Logan's Division undermining the most formidable redoubt in the defenses
of Vicksburg. The position was immediately in front of this honeycombed
slope on the Jackson road. Upon these troops fell most of the labor of
sapping and mining, which finally resulted in the wrecking of the fort so
gallantly defended by the veterans of the Third Louisiana. As the Federal
lines crept up, the men working night and day were forced to live in
burrows. They became proficient in such gopher work as the picture shows.
Up to the "White House" (Shirley's) the troops could be marched in
comparative safety, but a short distance beyond they were exposed to the
Confederate sharpshooters, who had only rifles and muskets to depend on;
their artillery had long since been silenced. Near this house was
constructed "Coonskin's" Tower; it was built of railway iron and
cross-ties under the direction of Second Lieutenant Henry C. Foster, of
Company B, Twenty-third Indiana. A backwoodsman and dead-shot, he was
particularly active in paying the Confederate sharpshooters in their own
coin. He habitually wore a cap of raccoon fur, which gave him his nickname
and christened the tower, from which the interior of the Confederate works
could be seen.
[Illustration: THE FIRST MONUMENT AT THE MEETING PLACE]
Independence Day, 1863, was a memorable anniversary of the nation's birth;
it brought to the anxious North the momentous news that Meade had won at
Gettysburg and that Vicksburg had fallen in the West. The marble shaft in
the picture was erected to mark the spot where Grant and Pemberton met on
July 3d to confer about the surrender. Under a tree, within a few hundred
feet of the Confederate lines, Grant greeted his adversary as an old
acquaintance. They had fought in the same division for a time in the
Mexican War. Each spoke but two sentences as to the surrender, for Grant
lived up to the nickname he gained at Donelson, and Pemberton's pride was
hurt. The former comrades walked and talked awhile on other things, and
then returned to their lines. Next day the final terms were arranged by
correspondence, and the Confederates marched out with colors flying; they
stacked their arms and, laying their colors upon them, marched back into
the city to be paroled. Those who signed the papers not to fight until
exchanged numbered 29,391. The tree where the commanders met was soon
carried away, root and branch, by relic-hunters. Subsequently the monument
which replaced it was chipped gradually into bits, and in 1866 a
64-pounder cannon took its place as a permanent memorial.
[Illustration: VICKSBURG IN POSSESSION OF THE FEDERALS