On the banks of this, the greatest river in the world, the most
decisive and far-reaching battle of the war was fought. Here at
Vicksburg over one hundred thousand gallant soldiers and a powerful
fleet of gunboats and ironclads in terrible earnestness for forty days
and nights fought to decide whether the new Confederate States should
be cut in twain; whether the great river should flow free to the Gulf,
or should have its commerce hindered. We all know the result--the
Union army under General Grant, and the Union navy under Admiral
Porter were victorious. The Confederate army, under General Pemberton,
numbering thirty thousand men, was captured and General Grant's army
set free for operating in other fields. It was a staggering blow from
which the Confederacy never rallied.--_Lieutenant-General Stephen D.
Lee, C. S. A., at the dedication of the Massachusetts Volunteers'
statue at the Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg,
Mississippi, November 14, 1903._
The Mississippi River, in its lower course, winds like a mighty serpent
from side to side along a vast alluvial bottom, which in places is more
than forty miles in width. On the eastern bank, these great coils here and
there sweep up to the bluffs of the highlands of Tennessee and
Mississippi. On these cliffs are situated Memphis, Port Hudson, Grand
Gulf, and Vicksburg. The most important of these from a military point of
view was Vicksburg, often called the "Gibraltar of the West." Situated two
hundred feet above the current, on a great bend of the river, its cannon
could command the waterway for miles in either direction, while the
obstacles in the way of a land approach were almost equally
insurmountable.
The Union arms had captured New Orleans, in the spring of 1862, and
Memphis in June of that year; but the Confederates still held Vicksburg
and Port Hudson and the two hundred and fifty miles of river that lies
between them. The military object of the Federal armies in the West was
to gain control of the entire course of the great Mississippi that it
might "roll unvexed to the sea," to use Lincoln's terse expression, and
that the rich States of the Southwest, from which the Confederacy drew
large supplies and thousands of men for her armies, might be cut off from
the rest of the South. If Vicksburg were captured, Port Hudson must fall.
The problem, therefore, was how to get control of Vicksburg.
On the promotion of Halleck to the command of all the armies of the North,
with headquarters at Washington, Grant was left in superior command in the
West and the great task before him was the capture of the "Gibraltar of
the West." Vicksburg might have been occupied by the Northern armies at
any time during the first half of the year 1862, but in June of that year
General Bragg sent Van Dorn with a force of fifteen thousand to occupy and
fortify the heights. Van Dorn was a man of prodigious energy. In a short
time he had hundreds of men at work planting batteries, digging rifle-pits
above the water front and in the rear of the town, mounting heavy guns and
building bomb-proof magazines in tiers along the hillsides. All through
the summer, the work progressed under the direction of Engineer S. H.
Lockett, and by the coming of winter the city was a veritable Gibraltar.
From the uncompleted batteries on the Vicksburg bluffs, the citizens and
the garrison soldiers viewed the advance division of Farragut's fleet,
under Commander Lee, in the river, on May 18, 1862. Fifteen hundred
infantry were on board, under command of General Thomas Williams, and with
them was a battery of artillery. Williams reconnoitered the works, and
finding them too strong for his small force he returned to occupy Baton
Rouge. The authorities at Washington now sent Farragut peremptory orders
to clear the Mississippi and accordingly about the middle of June, a
flotilla of steamers and seventeen mortar schooners, under Commander D. D.
Porter, departed from New Orleans and steamed up the river.
Simultaneously Farragut headed a fleet of three war vessels and seven
gunboats, carrying one hundred and six guns, toward Vicksburg from Baton
Rouge. Many transports accompanied the ships from Baton Rouge, on which
there were three thousand of Williams' troops.
The last days of June witnessed the arrival of the combined naval forces
of Farragut and Porter below the Confederate stronghold. Williams
immediately disembarked his men on the Louisiana shore, opposite
Vicksburg, and they were burdened with implements required in digging
trenches and building levees.
The mighty Mississippi, at this point and in those days, swept in a
majestic bend and formed a peninsula of the western, or Louisiana shore.
Vicksburg was situated on the eastern, or Mississippi shore, below the top
of the bend. Its batteries of cannon commanded the river approach for
miles in either direction. Federal engineers quickly recognized the
strategic position of the citadel on the bluff; and also as quickly saw a
method by which the passage up and down the river could be made
comparatively safe for their vessels, and at the same time place Vicksburg
"high and dry" by cutting a channel for the Mississippi through the neck
of land that now held it in its sinuous course.
