ARRIVAL AT VICKSBURG--ITS SURROUNDINGS--GRANT'S ARMY--ASSAULT ON THE
REBEL WORKS--THE SEVEN COLOR-BEARERS--PEMBERTON'S HARANGUE--IN THE
TRENCHES--SUFFERINGS OF THE WOUNDED--PEMBERTON'S PROPOSED
CAPITULATION--GRANT'S REPLY--TERMS OF SURRENDER--OCCUPATION OF THE
CITY--LOSS OF THE ENEMY--COMPLIMENTARY LETTER--GRANT'S
SUCCESS--ATTACHMENT OF HIS SOLDIERS--"FIGHTING DICK"--GOLD LACE--REBEL
SUFFERINGS--SIGHTS IN VICKSBURG--INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE--CAVE LIFE.
Our troops at length joined General Grant's army near Vicksburg, where
those veterans had been digging and fighting so many weeks.
The city of Vicksburg is nestled among numerous terraced hills, and would
under other circumstances present a magnificent and romantic appearance;
but I could not at that time realize its beauty, for the knowledge of the
sufferings and distress of thousands within its walls detracted materially
from its outward grandeur.
The enemy's works had consisted of a series of redoubts extending from
Haines' Bluff to the Warrenton road, a distance of some ten miles. It was
a vast plateau, upon which a multitude of little hills seemed to have been
sown broadcast, giving the enemy a position from which it could sweep
every neighboring crest and enfilade every approach. But the rebels had
already been driven from this position after a severe struggle.
On the twenty-second of May, at two o'clock in the morning, heavy guns
were opened upon the rebel works, and continued until ten o'clock, when a
desperate assault was made by three corps moving simultaneously. After a
severe engagement and heavy loss the flag of the Seventh Missouri was
planted on one of the rebel parapets, after seven color-bearers had been
shot down.
After this contest the rebel general, Pemberton, addressed his men as
follows: "You have heard that I was incompetent and a traitor, and that it
was my intention to sell Vicksburg. Follow me, and you will see the cost
at which I will sell Vicksburg. When the last pound of beef, bacon and
flour, the last grain of corn, the last cow and hog, horse and dog shall
have been consumed, and the last man shall have perished in the trenches,
then, and not till then, will I sell Vicksburg."
It became evident that the works could not be carried by assault, and that
nothing but a regular siege could reduce the fortifications.
While the siege was in progress our soldiers endured hardships, privations
and sufferings which words can but inadequately express. Our men were
closely packed in the trenches, often in water to the knees, and not
daring to lift their heads above the brow of the rifle pits, as the rebel
sharpshooters lost no time in saluting every unfortunate head which made
its appearance above ground.
The sufferings of the wounded were extreme. Those who were wounded during
the day in the trenches nearest the city could not be removed until the
curtain of night fell upon the scene and screened them from the vigilant
eye of the enemy.
General Grant steadily approached the doomed city by means of saps and
mines, and continued to blow up their defenses, until it was evident that
another day's work would complete the capture of the city.
Such was the position of affairs on the third of July, when General
Pemberton proposed an armistice and capitulation.
Major General Bowen, of the Confederate army, was the bearer of a despatch
to General Grant, under a flag of truce, proposing the surrender of the
city, which was as follows:
HEADQUARTERS, VICKSBURG,
_July 3d, 1863_.
Major General Grant, commanding United States forces:
GENERAL--I have the honor to propose to you an armistice for--hours,
with a view of arranging terms for the capitulation of Vicksburg. To
this end, if agreeable to you, I will appoint three commissioners to
meet a like number to be named by yourself, at such place and hour
to-day as you may find convenient. I make this proposition to save
the farther effusion of blood, which must otherwise be shed to a
frightful extent, feeling myself fully able to maintain my position
for a yet indefinite period. This communication will be handed to you,
under flag of truce, by Major General James Bowen.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. C. PEMBERTON.
To which General Grant replied:
HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF TENNESSEE,
In the Field, near Vicksburg,
_July 3d, 1863_.
Lieutenant General J. C. Pemberton, commanding Confederate forces,
etc.:
GENERAL--Your note of this date, just received, proposes an armistice
of several hours for the purpose of arranging terms of capitulation,
through commissioners to be appointed, etc. The effusion of blood you
propose stopping by this course can be ended at any time you may
choose by an unconditional surrender of the city and garrison. Men who
have shown so much endurance and courage as those now in Vicksburg
will always challenge the respect of an adversary, and, I can assure
you, will be treated with all the respect due them as prisoners of
war. I do not favor the proposition of appointing commissioners to
arrange terms of capitulation, because I have no other terms than
those indicated above.
