After the Battle of Raymond on May 12, Gregg's Confederates retreated through town and encamped on a ridge almost three miles east of the town square, while McPherson's 17th Corps Federals marched into Raymond and camped for the night. During the battle Grant was headquartered at the Dillon farm, seven and one-half miles southeast of Raymond, and that night he changed his plan of concentrating his army at Edwards, deciding instead to march to Jackson. He ordered McPherson to move from Raymond to Clinton on May 13, destroy the railroad there, and then march east to Jackson on May 14. Sherman, with the 15th Corps at Dillon's, was ordered to march through Raymond to Mississippi Springs on May 13, then east to Jackson in coordination with McPherson on May 14. McClernand's large 13th Corps, consisting of four divisions and located four miles south of Edwards, was ordered to send three divisions to Raymond on May 13, while the fourth marched south to New Auburn to meet and escort one of Grant's vital supply trains, a 200-wagon train that had left Grand Gulf early on May 12. On May 13, Gregg fell back to Jackson, where Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had arrived with reinforcements from the East. Pemberton, expecting Grant to strike the railroad at Edwards, massed his troops north of Mt. Moriah to block the expected thrust. Instead, on May 14, McPherson and Sherman marched east from Clinton and Mississippi Springs to Jackson, where Johnston fought a brief delaying action and fled the capital city, and the occupying Federals burned everything of military value, leaving much of the city a smoldering ruin.
