"Mr. H.L."
"Is he here?"
"No."
"Where can he be found?"
"At the office of Deputy ----."
"I'm not going there. This is an order from General Pemberton for you to
move out of this house in two hours. He has selected it for
headquarters. He will furnish you with wagons."
"Will he furnish another house also?"
"Of course not."
"Has the owner been consulted?"
"He has not; that is of no consequence; it has been taken. Take this
order."
"I shall not take it, and I shall not move, as there is no place to move
to but the street."
"Then I'll take it to Mr. L."
"Very well; do so."
As soon as Mr. Impertine walked off, I locked, bolted, and barred every
door and window. In ten minutes H. came home.
"Hold the fort till I've seen the owner and the general," he said, as I
locked him out.
Then Dr. B.'s remark in New Orleans about the effect of Dr. C.'s fine
presence on the Confederate officials there came to mind. They are just
the people to be influenced in that way, I thought. I look rather shabby
now; I will dress. I made an elaborate toilet, put on the best and most
becoming dress I had, the richest lace, the handsomest ornaments, taking
care that all should be appropriate to a morning visit; dressed my hair
in the stateliest braids, and took a seat in the parlor ready for the
fray. H. came to the window and said:
"Landlord says, 'Keep them out. Wouldn't let them have his house at any
price.' He is just riding to the country and can't help us now. Now I'm
to see Major C., who sent the order."
Next came an officer, banged at the door till tired, and walked away.
Then the orderly came again and beat the door--same result. Next, four
officers with bundles and lunch-baskets, followed by a wagon-load of
furniture. They went round the house, tried every door, peeped in the
windows, pounded and rapped, while I watched them through the
blind-slats. Presently the fattest one, a real Falstaffian man, came
back to the front door and rang a thundering peal. I saw the chance for
fun and for putting on their own grandiloquent style. Stealing on tiptoe
to the door, I turned the key and bolt noiselessly, and suddenly threw
wide back the door and appeared behind it. He had been leaning on it,
and nearly pitched forward with an "Oh! what's this!" Then seeing me as
he straightened up, "Ah, madam!" almost stuttering from surprise and
anger, "are you aware I had the right to break down this door if you
hadn't opened it?"
"That would make no difference to me. I'm not the owner. You or the
landlord would pay the bill for the repairs."
"Why didn't you open the door?"
"Have I not done so as soon as you rung? A lady does not open the door
to men who beat on it. Gentlemen usually ring; I thought it might be
stragglers pounding."
"Well," growing much blander, "we are going to send you some wagons to
move; you must get ready."
"With pleasure, if you have selected a house for me. This is too large;
it does not suit me."
"No, I didn't find a house for you."
"You surely don't expect me to run about in the dust and shelling to
look for it, and Mr. L. is too busy."
"Well, madam, then we must share the house. We will take the lower
floor."
"I prefer to keep the lower floor myself; you surely don't expect me to
go up and down stairs when you are so light and more able to do it."
He walked through the hall, trying the doors. "What room is that?" "The
parlor." "And this?" "My bedroom." "And this?" "The dining-room."
"Well, madam, we'll find you a house and then come and take this."
"Thank you, colonel; I shall be ready when you find the house.
Good-morning, sir."
I heard him say as he ran down the steps, "We must go back, captain; you
see I didn't know they were this kind of people."
Of course the orderly had lied in the beginning to scare me, for General
P. is too far away from Vicksburg to send an order. He is looking about
for General Grant. We are told he has gone out to meet Johnston; and
together they expect to annihilate Grant's army and free Vicksburg
forever. There is now a general hospital opposite this house, and a
smallpox hospital next door. War, famine, pestilence, and fire surround
us. Every day the band plays in front of the smallpox hospital. I wonder
if it is to keep up their spirits? One would suppose quiet would be more
cheering.
_May 17._--Hardly was our scanty breakfast over this morning when a
hurried ring drew us both to the door.
Mr. J., one of H.'s assistants, stood there in high excitement.
"Well, Mr. L., they are upon us; the Yankees will be here by this
evening."
"What do you mean?"
"That Pemberton has been whipped at Baker's Creek and Big Black, and his
army are running back here as fast as they can come, and the Yanks after
them, in such numbers nothing can stop them. Hasn't Pemberton acted like
a fool?"
