SHARPSHOOTING FROM
WALNUT HILLS.
WITH the first faint flush of day the morning of the 20th, I was up and
taking soundings for the locality of my company headquarters. I was as
stiff as an old foundered horse, and my head ached and felt swelled. The
battle was still being waged by the advance pickets of the contending
forces, but the fearful rumble of yesterday's battle had subsided
entirely. Nothing appeared in that early morning, at first, to recall
the horrors of yesterday, but as the daylight began to pour in amongst
the trees, and the mists of night lifted, some evidences of the fray
came into sight. The smoke that filled the heavens during that conflict
had rolled together into one great window and hung away out on the rim
of the horizon. The light breath of wind wafted from over the
battlefield, it seemed to me, savored of blood. At the rear of the field
hospital a score of legs and arms were stacked up awaiting burial and
some blood stained stretchers laid where the tired stretcher bearers had
carelessly abandoned them. The faithful surgeons had plied the knife,
and worked on, ever since the assault began, and now at the dawn of
another day were not nearly done.
Old Sol was splashing his crimson and gold over the blue of the eastern
concave when I finally found my company quarters, and the men were
already blazing away at the enemy from the crest of the nearby hill. In
the headquarters tent I found three delicious smoked hams, from which I
at once carved three or four slices and ate them raw. From the lacerated
appearance of those hams it was apparent that other famishing men had
dined there before me. Think of making a meal on raw smoked ham and
water. I hadn't a mouthful of bread or anything that would take the
place of bread, not even slippery elm, to chuck in with that ham. We
were hungry when we got to Vicksburg on the 18th, because we had been
living on half rations and what we could cramp on the march ever since
we left Grand Gulf. I had one last hardtack when I got to Vicksburg that
I saved and carried for several days, and it looked like a medallion off
a prize cook stove. The luster arising from the sweat and grime on that
hardtack was too dazzling for anything. The worms lurking within it came
out occasionally and admired their reflections mirrored upon its
surface. Men got very hungry on that march to the rear of Vicksburg. It
will be remembered that Grant cut loose from his base of supplies when
he left Grand Gulf. I heard men say that they partially subsisted by
chewing newspaper advertisements of provisions. Such a delicious
breakfast as that raw ham I never ate before nor since. I was never more
thankful for a meal. I blessed the hog that furnished the ham and the
swain who salted and smoked it.
My breakfast dispatched, I joined my company behind a slight breastwork
on the crest of the hill, where we blazed away at the rebel stockade
with little, if any, intermission all day long. Heavy ordnance was
brought into play as well as muskets, and gave and took solid shot and
shell to our heart's content. All that day our army was hurrying up
additional heavy ordnance onto the besieging line its whole extent, and
each new piece, as it came up to its position joined its hoarse bark to
the din of all our other war dogs. Such a jolly old racket it was to be
sure!
All day long the loopholes in the rebel stockade were spitefully
spitting red fire in our faces, which fire we returned with a vengeance.
We made a good deal of noise all that day and the next with very little
execution, because both the enemy and ourselves were under cover. Some
funny things happened in those first days of the investment. When we
arrived at the rear of Vicksburg on the afternoon of the 18th a picnic
party of about thirty ladies, mostly rebel officers' wives, was
intercepted and forbidden to return to the beleaguered city. They plead
and threatened, tearfully, scornfully, impertinently, to effect their
release, but all to no purpose. They were informed that the city was
then besieged, that the lid, as it were, was on, that none could now go
in but armed men, and none could come out but prisoners. What could they
do but submit? We were 30,000 strong. They were three ciphers less. We
outnumbered them by a crushing majority. General Grant ordered them to
be quartered in a large furnished double house, which the owners had
abandoned upon our coming, and there under a safety guard they drew
their U. S. army rations from day to day during the forty-two days of
the siege and raised Ned generally. An old discordant piano happened to
be in their prison, and they pounded the poor old thing until it would
bellow like the bull of Bashon. One day General Grant and an adjutant
general rode up in front of the house, and while there upon their
horses, one of the ladies, who was promenading backward and forward
across the piazza, observing that Grant was smoking a cigar, said to
him, "Soldier, give me a cigar." "With pleasure, madam," said the
General, handing her a weed. Adjutant General Robbins, understanding
that the little lady was wholly unacquainted with the name or rank of
the distinguished individual whom she was so flippantly addressing,
said: "Madam, allow me to make you acquainted with General Grant, of the
United States army." The poor frightened woman turned pale, stared
wildly at the General, dropped her cigar, and fled inside the house. As
the officers rode away, about thirty noses were flattened against the
windows as those beautiful captives peered fearfully out to catch a
glance of that terrible General whom the south feared most "of all."
When the Waterhouse battery was throwing an occasional shot or shell
against the stockade trying to effect a breach in it, a voice behind the
enemy's works would call out at every shot, "A little more to the
right," or "A little more to the left," as the case might be, evidently
trying to make light of our shooting. The battery officer thought he
pretty nearly located the owner of the voice, and trained his gun for
the next shot upon that point. After firing for several seconds nothing
was heard, and just as we had about made up our minds the derisive cuss
was killed he yelled, "For God's sake cease firing." He had evidently
had a close call.
On the night of May 21st we were informed that tomorrow morning we would
again assault the works by the engagement of the whole line. It was
arranged for the assault to take place at precisely 10 o'clock on the
morning of the 22nd. So determined was Grant to have the attack by the
various corps simultaneous that he had all of the corps commanders'
watches set by his own.
When we were formed in the line of assault and my company, B, 113th
Illinois Volunteer infantry, was at rest in place, an officer of Grant's
staff came to us with the proposition that any three men who would
volunteer to go in the storming party, then forming to be sent in
advance against the enemy's works, should have sixty days furlough home.
We looked into each others faces for some seconds. We were speechless
and felt a dread of what might develop. We knew that as a general thing
the man who volunteers and goes into the storming party "leaves all hope
behind." It means nearly sure death. Like the Irishman I didn't want to
go "and leave my father an orphan." Finally there was a movement. Old
Joe Smith, white headed, rough visaged and grizzled by the storms of a
half century, stepped to the front and calling back to his bunkmate
said, "Come on, Lish," and Elisha Johns filed out by his side. Then
after a brief interval Sergt. James Henry volunteered for the third
place. Company B's quota was now complete, and those brave fellows
hurried away to take their places in the ranks of the storming party.
Some reader of these lines may ask, "Why didn't General Grant detail men
for the storming party?" Because, when soldiers enter upon a service
that gives them only one chance in a hundred to survive it, the
commander doesn't like to bear the responsibility of their deaths, and
tenders them the precious privilege of voluntarily dying for their
country. We looked upon our three comrades as already dead or wounded
men, but strange to relate, although a majority of that gallant band
fell in that action, not one of our brave fellows was injured by the
missiles of the enemy, and all of them received from General Grant their
furlough home as promised.
This storming party, provided with boards and rails to bridge the ditch
outside the stockade when they got to it, led the advance or attacking
column. And while we stood in line breathlessly awaiting the order to
move forward ourselves, I watched that little force of 150 men rush
forward towards the battlements of the enemy. How they scurried forward,
leaping over the logs and brush lying in their pathway as they pushed on
through that leaden and iron hail of death! A scattering few seemed to
reach the salient of the bastion and laid down against their works in
time to preserve their lives, but as it appeared to me through the
clouds of sulphurous smoke a greater part of the blue forms were
scattered along their line of advance stretched upon the earth
motionless in death. It had come our turn now to face the lead, and we
were ordered to fix bayonets.
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