While Farragut stormed the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, Williams
began the tremendous task of diverting the mighty current across the
peninsula. Farragut's bombardment by his entire fleet failed to silence
Vicksburg's cannon-guards, although the defenders likewise failed to stop
the progress of the fleet. The Federal naval commander then determined to
dash past the fortifications, trusting to the speed of his vessels and the
stoutness of their armor to survive the tremendous cannonade that would
fall upon his flotilla. Early in the morning of June 28th the thrilling
race against death began, and after two hours of terrific bombardment
aided by the mortar boats stationed on both banks, Farragut's fleet with
the exception of three vessels passed through the raging inferno to the
waters above Vicksburg, with a loss of fifteen killed and thirty wounded.
On the 1st of July Flag-Officer Davis with his river gunboats arrived from
Memphis and joined Farragut.
Williams and his men, including one thousand negroes, labored like Titans
to complete their canal, but a sudden rise of the river swept away the
barriers with a terrific roar, and the days of herculean labor went for
naught. Again Williams' attempt to subdue the stronghold was abandoned,
and he returned with his men when Farragut did, on July 24th, to Baton
Rouge to meet death there on August 5th when General Breckinridge made a
desperate but unsuccessful attempt to drive the Union forces from the
Louisiana capital.
Farragut urged upon General Halleck the importance of occupying the city
on the bluff with a portion of his army; but that general gave no heed;
and while even then it was too late to secure the prize without a contest,
it would have been easy in comparison to that which it required a year
later.
In the mean time, the river steamers took an important part in the
preliminary operations against the city. Davis remained at Memphis with
his fleet for about three weeks after the occupation of that city on the
6th of June, meanwhile sending four gunboats and a transport up the White
River, with the Forty-sixth Indiana regiment, under Colonel Fitch. The
object of the expedition, undertaken at Halleck's command, was to destroy
Confederate batteries and to open communication with General Curtis, who
was approaching from the west. It failed in the latter purpose but did
some effective work with the Southern batteries along the way.
The one extraordinary incident of the expedition was the disabling of the
_Mound City_, one of the ironclad gunboats, and the great loss of life
that it occasioned. When near St. Charles the troops under Fitch were
landed, and the _Mound City_ moving up the river, was fired on by
concealed batteries under the direction of Lieutenant Dunnington. A
32-pound shot struck the vessel, crashed through the side and passed
through the steam-drum. The steam filled the vessel in an instant. Many of
the men were so quickly enveloped in the scalding vapor that they had no
chance to escape. Others leaped overboard, some being drowned and some
rescued through the efforts of the _Conestoga_ which was lying near. While
straining every nerve to save their lives, the men had to endure a shower
of bullets from Confederate sharpshooters on the river banks. Of the one
hundred and seventy-five officers and men of the _Mound City_ only
twenty-five escaped death or injury in that fearful catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Colonel Fitch with his land forces rushed upon the Confederate
batteries and captured them. The unfortunate vessel was at length repaired
and returned to service.
For some time it had been known in Federal military and naval circles that
a powerful ironclad similar to the famous _Monitor_ of Eastern waters was
being rushed to completion up the Yazoo. The new vessel was the
_Arkansas_. On July 15th, she steamed through the Union fleet, bravely
exchanging broadsides, and lodged safely under the guns of Vicksburg. That
evening the Federal boats in turn ran past the doughty _Arkansas_, but
failed to destroy her.
The month of July had not been favorable to the Federal hopes. Farragut
had returned to New Orleans. General Williams had gone with him as far as
Baton Rouge. Davis now went with his fleet back to Helena. Halleck was
succeeded by Grant. Vicksburg entered upon a period of quiet.
But this condition was temporary. The city's experience of blood and fire
had only begun. During the summer and autumn of 1862, the one thought
uppermost in the mind of General Grant was how to gain possession of the
stronghold. He was already becoming known for his bull-dog tenacity. In
the autumn, two important changes took place, but one day apart. On
October 14th, General John C. Pemberton succeeded Van Dorn in command of
the defenses of Vicksburg, and on the next day David D. Porter succeeded
Davis as commander of the Federal fleet on the upper Mississippi.
