Raymond: A Courthouse Town and the Battle That Redirected Grant
Near Jackson, Mississippi
Raymond was established in eighteen twenty-nine as the county seat of Hinds County. It grew into a prosperous Natchez Trace stopover, with lawyers, physicians, and a magnificent courthouse completed in eighteen fifty-nine. On May twelfth, eighteen sixty-three, the town became a flashpoint in Ulysses Grant's Vicksburg Campaign.
General James McPherson's twelve thousand Union soldiers collided with three thousand Confederates under General John Gregg in the Battle of Raymond. The Federals won, but the resistance was stiff enough that Grant decided to swing northeast and neutralize Jackson, the state capital, before pushing on to Vicksburg. That strategic pivot shaped the entire final arc of the western theater.
Raymond's eighteen fifty-nine courthouse still stands today.
