During the night of May 15, 1863, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who was at Clinton, ordered his army to concentrate at Bolton, because he assumed that Confederate Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton would march his Vicksburg army by the most direct route from Edwards through Bolton to Clinton.

Union Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand's XIII Corps with Brig. Gen. Peter Osterhaus' division, arrived at Bolton shortly after 8:00 a.m. after an uneventful march from Raymond. The force was preceded by several minutes by a detachment of the 3rd Illinois Cavalry, which captured a few troopers of the Confederate 20th Mounted Infantry who were loafing near the depot instead of scouting. Osterhaus immediately ordered the destruction of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi for a mile in both directions, including all bridges and culverts. Osterhaus also picked up rumors that there was a large Confederate concentration at Edwards, some 8.5 miles to the west.

Brig. Gen. Alvin Hovey's division arrived from the direction of Clinton during the early afternoon (they had marched north from their bivouac on Baker's Creek to Clinton, and then followed the Jackson road to Bolton, a total distance of about 12 road miles). As soon as Hovey's division arrived, McClernand, with Osterhaus' division, marched on the Bolton road toward its junction with the Middle road, 3 miles to the south.

Union Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson's XVII Corps , along with the divisions of Maj. Gen. John A. Logan and Brig. Gen. Marcellus M. Crocker, marched at dawn on May 15 from their camps around the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Jackson. By late afternoon this force had reached camp grounds just east of Bolton.

This site has local significance because of its association with military activities and events that achieved or affected important local objectives of the Vicksburg campaign.