SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.
MEANWHILE the siege was prosecuted with vigor; no let up. Night and day
the steady pounding of the artillery went on, and the bomb shells sailed
up in flocks from the mortar fleet on the Mississippi. General Grant
daily watched and directed the work of his mighty army, and knew the
great fortress was surely crumbling. Often during those long hot days of
June, I saw General Grant, perhaps attended by one or two orderlies,
worming his quiet way through and along our trenches, carefully noting
all the operations of our forces. None but those who personally knew him
would have recognized in that stubby form, with its dusty blue blouse,
the great General whose mighty genius was running the whole job. Our
forces had erected in our lines a skeleton framed observatory, which
those properly authorized and who knew how to safely mount it often
ascended, and with their field glasses made observations of the enemy's
works. In order to keep the common soldiers and citizens from getting
shot by the enemy's sharpshooters, a guard was stationed at its base to
warn and compel people to keep down, but there was so little for this
guard to do that he got careless. One day in the midst of his
carelessness and inattention he happened to look up at the observatory,
and there at the very top stood a soldier. The guard was mad, and loudly
and profanely commanded the intruder to come down. He said, "What you
doing up there?" No answer. "You come down out of that, you fool; you'll
get shot." No answer. "If you don't come down, I'll shoot you myself."
Then the soldier slowly and deliberately descended to the ground, pretty
vigorously cursed by the guard and relegated to the fiery regions, as he
descended, and as the supposed trespasser when he reached the ground,
started away, a comrade said to the guard, "You've played thunder, I
must say." "What have I done?" said the other. "You've been cussing
General Grant black and blue." "You don't say," said the frightened
guard, "I didn't know it was him. I will apologize," and he ran after
and caught up with the General and said, "I hope you will pardon what I
said, General. I didn't know you." "All right, my boy," said Grant, "but
you must watch closely or some one will get shot there."
When our division commander, Frank P. Blair, went along our lines,
unlike Grant, he was usually attended by his whole staff and an escort
of hundreds of cavalry, and the dust they kicked up enshrouded half of
Vicksburg.
As soon as July 1st we began to hear rumors of preparations in progress
to assault the rebel works again on the 4th of July, if the place was
not sooner surrendered. There was no denying the fact, Joe Johnson had a
tremendous big force in our rear and might actually take a notion to
attack us, and the boys were getting tired of digging rifle pits. We had
all welcomed the rumor of another contemplated assault on the 4th, but
General Pemberton himself forestalled our calculations. Early on the 3rd
the rebels sent a white flag outside of their works and the rebel
General Bowen bore it to our lines. The news spread through our midst
like wild fire, and we had little doubt it had something to do with the
surrender of the post. The bearer of this flag of truce was the bearer
of a letter from Pemberton directed to General Grant, in which he
proposed the appointment of three commissioners by him to meet a like
number from Grant to arrange terms for the capitulation of Vicksburg.
General Grant wrote an answer to Pemberton, in which he offered to meet
him between the lines to arrange such terms, but declined the
appointment of commissioners as Pemberton proposed. We, who occupied our
advance rifle pits, climbed up on the edges and while we dangled our
feet down in the holes sat up straight and looked the Johnnies square in
their faces as they popped up above their works. It all looked and
seemed so funny to see the widespread resurrection of both Yanks and
rebs. In many places the opposing lines of pits were so close together
that conversation was carried on between us and the foemen during the
armistice. An old grizzly reb straightened up out of a nearby pit. He
sported long, gray Billy goat whiskers and his shaggy eyebrows looked
like patches of hedge rows. Just opposite him on our side another old
graybeard stood up in his pit and the two old warriors surveyed each
other for several minutes; then old Johnnie said, "Hello, you over
thar!" "Hello yourself," said old Yank. "Is that your hole your stan'nen
in over thar?" said Johnnie. "I reckon," said Yank. "Wal, don't you know
Mister, I've had some tarned good shots at you?" "I reckon," said Yank,
"but s'pose ye hain't noticed no lead slung over thar nor nothin'?"
"Yes," said Johnnie, "you spattered some dirt in my eyes now 'n' then."
"So'd you mine," said Yank. And in that strain those two old veterans
talked and laughed from their respective roosts as though trying to
shoot each other was the funniest thing in the world. About 3 o'clock
that afternoon we saw some Union officers go out of our lines and part
way over to the rebel works sit down under a tree on the grass.
We afterwards learned those men were Grant, Rowlins, Logan, McPherson
and A. J. Smith. A short time afterwards some men in gray uniform came
out of the rebel works and met our men under the tree. Those men were
Pemberton, Bowen and a staff officer, we also learned afterward. I was
so far from them that I could not discern their features and could
hardly tell their uniforms, but I watched as did thousands of our men
with intense interest that long parleying, under that distant tree,
until the conference broke up and the parties returned to their
respective commands. That night we knew the city had virtually
capitulated and only awaited the settlement of terms.
On the 4th of July at 10 o'clock a. m. the Confederate forces marched
out in front of their works, stacked their arms, hung upon them all
accouterments and laid their faded flags on top of all. It was one of
the saddest sights I ever beheld, and I can honestly say I pitied those
brave men from the bottom of my heart. Our brave fellows, though, never
uttered a shout of exultation during the whole ceremony of surrender. We
marched into the city afterwards that day, raised the flag upon the
court house and gave ourselves a general airing in Vicksburg. As our
forces marched through the town the rebel women scowled, made faces and
spit at us, but we survived it all and kept good natured. One fat old
colored woman was just jumping up and down for joy, and she cried out as
we marched by, "Heah day come. Heah day is. Jes' you look at 'em, none
your little yaller faced sickly fellers, but full grown men, wid blood
in 'em," etc., etc. I saw many Union men and Confederates walking and
conversing together, but the rebel officers generally held aloof and
acted as though they were miffed at something.
There were surrendered in men that day 15 generals, 31,000 soldiers, 172
cannon.
After the surrender I went over their works and fields. I saw the great
holes in the ground where our bomb shells had exploded, big enough to
contain a two-story building. I saw caves in the hillsides where people
had lived during the siege. I saw the ground in places so littered with
shot and unexploded shells from our batteries that it was difficult to
walk without stepping on them. I saw the trees, many of them, actually
girdled by our shot. I picked up one little shell and thought I would
take it home with me as a relic. It looked like a mammoth butterfly egg,
but it was heavy and had a sinister complexion. Many of our men were
injured by those shells, in picking them up and dropping them carelessly
onto their percussion points, and so I improved the opportunity one day
to give mine to a relic hunter. After the surrender my regiment was
moved from the mouth of the Yazoo up onto the Vicksburg hill, but we
failed to recover our health. Our men were dying daily, and finally we
were ordered to Corinth, Mississippi July 29th, and embarked on
transport "Silver Wave" for our new destination, the well men in the
regiment not being sufficient and able to care for the sick.
THE END.
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Transcriber Notes:
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the
speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
unless otherwise noted.
On page 4, "ond" was replaced with "and".
On page 4, "smille" was replaced with "smile".
On page 4, "Governer" was replaced with "Governor".
On page 6, "partiotic" was replaced with "patriotic".
On page 7, "departue" was replaced with "departure".
On page 7, "and and" was replaced with "and".
On page 8, "threshhold" was replaced with "threshold".
On page 8, "winodw" was replaced with "window".
On page 10, "had" was replaced with "hand".
On page 11, "over wrought" was replaced with "overwrought".
On page 13, "depresstd" was replaced with "depressed".
On page 15, "wierd" was replaced with "weird".
On page 17, quotation mark was added before "Better'n I 'spected".
On page 18, "wierd" was replaced with "weird".
On page 19, a closing quotation mark was added after "they called,".
On page 19, "of a of a" was replaced with "of a".
On page 27, a period was added after "MAY 19".
On page 30, a quotation mark was added before "Damn your bit".
On page 33, "windrow" was replaced with "window".
On page 36, a quotation mark was added after "With pleasure, madam,".
On page 36, "road" was replaced with "rode".
On page 37, "centtury" was replaced with "century".
On page 46, a period was added after "RIFLE PITS".
On page 48, "putrifaction" was replaced with "putrefaction".
On page 49, "parrotts" was replaced with "parrots".
On page 50, a quotation mark was added after "of your old town.".
On page 53, a period was added after "THE CLOSING SCENES".
On page 54, "watter" was replaced with "water".
On page 60, a question mark was added after "What you doing up there".
On page 60, a question mark was added before "What have I done?".
On page 60, "dont" was replaced with "don't".
On page 60, a comma and a question mark was added after "I will
apologize".