The duels between the sharpshooters of the two armies were fierce and
deadly. All of us like heroes. There were many heroes beside the great
Generals. Here is one from the ranks. John Battle Harrison was wounded
at Shiloh and again at Champion Hills. When told by the surgeon to go
to the hospital, he refused and remained fighting in the ranks with a
wound that would have taken hundreds of others to the hospital. This
brave soldier was killed in one of the sharpshooter duels. Our company
was on duty on the skirmish line all day, and we could not bury him
until night; then during the dark hours of the night we dug a grave on
the hillside, and wrapping his blanket around him, we left him to sleep
until the great reveille is sounded. I thought that night of the lines
I used to speak in school when a boy:
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.”
But we must not falter if our comrades do fall, but take up our duty of
the soldier on the morrow and battle for the right. Now we are digging
trenches and making breastworks, as well as running a sap toward the
enemy’s lines by using the sap-roller. My young friends may ask what
a sap-roller is. We boys used to call it a “bullet-stopper.” Suppose
we take two empty barrels and lash them together, one on top of the
other, then wrap them ’round and ’round with willow saplings, fill them
with earth, put a cover on, lay them down, and you have a sap-roller.
By keeping this in front of a couple of men, they could dig a trench
directly toward the enemy’s lines, and still be protected from the
deadly minie-balls. We dug trenches and moved towards the enemy until
the two picket lines were within hail of each other. One of the
“Johnnies” made an agreement with one of our boys that they should
lay down their guns and have a talk, which they did. The Confederate
said our guns had killed many in the trenches. Sometimes there was a
richness in the repartee between the Union and Confederate pickets
that is worth repeating. One day a “Johnnie” calls out: “What are you
men doing over there?” and quick comes the answer: “Guarding 30,000
Johnnies in Vicksburg, and making them board themselves.” Another
picket asks the question: “Why don’t you come and take Vicksburg?” and
the Union replied: “Oh, we’re in no particular hurry; Gen. Grant is
not yet ready to transfer you North.” The pickets of both armies were
good natured and used to brag of their ability to whip each other.
The gunboats and mortars from the river side make things lively for
the people inside the city. Day after day the sharpshooters are at
work; the cannonading is kept up; the saps are approaching the enemy’s
stronghold still nearer and nearer. The bursting of shells over our
heads, while resting in our camps, tended to make things lively,
in many instances causing wounds and death. One day the boys of my
regiment were cooking a mess of beans for dinner (beans were on the
bill of fare every day). The beans were being cooked in one of those
large camp kettles that were hung from a pole resting on two upright
sticks driven into the ground. The beans were supposed to be done. The
dinner hour was near at hand; two of the boys took hold of the pole and
lifted the kettle from its resting place to put it to one side. Just
then the sharp whirr of a piece of shell from overhead was heard and
the next instant it went crashing through the bottom of that kettle,
carrying beans and all with it, burying it in the earth. The two
soldiers, still holding the pole in their hands, looked at each other
in disgust for a moment, and then one of them, turning around, called
out to the waiting hungry soldiers: “Boys, your beans have gone to
h--l.”
The boys in the ranks had no use for a “dude” officer. Gen. McPherson,
who commanded our corps (a braver or finer gentleman never breathed),
had on his staff a fine officer, but who was very fond of dress, and
when he would ride along the line of march, in his velvet suit, the
boys would guy him unmercifully. One day this Colonel came into the
trenches, and, stopping opposite where I stood on the embankment behind
the gabions, addressed one of our boys thus: “Sergeant, do you see the
enemy from this point?” The Sergeant replied: “Yes, sir, by looking
through this hole in the log, down that ravine you will occasionally
see the enemy crossing.” The Colonel got up, looked through the hole,
and saw some Confederates crossing the ravine, and then he was moved
to take a hand in the game, and turning ’round, said: “Sergeant,
load your rifle and let me have a pop at those fellows.” “All right,
Colonel,” and while he was still looking, the Sergeant at his rear,
loaded the musket. The gun had been in use most of the day, and was
pretty foul and if not held just right, would kick fearfully. Well,
wicked sinner that the soldier was, he took two cartridges, using two
charges of powder and one bullet, and loaded the Enfield rifle, put
the percussion cap on and handed it to the Colonel and, stepping back
into the trenches, awaited developments. The Colonel got ready, saw his
man, pulled the trigger and--tumbled back into the trench. He handed
the gun back, remarking: “Your gun, Sergeant, recoils considerable,”
and the innocent (?) soldier said, “Does it?” The Colonel did not ask
for a second shot. I’ll warrant he had a black and blue shoulder for a
month. The poor Colonel has passed away and the Sergeant never had the
opportunity to apologize to him.
The sap-roller with the boys in blue behind it are gaining every day
in digging trenches toward Fort Hill. The men of Gen. Logan’s division
are employed in this work, and the plan is to undermine the enemy’s
Fort Hill and blow it up. While we had to be under fire from the enemy
constantly, we were better off than they; not only did they suffer from
a continuous shelling by the cannons and mortars, and the incessant
rattle of musketry, but they had to do it on pretty empty stomachs,
for toward the last they were reduced to a very meager diet, while
we were having plenty of bacon, hard tack, coffee, etc. The price of
food inside the city at that time was a little higher than in Chicago.