I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT.
Then the following document was made out by General Grant, and submitted
for acceptance:
GENERAL--In conformity with the agreement of this afternoon, I will submit
the following proposition for the surrender of the city of Vicksburg,
public stores, etc. On your accepting the terms proposed, I will march in
one division, as a guard, and take possession at eight o'clock to-morrow
morning. As soon as paroles can be made out and signed by the officers and
men, you will be allowed to march out of our lines, the officers taking
with them their regimental clothing, and staff, field and cavalry
officers, one horse each. The rank and file will be allowed all their
clothing, but no other property. If these conditions are accepted, any
amount of rations you may deem necessary can be taken from the stores you
now have, and also the necessary cooking utensils for preparing them;
thirty wagons also, counting two two-horse or mule teams as one. You will
be allowed to transport such articles as cannot be carried along. The same
conditions will be allowed to all sick and wounded officers and privates
as fast as they become able to travel. The paroles for these latter must
be signed, however, whilst officers are present authorized to sign the
roll of prisoners.
After some further correspondence on both sides this proposition was
accepted, and on the fourth of July the Federals took possession of the
city of Vicksburg.
A paragraph from General Grant's official despatch will best explain the
result of his campaign, together with the surrender of Vicksburg: "The
defeat of the enemy in five battles outside of Vicksburg, the occupation
of Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, and the capture of
Vicksburg and its garrison and munitions of war, a loss to the enemy of
thirty-seven thousand prisoners, among whom were fifteen general officers,
at least ten thousand killed and wounded, and among the killed Generals
Tracy, Tilghman and Green, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stragglers,
who can never be collected and organized. Arms and munitions of war for an
army of sixty thousand have fallen into our hands, besides a large amount
of other public property, consisting of railroads, locomotives, cars,
steamboats, cotton, etc., and much was destroyed to prevent our capturing
it."
On the thirteenth of July the President sent an autograph letter to
General Grant, of which the following is a copy:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
_July 13th, 1863_.
To Major General Grant:
MY DEAR GENERAL--I do not remember that you and I ever met
personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the
almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a
word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg I
thought you should do what you finally did--march the troops across
the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below;
and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better
than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed.
When you got below and took Port Gipson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I
thought you should go down the river and join Banks; and when you
turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I
now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I
was wrong.
Yours, very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
It is stated on good authority that at the time the news of Grant's
success reached the President, there were several gentlemen present some
of whom had just been informing Mr. Lincoln that there were great
complaints against General Grant with regard to his intemperate habits.
After reading the telegram announcing the fall of Vicksburg, the President
turned to his anxious friends of the temperance question and said:
"So I understand Grant drinks whiskey to excess?"
"Yes," was the reply.
"What whiskey does he drink?"
"What whiskey?" doubtfully queried his hearers.
"Yes. Is it Bourbon or Monongahela?"
"Why do you ask, Mr. President?"
"Because if it makes him win victories like that at Vicksburg, I will send
a demijohn of the same kind to every general in the army."
It is also stated on the same authority that General Grant is strictly
temperate.
His men are almost as much attached to him as are the Army of the Potomac
to General McClellan. He is a true soldier, and shares all the hardships
with his men, sleeping on the ground in the open air, and eating hard
bread and salt pork with as good a grace as any private soldier.
He seldom wears a sword, except when absolutely necessary, and frequently
wears a semi-military coat and low crowned hat.
The mistakes which people used to make, when coming to headquarters to see
the general, often reminded me of a genuine anecdote which is told of
General Richardson, or "Fighting Dick," as we familiarly called him. It
occurred when the troops were encamped near Washington, and was as
follows:
The general was sauntering along toward a fort, which was in course of
erection not far from headquarters, dressed in his usual uniform for
fatigue, namely: citizen's pants, undress coat, and an old straw hat
which had once been white, but was now two or three shades nearer the
general's own complexion.
Along came one of those dashing city staff officers, in white gloves, and
trimmed off with gold lace to the very extreme of military regulations. He
was in search of General Richardson, but did not know him personally.
Reining up his horse some little distance from the general, he shouted:
"hallo, old fellow! can you tell me where General Richardson's
headquarters are?"