So arduous was the task of taking Vicksburg that the wits of General
Grant, and those of his chief adviser, General W. T. Sherman, were put to
the test in the last degree to accomplish the end. Grant knew that the
capture of this fortified city was of great importance to the Federal
cause, and that it would ever be looked upon as one of the chief acts in
the drama of the Civil War.
The first plan attempted was to divide the army, Sherman taking part of it
from Memphis and down the Mississippi on transports, while Grant should
move southward along the line of the Mississippi Central Railroad to
cooperate with Sherman, his movements to be governed by the efforts of the
scattered Confederate forces in Mississippi to block him. But the whole
plan was destined to failure, through the energies of General Van Dorn and
others of the Confederate army near Grant's line of communication.
The authorities at Washington preferred the river move upon Vicksburg, as
the navy could keep the line of communication open. The stronghold now
stood within a strong line of defense extending from Haynes' Bluff on the
Yazoo to Grand Gulf on the Mississippi, thirty miles below Vicksburg. To
prepare for Sherman's attack across the swamps of the Yazoo, Admiral
Porter made several expeditions up that tortuous stream to silence
batteries and remove torpedoes. In one of these he lost one of the Eads
ironclads, the _Cairo_, blown up by a torpedo, and in another the brave
Commander Gwin, one of the heroes of Shiloh, was mortally wounded.
Sherman, with an army of thirty-two thousand men, left Memphis on December
20th, and landed a few days later some miles north of Vicksburg on the
banks of the Yazoo. On the 29th he made a daring attack in three columns
on the Confederate lines of defense at Chickasaw Bayou and suffered a
decisive repulse. His loss was nearly two thousand men; the Confederate
loss was scarcely two hundred.
Two hundred feet above the bayou, beyond where the Federals were
approaching, towered the Chickasaw Bluffs, to which Pemberton hastened
troops from Vicksburg as soon as he learned Sherman's object. At the base
of the bluff, and stretching away to the north and west were swamps and
forests intersected by deep sloughs, overhung with dense tangles of vines
and cane-brakes. Federal valor vied with Confederate pluck in this fight
among the marshes and fever-infested jungle-land.
One of Sherman's storming parties, under General G. W. Morgan, came upon a
broad and deep enlargement of the bayou, McNutt Lake, which interposed
between it and the Confederates in the rifle-pits on the slopes and crest
of the bluff. In the darkness of the night of December 28th, the Federal
pontoniers labored to construct a passage-way across the lake. When
morning dawned the weary pontoniers were chagrined to discover their
well-built structure spanning a slough leading in another direction than
toward the base of the bluff. The bridge was quickly taken up, and the
Federals recommenced their labors, this time in daylight and within sight
and range of the Southern regiments on the hill. The men in blue worked
desperately to complete the span before driven away by the foe's cannon;
but the fire increased with every minute, and the Federals finally
withdrew.
Another storming party attempted to assail the Confederates from across a
sandbar of the bayou, but was halted at the sight and prospect of
overcoming a fifteen-foot bank on the farther side. The crumbling bank was
surmounted with a levee three feet high; the steep sides of the barrier
had crumbled away, leaving an overhanging shelf, two feet wide. Two
companies of the Sixth Missouri regiment volunteered to cross the two
hundred yards of exposed passage, and to cut a roadway through the rotten
bank to allow their comrades a free path to the bluff beyond. To add to
the peril of the crossing, the sandbar was strewn with tangles of
undergrowth and fallen trees, and the Confederate shells and bullets were
raining upon the ground. Still, the gallant troops began their dash. From
the very start, a line of wounded and dead Missourians marked the passage
of the volunteers. The survivors reached the bank and desperately sought
to dig the roadway. From the shrubbery on the bank suddenly appeared
Confederate sharpshooters who poured their fire into the laboring
soldiers; the flame of the discharging muskets burned the clothing of the
Federals because the hostile forces were so close. Human endurance could
not stand before this carnage, and the brave Missourians fled from the
inferno. Sherman now found the northern pathway to Vicksburg impassable,
and withdrew his men to the broad Mississippi.
Earlier in the same month had occurred two other events which, with the
defeat of Chickasaw, go to make up the triple disaster to the Federals. On
the 11th, General Nathan Forrest, one of the most brilliant cavalry
leaders on either side, began one of those destructive raids which
characterize the Civil War. With twenty-five hundred horsemen, Forrest
dashed unopposed through the country north of Grant's army, tore up sixty
miles of railroad and destroyed all telegraph lines.