"He may not be the only one to blame," replied H.
"They're coming along the Big B. road, and my folks went down there to
be safe, you know; now they're right in it. I hear you can't see the
armies for the dust; never was anything else known like it. But I must
go and try to bring my folks back here."
What struck us both was the absence of that concern to be expected, and
a sort of relief or suppressed pleasure. After twelve some
worn-out-looking men sat down under the window.
"What is the news?" I inquired.
"Ritreat, ritreat!" they said, in broken English--they were Louisiana
Acadians.
About three o'clock the rush began. I shall never forget that woeful
sight of a beaten, demoralized army that came rushing back,--humanity in
the last throes of endurance. Wan, hollow-eyed, ragged, foot-sore,
bloody, the men limped along unarmed, but followed by siege-guns,
ambulances, gun-carriages, and wagons in aimless confusion. At twilight
two or three bands on the court-house hill and other points began
playing "Dixie," "Bonnie Blue Flag," and so on, and drums began to beat
all about; I suppose they were rallying the scattered army.
_May 28._--Since that day the regular siege has continued. We are
utterly cut off from the world, surrounded by a circle of fire. Would it
be wise like the scorpion to sting ourselves to death? The fiery shower
of shells goes on day and night. H.'s occupation, of course, is gone;
his office closed. Every man has to carry a pass in his pocket. People
do nothing but eat what they can get, sleep when they can, and dodge the
shells. There are three intervals when the shelling stops either for the
guns to cool or for the gunners' meals, I suppose,--about eight in the
morning, the same in the evening, and at noon. In that time we have both
to prepare and eat ours. Clothing cannot be washed or anything else
done. On the 19th and 22d, when the assaults were made on the lines, I
watched the soldiers cooking on the green opposite. The half-spent balls
coming all the way from those lines were flying so thick that they were
obliged to dodge at every turn. At all the caves I could see from my
high perch, people were sitting, eating their poor suppers at the cave
doors, ready to plunge in again. As the first shell again flew they
dived, and not a human being was visible. The sharp crackle of the
musketry-firing was a strong contrast to the scream of the bombs. I
think all the dogs and cats must be killed or starved: we don't see any
more pitiful animals prowling around.... The cellar is so damp and musty
the bedding has to be carried out and laid in the sun every day, with
the forecast that it may be demolished at any moment. The confinement is
dreadful. To sit and listen as if waiting for death in a horrible
manner would drive me insane. I don't know what others do, but we read
when I am not scribbling in this. H. borrowed somewhere a lot of
Dickens's novels, and we reread them, by the dim light in the cellar.
When the shelling abates, H. goes to walk about a little or get the
"Daily Citizen," which is still issuing a tiny sheet at twenty-five and
fifty cents a copy. It is, of course, but a rehash of speculations which
amuses a half hour. To-day he heard while out that expert swimmers are
crossing the Mississippi on logs at night to bring and carry news to
Johnston. I am so tired of corn-bread, which I never liked, that I eat
it with tears in my eyes. We are lucky to get a quart of milk daily from
a family near who have a cow they hourly expect to be killed. I send
five dollars to market each morning, and it buys a small piece of
mule-meat. Rice and milk is my main food; I can't eat the mule-meat. We
boil the rice and eat it cold with milk for supper. Martha runs the
gauntlet to buy the meat and milk once a day in a perfect terror. The
shells seem to have many different names: I hear the soldiers say,
"That's a mortar-shell. There goes a Parrott. That's a rifle-shell."
They are all equally terrible. A pair of chimney-swallows have built in
the parlor chimney. The concussion of the house often sends down parts
of their nest, which they patiently pick up and reascend with.
_Friday, June 5. In the cellar._--Wednesday evening H. said he must take
a little walk, and went while the shelling had stopped. He never leaves
me alone for long, and when an hour had passed without his return I
grew anxious; and when two hours, and the shelling had grown terrific, I
momentarily expected to see his mangled body. All sorts of horrors fill
the mind now, and I am so desolate here; not a friend. When he came he
said that, passing a cave where there were no others near, he heard
groans, and found a shell had struck above and caused the cave to fall
in on the man within. He could not extricate him alone, and had to get
help and dig him out. He was badly hurt, but not mortally, and I felt
fairly sick from the suspense.