The general pointed out the tent to him, and the young officer went
dashing along, without ever saying "thank you." The general then turned on
his heel and went back to his tent, where he found the officer making a
fuss because there was no orderly to hold his horse. Turning to General
R., as he came up, he said: "Won't you hold my horse while I find General
R.?" "Oh yes, certainly," said he.
After hitching the horse to a post near by for that purpose, the general
walked into the tent, and, confronting young pomposity, he said in his
peculiar twang, "Well, sir, what will you have?"
When the Federal troops marched into Vicksburg, what a heart-sickening
sight it presented; the half-famished inhabitants had crawled from their
dens and caves in the earth, to find their houses demolished by shell, and
all their pleasant places laid waste.
But the appearance of the soldiers as they came from the entrenchments
covered with mud and bespattered with the blood of their comrades who had
been killed or wounded, would have touched a heart of stone.
The poor horses, and mules, too, were a sad sight, for they had fared even
worse than the soldiers--for there was no place of safety for them--not
even entrenchments, and they had scarcely anything at all to eat for
weeks, except mulberry leaves.
One man, in speaking of the state of affairs in the city, during the
siege, said: "The terror of the women and children, their constant screams
and wailings over the dead bodies of their friends, mingled as they were
with the shrieks of bursting shell, and the pitiful groans of the dying,
was enough to appall the stoutest heart." And others said it was a strange
fact that the women could not venture out of their caves a moment without
either being killed or wounded, while the men and officers walked or rode
about with but little loss of life comparatively.
A lady says: "Sitting in my cave, one evening, I heard the most
heart-rending shrieks and groans, and upon making inquiry, I was told that
a mother had taken her child into a cave about a hundred yards from us,
and having laid it on its little bed, as the poor woman thought, in
safety, she took her seat near the entrance of the cave. A mortar-shell
came rushing through the air, and fell upon the cave, and bursting in the
ground entered the cave; a fragment of the shell mashed the head of the
little sleeper, crushing out the young life, and leaving the distracted
mother to pierce the heavens with her cries of agony."
How blightingly the hand of war lay upon that once flourishing city! The
closed and desolate houses, the gardens with open gates, and the poor,
starving mules, standing amid the flowers, picking off every green leaf,
to allay their hunger, presented a sad picture.
I will give the following quotation as a specimen of cave life in
Vicksburg: "I was sitting near the entrance of my cave about five o'clock
in the afternoon, when the bombardment commenced more furiously than
usual, the shells falling thickly around us, causing vast columns of earth
to fly upward, mingled with smoke. As usual, I was uncertain whether to
remain within, or to run out. As the rocking and trembling of the earth
was distinctly felt, and the explosions alarmingly near, I stood within
the mouth of the cave ready to make my escape, should one chance to fall
above our domicile.
"In my anxiety I was startled by the shouts of the servants, and a most
fearful jar and rocking of the earth, followed by a deafening explosion,
such as I had never heard before. The cave filled instantly with smoke and
dust. I stood there, with a tingling, prickling sensation in my head,
hands and feet, and with confused brain. Yet alive! was the first glad
thought that came to me--child, servants, all here, and saved!
"I stepped out and found a group of persons before my cave, looking
anxiously for me, and lying all around were freshly-torn rose bushes,
arborvitae trees, large clods of earth, splinters, and pieces of plank.
"A mortar-shell had struck the corner of the cave; fortunately, so near
the brow of the hill, that it had gone obliquely into the earth, exploding
as it went, breaking large masses from the side of the hill--tearing away
the fence, the shrubbery and flowers--sweeping all like an avalanche down
near the entrance of my poor refuge.
"On another occasion I sat reading in safety, I imagined, when the
unmistakable whirring of Parrott shells told us that the battery we so
much dreaded had opened from the entrenchments. I ran to the entrance to
call the servants in. Immediately after they entered a shell struck the
earth a few feet from the entrance, burying itself without exploding.
"A man came in, much frightened, and asked permission to remain until the
danger was over. He had been there but a short time when a Parrott shell
came whirling in at the entrance and fell in the center of the cave before
us, and lay there, the fuse still smoking.
"Our eyes were fastened upon that terrible missile of death as by the
fascination of a serpent, while we expected every moment that the terrific
explosion would take place. I pressed my child closer to my heart and drew
nearer the wall. Our fate seemed certain--our doom was sealed.
"Just at this dreadful moment, George, a negro boy, rushed forward, seized
the shell, and threw it into the street, then ran swiftly in the opposite
direction.
"Fortunately the fuse became extinguished and the shell fell harmless to
the ground, and is still looked upon as a monument of terror."