Grant's new plan at Vicksburg--Running the Vicksburg batteries--An
hour and a half of horror--The batteries are passed--The most
important event in the war.
The attempt on Vicksburg was not to be given up. In the spring of 1863
the whole army moved down the Mississippi to begin one of the most noted
campaigns of history.
A real sane notion had gotten hold of Grant, and of scarcely anyone
else. That notion was, if possible, to get across the Mississippi
_below_ the town (Sherman had failed trying it above) and throw the
whole army on to the fortifications at the rear. If the town's defenders
should be bold and come out and fight us, so much the better. We wanted
that.
Soon General Grant built long stretches of wagon roads and corduroy
bridges that ran snakelike for forty miles among the black swamps,
cane-brakes, and lagoons on the west bank of the Mississippi River. He
then marched half his army down these roads to a point below Vicksburg,
below Grand Gulf, and bivouacked them on the shore of the river. The
other half, of which my regiment was a part, remained near the river
above the city. Possibly we were twenty-five thousand men there.
One night these twenty-five thousand bivouacked along the levees of the
great river were all in great excitement. "Coming events were casting
their shadows before."
It must have been some great event was about to happen that April night
of 1863, for the Assistant Secretary of War was there, and General Grant
and General Sherman were there, waiting and watching in the greatest
suspense. What was going to happen? Some one hundred and fifty private
soldiers were going to perform a deed that should help make American
history. The success of a whole army and the capture of the best
fortified city on the American continent depended on the heroism of this
handful of private soldiers on this April night. No wonder the
government at Washington sat by the telegraph and anxiously awaited
every scrap of news sent from Grant's army before Vicksburg. He was to
open the Mississippi River. That very day, almost, the government at
Washington sent a letter urging General Grant to hurry. "In my opinion,"
telegraphed General Halleck for the President, "_this is the most
important operation of the war. To open the Mississippi River would be
better than the capture of forty Richmonds._"
General Grant realized the mighty things he had at stake.
But what availed it to collect his soldiers there? In front of him, in
high flood, swept the mightiest river on the continent; he had not a
boat to cross with, and the enemy laughed and dared him from the other
side. His fleet of steamboats was forty miles and more up the river, and
between him and that fleet were four miles of hostile batteries strong
enough to blow a fleet to pieces. In fact, every hill, hollow, and
secret place above and below the city hid a dozen cannon. All the way
from Vicksburg down to Warrentown was a fort.
What could be done? Without some steamers on which to cross, the game
was blocked, and Vicksburg, strong as Sebastopol itself, might stand
there forever and the Mississippi River be blockaded to the end of the
war. Two or three of Grant's ironclad gunboats had run past these awful
batteries one night, their sides banged to pieces and their iron mail
scooped up as if it had been made of putty. One of them was sunk. But
these iron tubs could not serve as ferryboats for forty thousand men.
Then, the scheme was proposed to cover some of the wooden steamboats
with cotton bales and on a dark night try and rush them past the
batteries. The boat captains, however, would not risk it with their own
crews, even had they as a rule been willing, and so the commands of the
army asked for _volunteers_ from the private soldiers. Desperate as the
undertaking seemed, one hundred and fifty Union soldiers stepped forward
and offered to run these steamboats past the guns. The writer was one of
these volunteers. But too many had offered to take the risk. The
required number was selected by lot, and the most I could do that
historic night was to stand on the river levee in the dark and watch my
comrades perform one of the most heroic acts of any war. It was hardly a
secret. The whole army was excited over the desperate proposal. The
enemy must have heard of it, and been doubly prepared to destroy us. "If
Grant's attempt prove successful he can destroy the whole Confederate
army, take Vicksburg, and open the Mississippi River." No wonder the
Washington officials sat by the telegraph day and night just then
awaiting great news.
The moon was down by ten o'clock of the night of April 16. Under the
starlight one hardly saw the dark river or the cane-brakes, swamps, and
lagoons along its border. The whole Northern fleet lay anchored in
silence. Grant's army too, down below, was silent and waiting. A few
miles below us lay Vicksburg, dark, sullen, and sleeping. Not a gun was
being fired. A few lonesome Confederate river guards floated above the
town in rowboats watching to give the alarm at the approach of any foe
on the water.