Meantime, on December 20th, the day on which Sherman left Memphis, General
Van Dorn pounced upon Holly Springs, in Mississippi, like an eagle on its
prey, capturing the guard of fifteen hundred men and burning the great
store of supplies, worth $1,500,000, which Grant had left there. Through
the raids of Forrest and Van Dorn, Grant was left without supplies and for
eleven days without communication with the outside world. He marched
northward to Grand Junction, in Tennessee, a distance of eighty miles,
living off the country. It was not until January 8, 1863, that he heard,
through Washington, of the defeat of Sherman in his assault on Chickasaw
Bluffs.
Grant and Sherman had no thought of abandoning Vicksburg because of this
failure. But a month of unfortunate military dissension over rank in the
command of Sherman's army resulted in General John A. McClernand, armed
with authority from Washington, coming down from Illinois and superseding
Sherman. On January 11, 1864, he captured Arkansas Post, a stronghold on
the Arkansas River. But Grant, having authority to supersede McClernand in
the general proceedings against Vicksburg, did so, on January 30th, and
arguments on military precedence were forgotten.
Grant was determined to lead his Army of the Tennessee below Vicksburg and
approach the city from the south, without breaking with his base of
supplies up the river. Two projects, both of which were destined to fail,
were under way during the winter and spring months of 1863. One of these
was to open a way for the river craft through Lake Providence, west of the
Mississippi, through various bayous and rivers into the Red River, a
detour of four hundred miles.
Another plan was to cut a channel through the peninsula of the great bend
of the Mississippi, opposite Vicksburg. For six weeks, thousands of men
worked like marmots digging this ditch; but, meantime, the river was
rising and, on March 8th, it broke over the embankment and the men had to
run for their lives. Many horses were drowned and a great number of
implements submerged. The "Father of Waters" had put a decisive veto on
the project and it had to be given up. Still another plan that failed was
to cut through the Yazoo Pass and approach from the north by way of the
Coldwater, the Tallahatchie, and the Yazoo rivers.
Failure with Grant only increased his grim determination. He _would_ take
Vicksburg. His next plan was destined to bring success. It was to transfer
his army by land down the west bank of the Mississippi to a point below
the city and approach it from the south and west. This necessitated the
running of the batteries by Porter's fleet--an extremely perilous
enterprise. The army was divided into four corps, commanded respectively
by Sherman, McClernand, McPherson, and Hurlbut. The latter was stationed
at Memphis. On March 29th, the movement of McClernand from Milliken's Bend
to a point opposite Grand Gulf was begun. He was soon followed by
McPherson and a few weeks later by Sherman. It required a month for the
army, with its heavy artillery, to journey through the swamps and bogs of
Louisiana.
While this march was in progress, something far more exciting was taking
place on the river. Porter ran the batteries of Vicksburg with his fleet.
After days of preparation the fleet of vessels, protected by cotton bales
and hay about the vital parts of the boats, with heavy logs slung near the
water-line--seven gunboats, the ram _General Price_, three transports, and
various barges were ready for the dangerous journey on the night of April
16th. Silently in the darkness, they left their station near the mouth of
the Yazoo, at a quarter past nine. For an hour and a half all was silence
and expectancy. The bluffs on the east loomed black against the night sky.
Suddenly, the flash of musketry fire pierced the darkness.
In a few minutes every battery overlooking the river was a center of
spurting flame. A storm of shot and shell was rained upon the passing
vessels. Not one escaped being struck many times. The water of the river
was lashed into foam by the shots and shell from the batteries. The
gunboats answered with their cannon. The air was filled with flying
missiles. Several houses on the Louisiana shore burst into flame and the
whole river from shore to shore was lighted with vivid distinctness. A
little later, a giant flame leaped from the bosom of the river. A vessel
had caught fire. It was the transport _Henry Clay_. It burned to the
water's edge, nearly all its crew escaping to other vessels. Grant
described the scene as "magnificent, but terrible"; Sherman pronounced it
"truly sublime."
By three in the morning, the fleet was below the city and ready to
cooperate with the army. One vessel had been destroyed, several others
were crippled; thirteen men had been wounded, but Grant had the assistance
he needed. About a week later, six more transports performed the same feat
and ran the batteries; each had two barges laden with forage and rations
in tow.
