This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Tilghman might have been lightened in some degree. At a few hours before daybreak on this date six companies of the 20th Mississippi (Baxter included) and a detachment from the 8th Kentucky managed a surprise on the Federal force left to guard the field hospitals at Raymond, 15 miles southwest of Jackson and about the same distance northwest of Terry. The Rebs paroled 500 hospitalized prisoners, captured several hundred stands of arms, along with ammunition and a big store of rations. That afternoon they delivered the materiel to the Jackson Confederates.
Next day, May 25, Baxter and the rest of the mounted detachment rejoined the 20th Mississippi near Clinton. From that date until the middle of June the regiment was occupied with picketing and scouting in the vicinity of Jackson. During this period, Gen. Johnston was attempting to mount a relief force for Vicksburg, but his efforts were doomed by lack of initiative.
The 20th Mississippi, now at Vernon (10 miles west of Canton), resumed its status as an infantry regiment, when on June 13, Baxter and the other mounted infantry were ordered off their horses and became foot-soldiers once more. Next day they marched back east toward Canton, and rejoined their old brigade, now commanded by Brig. Gen. John Adams following Tilghman?s death at Champion Hill.
Near the end of June Gen. Johnston was still trying to collect all available forces for a last attempt to raise the seige at Vicksburg. But by now Grant?s army had been reinforced and was bountifully supplied by lines of communication all but unopposed on the Mississippi. By the first week of July is became obvious that Johnston?s forces could do nothing for Pemberton and his beleaguered army. Finally on July 4 (a date most of the South held inapppropriate), Pemberton surrendered a helpless, isolated Vicksburg. And now the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico to as far north as boats could travel was an unopposed Federal waterway.
With the fall of Vicksburg, Baxter found himself between the victorious Federals to the west and Johnston?s inadequate relieving forces along the Big Black in the east. He and Company E had been on constant skirmishing duty for two weeks, and now
56