_May 28th, 1863_.--Since that day the regular siege has continued. We are
utterly cut off from the world, surrounded by a circle of fire. The fiery
shower of shells goes on day and night. H.'s occupation, of course, is
gone, his office closed. Every man has to carry a pass in his pocket.
People do nothing but eat what they can get, sleep when they can, and
dodge the shells. There are three intervals when the shelling stops,
either for the guns to cool or for the gunners' meals, I suppose,--about
eight in the morning, the same in the evening, and at noon. In that time
we have both to prepare and eat ours. Clothing cannot be washed or
anything else done. On the 19th and 22d, when the assaults were made on
the lines, I watched the soldiers cooking on the green opposite. The
half-spent balls coming all the way from those lines were flying so thick
that they were obliged to dodge at every turn. At all the caves I could
see from my high perch, people were sitting, eating their poor suppers at
the cave doors, ready to plunge in again. As the first shell again flew
they dived, and not a human being was visible. The sharp crackle of the
musketry-firing was a strong contrast to the scream of the bombs. I think
all the dogs and cats must be killed or starved, we don't see any more
pitiful animals prowling around.... The cellar is so damp and musty the
bedding has to be carried out and laid in the sun every day, with the
forecast that it may be demolished at any moment. The confinement is
dreadful. To sit and listen as if waiting for death in a horrible manner
would drive me insane. I don't know what others do, but we read when I am
not scribbling in this. H. borrowed somewhere a lot of Dickens's novels,
and we reread them by the dim light in the cellar. When the shelling
abates H. goes to walk about a little or get the "Daily Citizen," which is
still issuing a tiny sheet at twenty-five and fifty cents a copy. It is,
of course, but a rehash of speculations which amuses half an hour. To-day
we heard while out that expert swimmers are crossing the Mississippi on
logs at night to bring and carry news to Johnston. I am so tired of
corn-bread, which I never liked, that I eat it with tears in my eyes. We
are lucky to get a quart of milk daily from a family near who have a cow
they hourly expect to be killed. I send five dollars to market each
morning, and it buys a small piece of mule-meat. Rice and milk is my main
food; I can't eat the mule-meat. We boil the rice and eat it cold with
milk for supper. Martha runs the gauntlet to buy the meat and milk once a
day in a perfect terror. The shells seem to have many different names; I
hear the soldiers say, "That's a mortar-shell. There goes a Parrott.
That's a rifle-shell." They are all equally terrible. A pair of
chimney-swallows have built in the parlor chimney. The concussion of the
house often sends down parts of their nest, which they patiently pick up
and reascend with.
_Friday, June 5th, 1863. (In the cellar.)_--Wednesday evening H. said he
must take a little walk, and went while the shelling had stopped. He never
leaves me alone long, and when an hour had passed without his return I
grew anxious; and when two hours, and the shelling had grown terrific, I
momentarily expected to see his mangled body. All sorts of horrors fill
the mind now, and I am so desolate here; not a friend. When he came he
said that passing a cave where there were no others near, he heard groans,
and found a shell had struck above and caused the cave to fall in on the
man within. He could not extricate him alone, and had to get help and dig
him out. He was badly hurt, but not mortally. I felt fairly sick from the
suspense.
Yesterday morning a note was brought H. from a bachelor uncle out in the
trenches, saying he had been taken ill with fever, and could we receive
him if he came? H. sent to tell him to come, and I arranged one of the
parlors as a dressing-room for him, and laid a pallet that he could move
back and forth to the cellar. He did not arrive, however. It is our custom
in the evening to sit in the front room a little while in the dark, with
matches and candles held ready in hand, and watch the shells, whose course
at night is shown by the fuse. H. was at the window and suddenly sprang
up, crying, "Run!"--"Where?"--"_Back_!"
I started through the back room, H. after me. I was just within the door
when the crash came that threw me to the floor. It was the most appalling
sensation I'd ever known. Worse than an earthquake, which I've also
experienced. Shaken and deafened I picked myself up; H. had struck a light
to find me. I lighted mine, and the smoke guided us to the parlor I had
fixed for Uncle J. The candles were useless in the dense smoke, and it was
many minutes before we could see. Then we found the entire side of the
room torn out. The soldiers who had rushed in said, "This is an
eighty-pound Parrott." It had entered through the front and burst on the
pallet-bed, which was in tatters; the toilet service and everything else
in the room was smashed. The soldiers assisted H. to board up the break
with planks to keep out prowlers, and we went to bed in the cellar as
usual. This morning the yard is partially plowed by two shells that fell
there in the night. I think this house, so large and prominent from the
river, is perhaps mistaken for headquarters and specially shelled. As we
descend at night to the lower regions, I think of the evening hymn that
grandmother taught me when a child:
"Lord, keep us safe this night,
Secure from all our fears;
May angels guard us while we sleep,
Till morning light appears."
