who rode with Grant that night, described as a "strange and circuitous road." In contrast, a few hours later, Sylvanus Cadwallader, a newspaper reporter for the Chicago Times, traveled this same route and wrote; “Soon after daylight on Monday morning [May 4] I mounted a captured mule, with such equipment as could be hastily obtained, and took the road leading by way of Hankinson’s ferry to Vicksburg. The ride, notwithstanding the annoying peculiarities of an illy broken mule, was one of the most delightful of my life. It was a well traveled thoroughfare, along elevated ridges, through dense forests (sometime for miles) of large magnolias, then in full bloom; or through thickets of black haw, and wild plums, along the creeks and small brooks which I frequently crossed, past acres and acres of mayflowers (mandrake) also in bloom, and by Virginia rail fence at every plantation presenting an impenetrable hedgerow of sassafras and wild grapevines. The grass was growing luxuriantly, birds were singing joyously, and everything seemed to be putting on the beautiful garments of springtime. The fragrance of bud, blossom and flower became absolutely oppressive, until the forenoon sun had partially dissipated it. Occasional stragglers and slightly wounded men pushing ahead in pairs and squads to rejoin their commands were the only human beings I encountered for several hours.”

A few days later on May 8, Lt. Charles D. Miller of the 76th Ohio Infantry, a regiment in Maj. Gen. Sherman’s 15th Corps, marched out of Grand Gulf along this road. The lieutenant recalled: “We remained at Grand Gulf for one day and then marched eastward, following the south bank of the Big Black River. Our line of march was over roads winding between low round clay hills. We passed through magnolia forests which were in bloom. The grand white flowers and shining green leaves of the trees festooned with grey moss presented a beautiful appearance. Flocks of parakeets flew screaming over our heads.” Lt. Miller was describing the Carolina parakeet, a small green parrot with a brilliant yellow head, reddish orange face and pale beak, an extinct species which lived here in the old-growth forests along the Mississippi. The bird was tragically wiped out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to deforestation and hunting for their colorful feathers.

Grand Gulf
The town of Grand Gulf was burned by Admiral David Farragut's men in 1862 and occupied by Porter's Mississippi Squadron on May 3, 1863. The Union occupation followed Confederate Brig. Gen. John Bowen's evacuation of the town after the battle of Port Gibson on May 1. Gen. U.S. Grant visited here on May 3, and established Grand Gulf as the primary Union supply depot for the duration of the Vicksburg Campaign. From Grand Gulf, some 200 wagons per day were used to resupply Grant's army.

Stand on the porch of the old country store and face directly across the open field in front of the store, then look to your left at the old Mississippi River bed behind the fishing camp.

On May 3, 1863, Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant and a score of federal cavalrymen descended the steep watershed of the Mississippi River where the historic road enters Grand Gulf on the far side of the square. The mounted party arrived at Grand Gulf just before dark, and Grant could barely discern the phantom-like forms of four of Admiral David D. Porter's menacing black ironclad gunboats, Louisville, Carondelet, Mound City, and Tuscumbia, which were lined up along the muddy river bank like gargantuan snapping turtles.

Now that Grant was in Grand Gulf, per his agreement with General in Chief Henry W. Halleck in Washington he was to send troops south to Port Hudson "to cooperate with General [Nathaniel P.] Banks in the reduction of that place." But Grant wanted no part of such a plan, and had said that, "Once at Grand Gulf I do not feel a doubt of success in the entire driving out of the enemy from the banks of the river." Grant also knew that Banks was a slow-moving political general, and he was painfully aware that the former Massachusetts governor had seniority over him. But a solution to this conundrum was produced when Grant boarded flagship Louisville. It was a message from Banks, dated April 10 and written in Brashear City (today Morgan City), Louisiana. Banks wrote that his forces "could not be at Port Hudson before the 10th of May, and then with only 15,000 men." This was the loophole that Grant had hoped for and he seized the opportunity. "The news from Banks forced upon me a different plan of campaign from the one intended," he rationalized.

That night Grant sent a message to Washington saying, "I shall not bring my troops into this place, but immediately follow the enemy . . . until Vicksburg is in our possession." Grant knew that a major Northern victory was long past due and that the time for that victory was short. A large segment of the northern populace had grown war-weary, and peace Democrats, or "Copperheads," clamored for a negotiated end to the war. President Abraham Lincoln needed to counter the peace demand with good news from the front, and what better news than the capture of Vicksburg and the opening of the Mississippi River ? Years later Grant said, "I felt that the Union depended upon the administration, and the administration upon victory . . . Unless we did something there was no knowing what, in its despair, the country might not do." So Grant puffed his omnipresent cigar and made his momentous decision to move fast, strike hard, and finish rapidly.

Grant later said that his message to Washington would take "some time to reach Cairo (Illinois) by boat, and some time for response ‒ eight days I think." He also knew that the cautious Halleck would never agree to the bold new plan. "I remember how anxiously I counted the time I had to spare before that response could come," Grant recalled in an 1878 interview. Then he quipped, "You can do a great deal in eight days."

After deciding to go after Vicksburg on his own, Grant carefully made plans to establish his new supply base at Grand Gulf. While back in Louisiana on April 30, Grant had assigned one of his aides, Col. William S. Hillyer, to be his new logistics czar with the responsibility of "superintending the transportation and supplies to the army below Grand Gulf." Now that Grant was in possession of Grand Gulf, he placed Hillyer in command of the base. Grant then sent orders to Brig. Gen. Jeremiah Sullivan, in command of the troops protecting the army line of communications in Louisiana, and assigned him the task of building a road from Young's Point, Louisiana to a point on the Mississippi River nine miles below Vicksburg. Such a road would shorten the vulnerable land transportation road from forty to ten miles. Grant then wrote to his 15th Corps commander, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, who was protecting the army's vital Milliken's Bend supply base near Vicksburg. Sherman was to have Maj. Gen. Frank Blair's division escort 120 loaded supply wagons southward to Grand Gulf. Grant punctuated his order to Sherman by reminding him "of the overwhelming importance of celerity." He also pronounced to a skeptical Sherman that the enemy was "badly beaten, greatly demoralized, and exhausted of ammunition." Grant concluded with, "The road to Vicksburg is open. All we want now are men, ammunition, and hard bread." Since Blair's departure would practically denude Milliken's Bend of troops, Grant then wrote to Maj. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut, commander of the 16th Corps in Memphis, and ordered him to send four regiments by steamboats to replace Blair's men. Finally, Grant wrote to his wife to assure her that both he and their twelve-year-old son, Fred, who was accompanying his father during the campaign, were fine, and to say that he felt proud of his army.

All seemed to be in order, except that, despite Grant's encouragement, Sherman remained pessimistic. Sherman had written to his wife on April 29, prophesying that, "when they take Grand Gulf they have the elephant by the tail . . . my own opinion is that this whole plan of attack on Vicksburg will fail, must fail." But, even with Sherman's dire predictions, in a few days Col. Hillyer had the old town square of Grand Gulf piled high with crates containing nearly two million rations. Grant, the former logistician, was not about to "disregard his base" as was reported to Washington the next morning by tag-along Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana.