IN THE RIFLE PITS.
WE failed to take Vicksburg by assault. We not only failed to take it,
but we failed to break their lines of defense and make permanent
lodgment anywhere along our front, General McClernand to the contrary
notwithstanding. For ten hours that day we fought the entrenched enemy
and had not won the battle. Our forces had charged the parapets and
bastioned forts valorously but death was the sole reward of their great
valor. We lost 3,000 men while the sheltered confederates, within their
formidable works lost only 1,000. I desire to add that Admiral Porter
co-operated in the assault, and shelled the water batteries and town
from his mortar boats stationed in the river, and from his gun boats. So
fierce was his attack on the water batteries, which were engaged at 440
yards, and so great was the noise of his gun and so dense the smoke that
Porter heard and saw nothing of our land operations.
We were quartered along one of the Walnut hillsides after the assault of
the 22nd, and we went industriously to work fitting up our huts and
bowers in the best sheltered and most available spots along the hill
slope. I put in a half day of solid work building me a cane palace
which, when I had it enclosed and nearly finished, was instantaneously
wrecked by a piece of rebel shell which an overhead explosion
precipitated into the top of my beautiful enclosure ripping it downwards
and wrecking it completely. I took up what was left of my bedding and
belongings and built in a safer locality.
On the 24th my company was detailed for picket duty, and we occupied the
advance rifle pits already dug, and industriously dug others in advance
of those, under cover of the night. That night myself and comrade went
without orders onto the battle field, armed only with spades, and buried
three of our dead comrades who were killed in the assault of the 19th.
It was a dangerous business, and only the intense darkness protected us
from the enemy. We could only bury them by throwing dirt upon the bodies
just as they lay upon the ground. Five days of exposure to the heat and
sun had produced in those bodies a fearful state of decomposition, and
the stench was dreadful, but we accomplished our task after a fashion.
After the surrender of Vicksburg I went to the spot and beheld the
partially covered bodies of our comrades which we had tried to bury in
the darkness that night. Both feet and heads were bare then. Whether we
had so left them, or whether the rains and winds had partially
resurrected them I could not tell. I never took part in that kind of a
job again. It was too dangerous, for when we returned to our lines it
was so dark we could not determine the point where our men were, and
caused an alarm by coming out at the wrong place. We were challenged and
came near getting shot at.
On the morning of the 25th the rebels sent out a flag of truce and asked
permission to bury their dead, which was granted. Squads from both
armies were sent out, and for at least two hours the work of burying the
dead went on. The dead were buried by simply throwing earth onto the
bodies where they had fallen. I walked out onto the battle grounds and
observed the victims lying scattered over the field as far as the sight
could reach. The bodies were bloated and swollen to the stature of
giants. I saw some few men ripping open the pockets of the dead with
their jackknives and taking therefrom watches, money and other valuable
things, reeking with putrefaction, and transferring them to their own
pockets. I picked up a photograph or tintype of a woman and two children
which some soldier had lost, and I also found a splendid Springfield
rifle which I appropriated and carried to camp. When it was dark enough
that night to safely do so we were relieved from advance duty by other
troops when we returned to camp.
Today, May 26th, it was rumored in camp that rebel General Johnson was
approaching with a big force to relieve Vicksburg, and that a large
force of the besiegers had gone out to meet him. Whatever excitement the
rumor caused was allayed by the arrival of the northern mail. All the
time our artillery, now said to comprise 1,300 guns, kept thundering
away at Vicksburg.