How do these prices please you: Flour, $1,000 a barrel; meal, $140 a
bushel; beef, $2.50 per pound, and mule meat, $1 per pound.
What could you expect when there was a continuous siege of 47 days;
a city surrounded by an army that neither permits any one to go into
or come out of it; an army that slowly but surely is creeping up by
its sap-rollers and approaches, getting closer and closer each day?
I said we did not let any one into the city and none to come out of
it; still, notwithstanding all our watchfulness there were a few
who succeeded in getting through the lines, and a few that made the
attempt but failed. Permit me to give one instance. In front of the
line of the 15th Illinois Regiment, near the picket line, was a low
marshy sink, of about an acre in size, covered by brush and dense cane
brakes. One night a boy of about 10 years of age came out of the brush
towards the picket line, holding up his handkerchief as a sign that
he wished to surrender. The sentinel told him to come in; he did, and
the little fellow told a pitiful story; that he had been in Vicksburg
visiting his aunt who was sick; that his mother lived in Jackson, and
he wanted to go home. The story seemed plausible and he was allowed to
go through the lines. Not long after, one night, the pickets in that
same locality, heard a rustling in the bushes in the same swampy hole,
and surmising that something was wrong, surrounded it, demanding the
surrender of any one there on pain of being shot at once. To their
surprise out came a half-dozen men, each with a bag over his shoulder
containing 10,000 percussion caps. Gen. Johnston had sent the men and
caps back, led by the same little boy, and they were trying to get into
Vicksburg. They were marched to Gen. Grant’s headquarters, and while
waiting to be ushered into the General’s presence, one of the prisoners
said to the boy: “What do you suppose they will do with you, for you
are the fellow that got us into this fix?” The little fellow, cocking
one eye in a comical manner, replied: “Oh, I guess they won’t hurt me
much, coz I’se so little.” The little fellow was not hurt much, but
kept a prisoner until the surrender and then with the soldiers sent
home.
The siege continues day after day; the bombardment from land and water
is incessant; the beleaguered army is reduced to quarter rations,
living on mule meat and thinking it good fare; the inhabitants of the
city hiding and living in caves, to escape the storm of shells from
the Union army and navy, which are exploding day and night in their
streets. The enemy are brave and fight valiantly for their city and
cause; neither the scorching sun nor the drenching rain keep them from
their posts. They suffer for water; they are pinched with hunger;
still they fight and hold the fort. However, the end is near. That
persistency and determination, so characteristic of our commander,
Gen. Grant, will surely win. It is related of Gen. Grant that one day
during the siege he was riding around the lines, and stopped at a house
to get some water. The only occupant was a woman who tauntingly asked
him if he expected to get into Vicksburg. “Certainly,” he replied. “But
when?” she said. “I cannot tell exactly when I shall take the town, but
I mean to stay here till I do, if it takes me 30 years.” The reply was
too much for the old lady, and her heart sank within her, as she rushed
back into the house to hide her anger. That reminds me of an incident
that passed between Gen. Grant and myself, the relating of which I
may be pardoned inasmuch as I am relating reminiscences. One hot day
in June I was in the trenches with my company, behind the gabions, on
duty as sharpshooters, when Gen. Grant, attended by one of his staff,
came along. He had climbed the hill and when he arrived opposite me
was perspiring and puffing greatly. We turned and saluted the General
as he walked along the trench. When he came opposite to me he said:
“Sergeant, is there any water convenient?” I replied, “None, General,
except what is in my canteen,” and taking my canteen from my shoulder,
half filled with pretty warm water, I handed it to him. He took it,
offered it to the officer, who declined, and then Gen. Grant took a
hearty drink from my canteen. He then handed it back, thanking me for
it, and passed on. So in the words of Miles O’Reilly’s poem--
“There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours,
Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers,
And true lovers’ knots, I ween;
The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss,
But there’s never a bond, old friend, like this--
We have drank from the same canteen.”
Although we are relieved often in our daily duty of sharpshooters, and
return to the ravines and hollows where we are bivouacked, still we are
constantly threatened with death; the soldiers wrote songs, and the
jest went around, fun actually being coined from the danger which some
comrade escaped, or attempted to nimbly dodge. There was no shirking or
quailing; danger had long since ceased to cause any fear. Exploding
shells and whistling bullets attracted but little notice. Even death
had become so familiar that the fall of a comrade was looked upon with
almost stoical indifference; eliciting, perhaps, an expression of
pity, and most generally the remark: “I wonder who will be the next
one?” Men are not naturally unmindful of danger, nor do their hearts
usually exhibit such indifference to human agony and suffering; yet the
occurrence of daily scenes of horror and bloodshed, through which they
passed, the shadow of the angel of death constantly hovering over them,
made them undisturbed spectators of every occurrence, making the most
of today, heedless of the morrow.