Grant's next move was to transfer the army across the river and to secure
a base of supplies. There, on the bluff, was Grand Gulf, a tempting spot.
But the Confederate guns showed menacingly over the brow of the hill.
After a fruitless bombardment by the fleet on April 29th, it was decided
that a more practical place to cross the river must be sought below.
Meanwhile, Sherman was ordered by his chief to advance upon the formidable
Haynes' Bluff, on the Yazoo River, some miles above the scene of his
repulse in the preceding December. The message had said, "Make a
demonstration on Haynes' Bluff, and make all the _show_ possible."
Sherman's transports, and three of Porter's gunboats, were closely
followed by the Confederate soldiers who had been stationed at the series
of defenses on the range of hills, and when they arrived at Snyder's Mill,
just below Haynes' Bluff, on April 30th, General Hébert and several
Louisiana regiments were awaiting them. On that day and the next the
Confederates fiercely engaged the Union fleet and troops, and on May 2d
Sherman withdrew his forces to the western bank of the Mississippi and
hastened to Grant. The feint had been most successful. The Confederates
had been prevented from sending reënforcements to Grand Gulf, and Grant's
crossing was greatly facilitated.
The fleet passed the batteries of Grand Gulf and stopped at Bruinsburg,
six miles below. A landing was soon made, the army taken across on April
30th, and a march to Port Gibson, twelve miles inland, was begun. General
Bowen, Confederate commander at Grand Gulf, came out and offered battle.
He was greatly outnumbered, but his troops fought gallantly throughout
most of the day, May 1st, before yielding the field. Port Gibson was then
occupied by the Union army, and Grand Gulf, no longer tenable, was
abandoned by the Confederates.
Grant now prepared for a campaign into the interior of Mississippi. His
first intention was to cooperate with General Banks in the capture of Port
Hudson, after which they would move together upon Vicksburg. But hearing
that Banks would not arrive for ten days, Grant decided that he would
proceed to the task before him without delay. His army at that time
numbered about forty-three thousand. That under Pemberton probably forty
thousand, while there were fifteen thousand Confederate troops at Jackson,
Mississippi, soon to be commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston, who was
hastening to that capital.
The Federal leader now determined on the bold plan of making a dash into
the interior of Mississippi, beating Johnston and turning on Pemberton
before their forces could be joined. This campaign is pronounced the most
brilliant in the Civil War. It was truly Napoleonic in conception and
execution. Grant knew that his base of supplies at Grand Gulf would be cut
off by Pemberton as soon as he moved away from it. He decided, therefore,
against the advice of his generals, to abandon his base altogether.
A more daring undertaking could scarcely be imagined. With a few days'
rations in their haversacks the troops were to make a dash that would
possibly take several weeks into the heart of a hostile country. This was
certainly defying fate. When General Halleck heard of Grant's daring
scheme he wired the latter from Washington, ordering him to move his army
down the river and cooperate with Banks. Fortunately, this order was
received too late to interfere with Grant's plans.
As soon as Sherman's divisions joined the main army the march was begun,
on May 7th. An advance of this character must be made with the greatest
celerity and Grant's army showed amazing speed. McPherson, who commanded
the right wing, proceeded toward Jackson by way of Raymond and at the
latter place encountered five thousand Confederates, on May 12th, who
blocked his way and were prepared for fight. The battle of Raymond lasted
two hours. McPherson was completely successful and the Confederates
hastened to join their comrades in Jackson.
McPherson lost no time. He moved on toward Jackson, and as the last of his
command left Raymond the advance of Sherman's corps reached it. That
night, May 13th, Grant ordered McPherson and Sherman to march upon Jackson
next morning by different roads, while McClernand was held in the rear
near enough to reënforce either in case of need. The rain fell in torrents
that night and, as Grant reported, in places the water was a foot deep in
the road. But nothing could daunt his determined army. At eleven o'clock
in the morning of the 14th, a concerted attack was made on the capital of
Mississippi. A few hours' brisk fighting concluded this act of the drama,
and the Stars and Stripes were unfurled on the State capitol. Among the
spoils were seventeen heavy guns. That night, Grant slept in the house
which Johnston had occupied the night before.
