Natchez surrendered on the 12th of May to Commander S. Phillips Lee, of the _Oneida_, the advance of Farragut's fleet. On the 18th of May the _Oneida_ and her consorts arrived off Vicksburg, and the same day Williams and Lee summoned "the authorities" to surrender the town and "its defences to the lawful authority of the United States." To this Brigadier-General Martin L. Smith, commander of the defences, promptly replied: "Having been ordered here to hold these defences, my intention is to do so as long as it is in my power."
On the 19th the transports stopped for wood at Warrenton, about ten miles below Vicksburg, and here a detachment of the 4th Wisconsin, sent to guard the working party, became involved in a skirmish with the Confederates, in which Sergeant-Major N. H. Chittenden and Private C. E. Perry, of A Company, suffered the first wounds received in battle by the troops of the United States in the Department of the Gulf. The Confederates were easily repulsed, with small loss.
Almost at the instant when Farragut was decided to run the gauntlet of the forts, Beauregard had begun to fortify Vicksburg. Up to this time he had trusted the defence of the river above New Orleans to Fort Pillow, Helena, and Memphis.
When Smith took command at Vicksburg on the 12th of May, in accordance with the orders of Lovell, the department commander, three of the ten batteries laid out for the defence of the position had been nearly completed and a fourth had been begun. These batteries were intended for forty-eight guns from field rifles to 10-inch columbiads. The garrison was to be 3,000 strong, but at this time the only troops present were parts of two Louisiana regiments. When the fleet arrived, on the 18th, six of the ten batteries had been completed, and two days later twenty-three heavy guns were in place and the defenders numbered more than 2,600.
The guns of the navy could not be elevated sufficiently for their projectiles to reach the Confederate batteries on the bluff, and the entire land-force, under Williams, was less than 1,100 effectives. Even had it been possible by a sudden attack to surprise and overcome the garrison and seize the bluffs, the whole available force of the Department of the Gulf would have been insufficient to hold the position for a week, as things then stood.