Three mysterious looking Northern steamboats, with crews of volunteer
soldiers on board, lay out in the middle of the Mississippi River in
front of Milliken's Bend, a dozen miles above Vicksburg. Down in the
dark hold of each vessel stand a dozen determined men. They have boards,
and pressed cotton, and piles of gunny sacks beside them there, to stop
up holes that shall be made pretty soon by the cannon of the enemy. They
have none of war's noise and excitement to keep them up--only its
suspense. They are helpless. If anything happens they will go to the
bottom of the river without a word. Above the decks the pilot-houses are
taken off and the pilot wheels are down by the bows, and the pilot will
stand there wholly exposed. Lashed to the sides of each of the three
little steamers are barges piled up with bales of hay and cotton. They
look like floating breastworks. Anchored still a little further down the
stream seven gunboats also wait in silence. They will lead these
steamboats and try the batteries first. The boats must all move two
hundred yards apart. That is the order.
All is suspense. For a little while the night grows darker and more
silent; the moon now is down. The thousands of soldiers standing on the
levee waiting, and watching to see them start, almost hold their
breath. At the boats there is no noise save the gurgling of the water as
it grinds past the hulls of the anchored vessels. That is all the noise
the men waiting down in the dimly lighted hulls can hear. On a little
tug, near by, General Grant, the commander of the Western armies, waits
and listens. The Assistant Secretary of War is at his side. In a yawl,
farther down the stream, General Sherman ventures far out on the dark
river to watch events. All is ready, all is suspense. Just then a
lantern on the levee is moved slowly up and down. It is the signal to
start. Down in Vicksburg the unexpectant enemy sleeps. Their guards out
on the river, too, almost sleep; all is so safe. Quietly we lift anchors
and float off with the current. Our wheels are not moving. There is a
great bend in the river, and as we round it the river guard wakened,
sends up a rocket, other rockets too go up all along the eastern or
Vicksburg shore. That instant, too, a gun is fired from a neighboring
bluff. We are discovered. "Put on all steam," calls the captain, and our
boats move swiftly into the maelstrom of sulphur and iron, for the enemy
opens fire vigorously. The enemy sets houses on fire all along the levee
to illuminate the river, bonfires are lighted everywhere, and suddenly
the whole night seems but one terrific roar of cannon. The burning
houses make the river almost as light as day. We see the people in the
streets of the town running and gesticulating as if all were mad; their
men at the batteries load and fire and yell as if every shot sunk a
steamboat. On the west side of the river the lagoons and cane-brakes
look weird and dangerous. The sky above is black, lighted only by sparks
from the burning houses. Down on the river it is a sheet of flame. One
of the steamers and a few of the barges have caught fire and are burning
up, the men escaping in life-boats and by swimming to the western shore.
The excitement of the moment is maddening, the heavy fire appalling,
while the musketry on the shore barks and bites at the unprotected
pilots on the boats. Ten-inch cannon and great columbiads hurl their
shot and shell into the cotton breastworks of the barges or through the
rigging of the steamers. The gunboats tremble from the impact of shot
against their sides, and at times the little steamers are caught in the
powerful eddies of the river and are whirled three times around right in
front of the hot firing batteries.
_Five hundred and twenty-five shells and cannonballs are hurled at the
hurrying fleet._ The flash of the guns, the light of the blazing houses,
make the night seem a horrible tempest of lightning and thunder.
Sherman, sitting out there alone in his yawl on the dark river, has
witnessed awful spectacles, but this is the sight of a lifetime. "It
was," he exclaimed, "_a picture of the terrible not often seen_." And
amid all this roar and thunder and lightning and crash of cannonballs
above, the men down in the holds of the boats--they are the real
heroes--stand in the dim candle-light waiting, helpless, ignorant of
events, and in terrible suspense, while sounds like the crash of worlds
go on above their heads. Once some of them climb up to the hatchways and
look out into the night. One look is enough! What a sight! The whole
Mississippi River seems on fire, the roar of the gunboats answering the
howling cannon on the shore, the terrific lightnings from the batteries,
the screeching shells above the decks. It was as if hell itself were
loose that night on the Mississippi River. For one hour and thirty
minutes the brave men stood speechless in the holds of the boats while
hell's hurricane went on above. They lived an age in that hour and a
half, and yet a thousand of us in Grant's army tried to volunteer that
we, too, might have this awful experience.
Daylight saw the little fleet safe below Vicksburg, where thousands of
soldiers welcomed it with cheers. No such deed had ever been done in the
world before. Only one boat and some barges were lost, and only a few
of the soldiers were hurt. The cotton bales had proved a miracle of
defense. In a week still other steamers, though with greater loss,
passed the batteries.
We know the rest. On these same boats Grant's army would ferry across
the Mississippi, and there on the other side fight five battles and win
them all. Vicksburg will be surrounded and assaulted and pounded and its
soldiers starved, till, on the nation's birthday, thirty thousand of its
brave defenders will lay down their arms forever.