Meantime, Johnston had ordered Pemberton to detain Grant by attacking him
in the rear. But Pemberton considered it more advisable to move toward
Grand Gulf to separate Grant from his base of supplies, not knowing that
Grant had abandoned his base. And now, with Johnston's army scattered,
Grant left Sherman to burn bridges and military factories, and to tear up
the railroads about Jackson while he turned fiercely on Pemberton.
McPherson's corps took the lead. Grant called on McClernand to follow
without delay. Then, hearing that Pemberton was marching toward him, he
called on Sherman to hasten from Jackson. At Champion's Hill (Baker's
Creek) Pemberton stood in the way, with eighteen thousand men.
The battle was soon in progress--the heaviest of the campaign. It
continued for seven or eight hours. The Confederates were defeated with a
loss of nearly all their artillery and about half their force, including
four thousand men who were cut off from the main army and failed to rejoin
it. On the banks of the Big Black River, a few miles westward, the
Confederates made another stand, and here the fifth battle of the
investment of Vicksburg took place. It was short, sharp, decisive. The
Confederates suffered heavy losses and the remainder hastened to the
defenses of Vicksburg. They had set fire to the bridge across the Big
Black, and Grant's army was detained for a day--until the Confederates
were safely lodged in the city.
The Federal army now invested Vicksburg, occupying the surrounding hills.
It was May 18th when the remarkable campaign to reach Vicksburg came to an
end. In eighteen days, the army had marched one hundred and eighty miles
through a hostile country, fought and won five battles, captured a State
capital, had taken twenty-seven heavy cannon and sixty field-pieces, and
had slain or wounded six thousand men and captured as many more. As Grant
and Sherman rode out on the hill north of the city, the latter broke into
enthusiastic admiration of his chief, declaring that up to that moment he
had felt no assurance of success, and pronouncing the campaign one of the
greatest in history.
The great problem of investing Vicksburg was solved at last. Around the
doomed city gleamed the thousands of bayonets of the Union army. The
inhabitants and the army that had fled to it as a city of refuge were
penned in. But the Confederacy was not to yield without a stubborn
resistance. On May 19th, an advance was made on the works and the
besieging lines drew nearer and tightened their coils. Three days later,
on May 22nd, Grant ordered a grand assault by his whole army. The troops,
flushed with their victories of the past three weeks, were eager for the
attack. All the corps commanders set their watches by Grant's in order to
begin the assault at all points at the same moment--ten o'clock in the
morning. At the appointed time, the cannon from the encircling lines burst
forth in a deafening roar. Then came the answering thunders from the
mortar-boats on the Louisiana shore and from the gunboats anchored beneath
the bluff. The gunboats' fire was answered from within the bastions
protecting the city. The opening of the heavy guns on the land side was
followed by the sharper crackle of musketry--thousands of shots,
indistinguishable in a continuous roll.
The men in the Federal lines leaped from their hiding places and ran to
the parapets in the face of a murderous fire from the defenders of the
city, only to be mowed down by hundreds. Others came, crawling over the
bodies of their fallen comrades--now and then they planted their colors on
the battlements of the besieged city, to be cut down by the galling
Confederate fire. Thus it continued hour after hour, until the coming of
darkness. The assault had failed. The Union loss was about three thousand
brave men; the Confederate loss was probably not much over five hundred.
Grant had made a fearful sacrifice; he was paying a high price but he had
a reason for so doing--Johnston with a reënforcing army was threatening
him in the rear; by taking Vicksburg at this time he could have turned on
Johnston, and could have saved the Government sending any more Federal
troops; and, to use his own words, it was needed because the men "would
not have worked in the trenches with the same zeal, believing it
unnecessary, as they did after their failure, to carry the enemy's works."
On the north side of the city overlooking the river, were the powerful
batteries on Fort Hill, a deadly menace to the Federal troops, and Grant
and Sherman believed that if enfiladed by the gunboats this position could
be carried. At their request Admiral Porter sent the _Cincinnati_ on May
27th to engage the Confederate guns, while four vessels below the town did
the same to the lower defenses. In half an hour five of the
_Cincinnati's_ guns were disabled; and she was in a sinking condition. She
was run toward the shore and sank in three fathoms of water.
