Steele's Greenville expedition

[10] Steele's troops left the Young's Point, Louisiana,[a] area late on April 2, heading upriver via steamboats.

While much of Steele's force remained in the Washington's Landing area, detachments patrolled inward, learning that the path to Deer Creek was flooded.

Two regiments and the Union Navy tinclad steamer USS Prairie Bird were left at the landing point to guard it.

Ferguson had known of the Union presence since not long after the landing, and he sent a messenger to Major General Carter L. Stevenson at Vicksburg, asking for instructions.

Stevenson detached the brigade of Brigadier General Stephen Dill Lee to the area, with orders to secure Rolling Fork and then move up the Bogue Phalia stream and strike Steele's rear.

[16] More reinforcements were positioned at Snyder's Bluff and along the Sunflower River, and some cottonclad gunboats were shifted southwards in response to the threat.

Ferguson also sent a task force to a bend on the Mississippi River with instructions to cut a levee near Black Bayou, with the intent of flooding the terrain in the area, particularly where a road in Steele's rear crossed a swamp.

[20] Steele, in turn, deployed artillery and prepared to make an attack, but Ferguson withdrew,[21] 6 miles (9.7 km) south to the Willis plantation.

[23] Steele halted the pursuit on the morning on April 8, and his troops confiscated and destroyed goods found on the plantations in the area.

[30] Steele did not want this,[25] and encouraged them to remain on plantations; when the campaign began, he had been ordered to discourage slaves from fleeing to Union lines.

Ferguson had withdrawn his troops, but left behind large quantities of supplies and cattle, which the Union soldiers found and brought back to camp.

[34] In the words of James H. Wilson, Steele's Greenville expedition made the Union army an implement of "agricultural disorganization and distress as well as of emancipation".

[37] In an earlier communication, Henry Halleck (who had been appointed General-in-Chief of the Union Army in July 1862) had written to Grant that he believed that there would be "no peace but that which is forced by the sword".

In the future, in the words of Shea and Winschel, the Union army brought "the war home to [Confederate] civilians by enforcing emancipation and seizing or destroying all items of possible military value".

After the action at Raymond, Grant decided to strike a Confederate force forming at Jackson, Mississippi, and then turn west towards Vicksburg.

A map of the Greenville/Deer Creek area. Greenville is in the upper left corner of the map, on a bend of the Mississippi River. Black Bayou runs generally north-south down the center of the map, east of Greenville. Fish Lake is a wider portion of Black Bayou on an east-west portion of the bayou almost directly due east of Greenville. East of Black Bayou and to the right side of the map, Deer Creek runs roughly north-south. The French plantation is along Deer Creek at the very top of the map; the Thomas and Willis plantations are along Deer Creek at the south of the map.
An 1871 map of the Greenville area, showing Fish Lake/Black Bayou and Deer Creek down to the Thomas and Willis properties
Map of operations related to the Vicksburg campaign. Union forces moved north-south along a route west of the Mississippi River. The Union forces then crossed the Mississippi River, and fought Confederates at Port Gibson in the lower left of the map. The Confederates withdrew north from Port Gibson and Grand Gulf, which is also in the lower left of the map. Union forces moved northeast towards the center-right of the map, with battles fought at Raymond (somewhat right of the center of the map) and then Jackson (near the right edge of the map). Union forces then turned westwards, fighting at Champion Hill (slightly northwest of Raymond) and then at Big Black River Bridge (near the center of the map). The Union forces then laid siege to Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River to the west of Big Black River Bridge.
Map showing the movement through Louisiana, and Grant's operations leading up to the Siege of Vicksburg