DEATH OF A FAITHFUL SERVANT--BLOWING UP OF A FORT--LOSS OF PROMINENT
OFFICERS--SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.
The next day, the family were invited up to our cave; and the lady told
me, with tears, of the death of the faithful old man, who had served her
mother before her. The morning of the day he died, he called her to him,
and said: "Mistess, I feel like I ain't gwin' to live much longer. Tell
young master, when you see him, that I've been praying for him dis day;
tell him it smites my heart mightily to think I won't see his young face
dis day with the childern. Please tell the young folks, mistess, to come;
and let me pray with them." "Oh! uncle!" the mistress answered, "don't
talk that way; you will live many years yet, I hope." The young ladies
were called, and knelt, while he prayed for them and all he loved,
shaking hands with them, and speaking to each one separately, as they
left. His cave was next his mistress's. That night he sat smoking his pipe
near the entrance, when a mortar shell, exploding near, sent a fragment
into the old man's side, rending it open, and tearing away his hip. He
lived a few moments, and was carried into the cave. Turning to his
mistress, while he shook his head, he said: "Don't stay here, mistess. I
said the Lord wanted me." And so the good old Christian died. When he had
breathed his last, a sudden panic seized them, for shell after shell fell
near them; and they all ran. Some of the gentlemen, hearing them cry,
brought them to headquarters.
The next day, the news came that one of the forts to the left of us had
been undermined and blown up, killing sixty men; then of the death of the
gallant Colonel Irwin, of Missouri; and again, the next day, of the death
of the brave old General Green, of Missouri.
We were now swiftly nearing the end of our siege life: the rations had
nearly all been given out. For the last few days I had been sick; still
I tried to overcome the languid feeling of utter prostration. My little
one had swung in her hammock, reduced in strength, with a low fever
flushing in her face. M---- was all anxiety, I could plainly see. A
soldier brought up, one morning, a little jaybird, as a plaything for the
child. After playing with it for a short time, she turned wearily away.
"Miss Mary," said the servant, "she's hungry; let me make her some soup
from the bird." At first I refused: the poor little plaything should not
die; then, as I thought of the child, I half consented. With the utmost
haste, Cinth disappeared; and the next time she appeared, it was with a
cup of soup, and a little plate, on which lay the white meat of the poor
little bird.
On Saturday a painful calm prevailed: there had been a truce proclaimed;
and so long had the constant firing been kept up, that the stillness now
was absolutely oppressive.
At ten o'clock General Bowen passed by, dressed in full uniform,
accompanied by Colonel Montgomery, and preceded by a courier bearing a
white flag. M---- came by, and asked me if I would like to walk out; so I
put on my bonnet and sullied forth beyond the terrace, for the first
time since I entered. On the hill above us, the earth was literally
covered with fragments of shell--Parrott, shrapnell, canister; besides
lead in all shapes and forms, and a long kind of solid shot, shaped like a
small Parrott shell. Minie balls lay in every direction, flattened,
dented, and bent from the contact with trees and pieces of wood in their
flight. The grass seemed deadened--the ground ploughed into furrows in
many places; while scattered over all, like giants' pepper, in numberless
quantity, were the shrapnell balls.
I could now see how very near to the rifle pits my cave lay: only a small
ravine between the two hills separated us. In about two hours, General
Bowen returned. No one knew, or seemed to know, why a truce had been made;
but all believed that a treaty of surrender was pending. Nothing was
talked about among the officers but the all-engrossing theme. Many wished
to cut their way out and make the risk their own; but I secretly hoped
that no such bloody hazard would be attempted.
The next morning, M---- came up, with a pale face, saying: "It's all
over! The white flag floats from our forts! Vicksburg has surrendered!"
He put on his uniform coat, silently buckled on his sword, and prepared to
take out the men, to deliver up their arms in front of the fortification.
I felt a strange unrest, the quiet of the day was so unnatural. I walked
up and down the cave until M---- returned. The day was extremely warm; and
he came with a violent headache. He told me that the Federal troops had
acted splendidly; they were stationed opposite the place where the
Confederate troops marched up and stacked their arms; and they seemed to
feel sorry for the poor fellows who had defended the place for so long a
time. Far different from what he had expected, not a jeer or taunt came
from any one of the Federal soldiers. Occasionally, a cheer would be
heard; but the majority seemed to regard the poor unsuccessful soldiers
with a generous sympathy.
After the surrender, the old gray-headed soldier, in passing on the hill
near the cave, stopped, and, touching his hat, said:
"It's a sad day this, madam; I little thought we'd come to it, when we
first stopped in the intrenchments. I hope you'll yet be happy, madam,
after all the trouble you've seen."
To which I mentally responded, "Amen."
The poor, hunchback soldier, who had been sick, and who, at home in
Southern Missouri, is worth a million of dollars, I have been told, yet
within Vicksburg has been nearly starved, walked out to-day in the
pleasant air, for the first time for many days.
I stood in the doorway and caught my first sight of the Federal uniform
since the surrender. That afternoon the road was filled with them, walking
about, looking at the forts and the headquarter horses: wagons also filled
the road, drawn by the handsome United States horses. Poor M----, after
keeping his horse upon mulberry leaves during the forty-eight days, saw
him no more! After the surrender in the evening, George rode into the city
on his mule: thinking to "shine," as the negroes say, he rode M----'s
handsome, silver-mounted dragoon-saddle. I could not help laughing when he
returned, with a sorry face, reporting himself safe, but the saddle gone.
M---- questioned and requestioned him, aghast at his loss; for a saddle
was a valuable article in our little community; and George, who felt as
badly as any one, said: "I met a Yankee, who told me: 'Git down off dat
mule; I'm gwin' to hab dat saddle.' I said: 'No; I ain't gwin' to do no
such thing.' He took out his pistol, and I jumped down."
So Mister George brought back to M---- a saddle that better befitted his
mule than the one he rode off on--a much worn, common affair, made of
wood. I felt sorry for M----. That evening George brought evil news again:
another horse had been taken. His remaining horse and his only saddle
finished the news of the day.
The next morning, Monday, as I was passing through the cave, I saw
something stirring at the base of one of the supports of the roof: taking
a second look, I beheld a large snake curled between the earth and the
upright post. I went out quickly and sent one of the servants for M----,
who, coming up immediately, took up his sword and fastened one of the
folds of the reptile to the post. It gave one quick dart toward him, with
open jaws. Fortunately, the length of the sword was greater than the upper
length of body; and the snake fell to the earth a few inches from M----,
who set his heel firmly on it, and severed the head from the body with the
sword. I have never seen so large a snake; it was fully as large round the
body as the bowl of a good-sized glass tumbler, and over two yards long.