_June 7th, 1863. (In the cellar.)_--I feel especially grateful that amid
these horrors we have been spared that of suffering for water. The weather
has been dry a long time, and we hear of others dipping up the water from
ditches and mud-holes. This place has two large underground cisterns of
good cool water, and every night in my subterranean dressing-room a tub
of cold water is the nerve-calmer that sends me to sleep in spite of the
roar. One cistern I had to give up to the soldiers, who swarm about like
hungry animals seeking something to devour. Poor fellows! my heart bleeds
for them. They have nothing but spoiled, greasy bacon, and bread made of
musty pea-flour, and but little of that. The sick ones can't bolt it. They
come into the kitchen when Martha puts the pan of corn-bread in the stove,
and beg for the bowl she has mixed it in. They shake up the scrapings with
water, put in their bacon, and boil the mixture into a kind of soup, which
is easier to swallow than pea-bread. When I happen in they look so ashamed
of their poor clothes. I know we saved the lives of two by giving a few
meals. To-day one crawled upon the gallery to lie in the breeze. He looked
as if shells had lost their terrors for his dumb and famished misery. I've
taught Martha to make first-rate corn-meal gruel, because I can eat meal
easier that way than in hoe-cake, and I prepared him a saucerful, put milk
and sugar and nutmeg--I've actually got a nutmeg. When he ate it the tears
ran from his eyes. "Oh, madam, there was never anything so good! I shall
get better."
_June 9th, 1863_.--The churches are a great resort for those who have no
caves. People fancy they are not shelled so much, and they are substantial
and the pews good to sleep in. We had to leave this house last night, they
were shelling our quarter so heavily. The night before, Martha forsook the
cellar for a church. We went to H.'s office, which was comparatively
quiet last night. H. carried the bank box; I the case of matches; Martha
the blankets and pillows, keeping an eye on the shells. We slept on piles
of old newspapers. In the streets the roar seems so much more confusing, I
feel sure I shall run right into the way of a shell. They seem to have
five different sounds from the second of throwing them to the hollow echo
wandering among the hills, which sounds the most blood-curdling of all.
[Illustration: PRINTED ON WALL PAPER IN THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG.]
_June 13th, 1863_.--Shell burst just over the roof this morning. Pieces
tore through both floors down into the dining-room. The entire ceiling of
that room fell in a mass. We had just left it. Every piece of crockery on
the table was smashed. The "Daily Citizen" to-day is a foot and a half
long and six inches wide. It has a long letter from a Federal officer, P.
P. Hill, who was on the gun-boat _Cincinnati_, that was sunk May 27th.
Says it was found in his floating trunk. The editorial says, "The utmost
confidence is felt that we can maintain our position until succor comes
from outside. The undaunted Johnston is at hand."
_June 18th_.--To-day the "Citizen" is printed on wall paper; therefore has
grown a little in size. It says, "But a few days more and Johnston will be
here"; also that "Kirby Smith has driven Banks from Port Hudson," and that
"the enemy are throwing incendiary shells in."
_June 20th_.--The gentleman who took our cave came yesterday to invite us
to come to it, because, he said, "it's going to be very bad to-day." I
don't know why he thought so. We went, and found his own and another
family in it; sat outside and watched the shells till we concluded the
cellar was as good a place as that hill-side. I fear the want of good food
is breaking down H. I know from my own feelings of weakness, but mine is
not an American constitution and has a recuperative power that his has
not.
_June 21st, 1863_.--I had gone upstairs to-day during the interregnum to
enjoy a rest on my bed and read the reliable items in the "Citizen," when
a shell burst right outside the window in front of me. Pieces flew in,
striking all round me, tearing down masses of plaster that came tumbling
over me. When H. rushed in I was crawling out of the plaster, digging it
out of my eyes and hair. When he picked up beside my pillow a piece as
large as a saucer, I realized my narrow escape. The window-frame began to
smoke, and we saw the house was on fire. H. ran for a hatchet and I for
water, and we put it out. Another (shell) came crashing near, and I
snatched up my comb and brush and ran down here. It has taken all the
afternoon to get the plaster out of my hair, for my hands were rather
shaky.