On the morning of the 29th my regiment was sent out to the Chickasaw
Bayou to get some big cannon. We found on arriving at the bayou four 32
pound parrots on the opposite side, which we proceeded by means of ropes
to pull across on temporary pontoon bridges. Although we supplemented
the strength of the bridges with thick plank laid lengthwise, and pulled
the guns across on the run, still their immense weight broke almost
every plank in the bridges as we snaked them across. Had we allowed one
of them to stop a second midway on the bridge it would have crushed
through and gone to the bottom of the bayou. We got the guns onto the
firing line, as the darkeys would say, "just in the shank of the
evenin'." We supplied large detail each night for digging rifle pits for
the first few days, and then on alternate nights. Each tier of rifle
pits brought the contending forces closer together, so they could easily
converse with each other, and until prohibited by a general order, the
soldiers of the blue often met the gray between the lines and swapped
knives, buttons, papers and tobacco in a most cordial and friendly way.
One day by mutual verbal agreement the rebel company and union company
opposite each other in the rifle pits stacked arms and met in a good
social way. Pat, a union soldier was acting as guard of the stacks of
guns. All at once Pat laid down his gun, snatched up a spade and sent it
flying into the rebel rifle pits. "What are you throwing that spade for,
Pat?" said our Lieutenant. "Because," said Pat, "One of thim grayback
divils hit me with a clod." Night after night during the forty-two days
of that siege we furnished details to dig in the rifle pits, until our
lines of rifle pits got so close to the enemy's that the dirt we cast
out with our spades was mingled with that cast out of their pits. Many a
night when it was so dark the rebel sharpshooters could not discern me,
have I gone out between the lines and there perched on a stump, listened
to the remarks freely indulged in by both Yank and Johnnie. At that time
we were sapping and mining digging under their forts and blowing them
up. On the 28th of June we blew up a fort opposite McPherson's center to
the left of the Jackson road. The explosion threw down part of the fort
and threw up a good deal of the other half. A negro was lifted gently
from that fort by that explosion over into a line of rifle pits occupied
by our troops. The boys picked up the frightened darkey and some one
said, "Where did you come from?" "Dat fort over dar," he said. "Was a
good many blown up?" was asked him. "'Spec' dar was, massa," he said, "I
met a good many goin up w'en I was comin' down." One night I heard a
rebel from their pits say to our men, "Say, Yanks, what you'uns digging
that big ditch for?" referring to the sappers and miners zigzag ditch by
which they approached and blew up the rebel fort. A voice answering from
our pits said, "We intend to flood it and to run our gunboats up that
ditch and shell h--l out of your old town." One night a voice said, "Is
any of the boys of the 6th Missouri in the rifle pits over there?"
"There's lots of 'em," was the answer. "Is Tom Jones there?" "He is,"
said our man, "Is that you Jim?" "Yes," came the answer, "and say Tom,
can't you meet me between the lines? I've got a roll of greenbacks and I
want to send them to the old folks in Missouri?" And so Yank Tom went
out and met Rebel Jim, his brother, got the greenbacks, and after a
brief visit returned safely to our picket quarters.
And every night during the continuance of that long siege our numerous
mortar boats down on the Mississippi tossed their cargoes of bombshells
into the beleaguered city. When we watched them at night we first heard
the distant thunder of the discharged mortar, and soon after saw the
ponderous bomb mounting up into the sky, spinning out its fiery web
along its wild track from its first appearance until it stood still for
a second, then gracefully curved downward and dropped swiftly down, down
into the doomed city, then as you listened, after a breath came the
jarring report of its explosion. A detail of two men was made from my
company one day to work on a mortar boat, and assisted in the work of
firing the mortar. After charging the mortar they said all hands got
into a skiff and rowed away, where they awaited at a safe distance until
the gun was discharged by a time fuse or slow match, and then returned
to reload. One of our men so detailed thoughtlessly laid his coat down
in one corner of the mortar boat, where it lay all through the day, and
when he picked it up at night it was a mass of ribbons and shreds,
absolutely torn to pieces by the concussion of those fearful discharges.
As the siege progresses all sorts of rumors get afloat in camp. One is
that the Vicksburg people are reduced to eating mule meat. I would have
kicked when it came to that. Also that Johnson was coming with 50,000
men to raise the siege. But the rumors made no difference; our 1300
cannon kept pounding away, and we dug rifle pits continually.
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