On December 22, 1862 the entire brigade {Reynold's} entrained to Mississippi where they were assigned to the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana as reinforcements for Lt. Gen. John Pemberton's army at Vicksburg arriving in that city on New Years day 1863. Enroute, arriving at West Point, Ga on Christmas morning, it was recorded: "The Colonel treated the boys and some of them got a little too much. Some of them got pretty tight and were quite funny all day." Over the next four months the regiment (43rd Tn.} performed picket duties and participated in the construction of gun fortifications near the town of Warrenton, some ten miles below Vicksburg on the Mississippi river. Pvt. Giddens of the 3rd Tennessee, in a letter to his wife, had this to say of Mississippi:

"Linda, this is a sickly place, soldiers are dying and Tennesseans can't stand to this climate and drink this water. I am told by Louisianians that the Georgians died here last summer like sheep with the rot."