_June 25th_.--A horrible day. The most horrible yet to me, because I've
lost my nerve. We were all in the cellar, when a shell came tearing
through the roof, burst upstairs, and tore up that room, the pieces coming
through both floors down into the cellar. One of them tore open the leg of
H.'s pantaloons. This was tangible proof the cellar was no place of
protection from them. On the heels of this came Mr. J., to tell us that
young Mrs. P. had had her thighbone crushed. When Martha went for the milk
she came back horror-stricken to tell us the black girl there had her arm
taken off by a shell. For the first time I quailed. I do not think people
who are physically brave deserve much credit for it; it is a matter of
nerves. In this way I am constitutionally brave, and seldom think of
danger till it is over; and death has not the terrors for me it has for
some others. Every night I had lain down expecting death, and every
morning rose to the same prospect, without being unnerved. It was for H. I
trembled. But now I first seemed to realize that something worse than
death might come; I might be crippled, and not killed. Life, without all
one's powers and limbs, was a thought that broke down my courage. I said
to H., "You must get me out of this horrible place; I cannot stay; I know
I shall be crippled." Now the regret comes that I lost control, for H. is
worried, and has lost his composure, because my coolness has broken down.
_July 1st, 1863._--Some months ago, thinking it might be useful, I
obtained from the consul of my birthplace, by sending to another town, a
passport for foreign parts. H. said if we went out to the lines we might
be permitted to get through on that. So we packed the trunk, got a
carriage, and on the 30th drove out there. General V. offered us seats in
his tent. The rifle-bullets were whizzing so _zip, zip_ from the
sharp-shooters on the Federal lines that involuntarily I moved on my
chair. He said, "Don't be alarmed; you are out of range. They are firing
at our mules yonder." His horse, tied by the tent door, was quivering all
over, the most intense exhibition of fear I'd ever seen in an animal.
General V. sent out a flag of truce to the Federal headquarters, and while
we waited wrote on a piece of silk paper a few words. Then he said, "My
wife is in Tennessee. If you get through the lines, give her this. They
will search you, so I will put it in this toothpick." He crammed the silk
paper into a quill toothpick, and handed it to H. It was completely
concealed. The flag-of-truce officer came back flushed and angry. "General
Grant says that no human being shall pass out of Vicksburg; but the lady
may feel sure danger will soon be over. Vicksburg will surrender on the
4th."
"Is that so, general?" inquired H. "Are arrangements for surrender made?"
"We know nothing of the kind. Vicksburg will not surrender."
"Those were General Grant's exact words, sir," said the flag-officer. "Of
course it is nothing but their brag."
We went back sadly enough, but to-day H. says he will cross the river to
General Porter's lines and try there; I shall not be disappointed.
_July 3d, 1863._--H. was going to headquarters for the requisite pass, and
he saw General Pemberton crawling out of a cave, for the shelling has been
as hot as ever. He got the pass, but did not act with his usual caution,
for the boat he secured was a miserable, leaky one--a mere trough. Leaving
Martha in charge, we went to the river, had our trunks put in the boat,
and embarked; but the boat became utterly unmanageable, and began to fill
with water rapidly. H. saw that we could not cross it and turned to come
back; yet in spite of that the pickets at the battery fired on us. H.
raised the white flag he had, yet they fired again, and I gave a cry of
horror that none of these dreadful things had wrung from me. I thought H.
was struck. When we landed H. showed the pass, and said that the officer
had told him the battery would be notified we were to cross. The officer
apologized and said they were not notified. He furnished a cart to get us
home, and to-day we are down in the cellar again, shells flying as thick
as ever. Provisions are so nearly gone, except the hogshead of sugar, that
a few more days will bring us to starvation indeed. Martha says rats are
hanging dressed in the market for sale with mule meat,--there is nothing
else. The officer at the battery told me he had eaten one yesterday. We
have tried to leave this Tophet and failed, and if the siege continues I
must summon that higher kind of courage--moral bravery--to subdue my fears
of possible mutilation.