The army now settled down to a wearisome siege. For six weeks, they
encircled the city with trenches, approaching nearer and nearer to the
defending walls; they exploded mines; they shot at every head that
appeared above the parapets. One by one the defending batteries were
silenced. The sappers slowly worked their way toward the Confederate
ramparts. Miners were busy on both sides burrowing beneath the
fortifications. At three o'clock on the afternoon of June 25th a redoubt
in the Confederate works was blown into the air, breaking into millions of
fragments and disclosing guns, men, and timber. With the mine explosion,
the Federal soldiers before the redoubt began to dash into the opening,
only to meet with a withering fire from an interior parapet which the
Confederates had constructed in anticipation of this event. The carnage
was appalling to behold; and when the soldiers of the Union finally
retired they had learned a costly lesson which withheld them from attack
when another mine was exploded on July 1st.
Meantime, let us take a view of the river below and the life of the people
within the doomed city. Far down the river, two hundred and fifty miles
from Vicksburg, was Port Hudson. The place was fortified and held by a
Confederate force under General Gardner. Like Vicksburg, it was besieged
by a Federal army, under Nathaniel P. Banks, of Cedar Mountain fame. On
May 27th, he made a desperate attack on the works and was powerfully aided
by Farragut with his fleet in the river. But aside from dismounting a few
guns and weakening the foe at a still heavier cost to their own ranks, the
Federals were unsuccessful. Again, on June 10th, and still again on the
14th, Banks made fruitless attempts to carry Port Hudson by storm. He
then, like Grant at Vicksburg, settled down to a siege. The defenders of
Port Hudson proved their courage by enduring every hardship.
At Vicksburg, during the whole six weeks of the siege, the men in the
trenches worked steadily, advancing the coils about the city. Grant
received reënforcement and before the end of the siege his army numbered
over seventy thousand. Day and night, the roar of artillery continued.
From the mortars across the river and from Porter's fleet the shrieking
shells rose in grand parabolic curves, bursting in midair or in the
streets of the city, spreading havoc in all directions. The people of the
city burrowed into the ground for safety. Many whole families lived in
these dismal abodes, their walls of clay being shaken by the roaring
battles that raged above the ground. In one of these dens, sixty-five
people found a home. The food supply ran low, and day by day it became
scarcer. At last, by the end of June, there was nothing to eat except mule
meat and a kind of bread made of beans and corn meal.
It was ten o'clock in the morning of July 3d. White flags were seen above
the parapet. The firing ceased. A strange quietness rested over the scene
of the long bombardment. On the afternoon of that day, the one, too, on
which was heard the last shot on the battlefield of Gettysburg, Grant and
Pemberton stood beneath an oak tree, in front of McPherson's corps, and
opened negotiations for the capitulation. On the following morning, the
Nation's birthday, about thirty thousand soldiers laid down their arms as
prisoners of war and were released on parole. The losses from May 1st to
the surrender were about ten thousand on each side.
Three days later, at Port Hudson, a tremendous cheer arose from the
besieging army. The Confederates within the defenses were at a loss to
know the cause. Then some one shouted the news, "Vicksburg has
surrendered!"
The end had come. Port Hudson could not hope to stand alone; the greater
fortress had fallen. Two days later, July 9th, the gallant garrison, worn
and weary with the long siege, surrendered to General Banks. The whole
course of the mighty Mississippi was now under the Stars and Stripes.
[Illustration: BEFORE VICKSBURG]
The close-set mouth, squared shoulders and lowering brow in this
photograph of Grant, taken in December, 1862, tell the story of the
intensity of his purpose while he was advancing upon Vicksburg--only to be
foiled by Van Dorn's raid on his line of communications at Holly Springs.
His grim expression and determined jaw betokened no respite for the
Confederates, however. Six months later he marched into the coveted
stronghold. This photograph was taken by James Mullen at Oxford,
Mississippi, in December, 1862, just before Van Dorn's raid balked the
general's plans.
[Illustration: AFTER VICKSBURG]
This photograph was taken in the fall of 1863, after the capture of the
Confederacy's Gibraltar had raised Grant to secure and everlasting fame.
His attitude is relaxed and his eyebrows no longer mark a straight line
across the grim visage. The right brow is slightly arched with an almost
jovial expression. But the jaw is no less vigorous and determined, and the
steadfast eyes seem to be peering into that future which holds more
victories. He still has Chattanooga and his great campaigns in the East to
fight and the final magnificent struggle in the trenches at Petersburg.
[Illustration: WHERE GRANT'S CAMPAIGN WAS HALTED