Yesterday morning a note was brought H. from a bachelor uncle out in the
trenches, saying he had been taken ill with fever, and could we receive
him if he came? H. sent to tell him to come, and I arranged one of the
parlors as a dressing-room for him, and laid a pallet that he could move
back and forth to the cellar. He did not arrive, however. It is our
custom in the evening to sit in the front room a little while in the
dark, with matches and candle held ready in hand, and watch the shells,
whose course at night is shown by the fuse. H. was at the window and
suddenly sprang up, crying, "Run!"--"Where?"--"_Back_!"
I started through the back room, H. after me. I was just within the door
when the crash came that threw me to the floor. It was the most
appalling sensation I'd ever known--worse than an earthquake, which I've
also experienced. Shaken and deafened, I picked myself up; H. had struck
a light to find me. I lighted one, and the smoke guided us to the parlor
I had fixed for Uncle J. The candles were useless in the dense smoke,
and it was many minutes before we could see. Then we found the entire
side of the room torn out. The soldiers who had rushed in said, "This is
an eighty-pound Parrott." It had entered through the front, burst on the
pallet-bed, which was in tatters; the toilet service and everything else
in the room smashed. The soldiers assisted H. to board up the break with
planks to keep out prowlers, and we went to bed in the cellar as usual.
This morning the yard is partially plowed by a couple that fell there in
the night. I think this house, so large and prominent from the river, is
perhaps taken for headquarters and specially shelled. As we descend at
night to the lower regions, I think of the evening hymn that grandmother
taught me when a child:
Lord, keep us safe this night,
Secure from all our fears;
May angels guard us while we sleep,
Till morning light appears.
Surely, if there are heavenly guardians, we need them now.
_June 7._ (_In the cellar._)--There is one thing I feel especially
grateful for, that amid these horrors we have been spared that of
suffering for water. The weather has been dry a long time, and we hear
of others dipping up the water from ditches and mud-holes. This place
has two large underground cisterns of good cool water, and every night
in my subterranean dressing-room a tub of cold water is the nerve-calmer
that sends me to sleep in spite of the roar. One cistern I had to give
up to the soldiers, who swarm about like hungry animals seeking
something to devour. Poor fellows! my heart bleeds for them. They have
nothing but spoiled, greasy bacon, and bread made of musty pea-flour,
and but little of that. The sick ones can't bolt it. They come into the
kitchen when Martha puts the pan of corn-bread in the stove, and beg for
the bowl she mixed it in. They shake up the scrapings with water, put in
their bacon, and boil the mixture into a kind of soup, which is easier
to swallow than pea-bread. When I happen in, they look so ashamed of
their poor clothes. I know we saved the lives of two by giving a few
meals. To-day one crawled on the gallery to lie in the breeze. He looked
as if shells had lost their terrors for his dumb and famished misery.
I've taught Martha to make first-rate corn-meal gruel, because I can eat
meal easier that way than in hoe-cake, and I fixed him a saucerful, put
milk and sugar and nutmeg--I've actually got a nutmeg! When he ate it
the tears ran from his eyes. "Oh, madam, there was never anything so
good! I shall get better."
_June 9._--The churches are a great resort for those who have no caves.
People fancy they are not shelled so much, and they are substantial and
the pews good to sleep in. We had to leave this house last night, they
were shelling our quarter so heavily. The night before, Martha forsook
the cellar for a church. We went to H.'s office, which was comparatively
quiet last night. H. carried the bank-box; I the case of matches; Martha
the blankets and pillows, keeping an eye on the shells. We slept on
piles of old newspapers. In the streets the roar seems so much more
confusing, I feel sure I shall run right in the way of a shell. They
seem to have five different sounds from the second of throwing them to
the hollow echo wandering among the hills, and that sounds the most
blood-curdling of all.
_June 13._--Shell burst just over the roof this morning. Pieces tore
through both floors down into the dining-room. The entire ceiling of
that room fell in a mass. We had just left it. Every piece of crockery
on the table was smashed up. The "Daily Citizen" to-day is a foot and a
half long and six inches wide. It has a long letter from a Federal
officer, P.P. Hill, who was on the gunboat _Cincinnati_, that was sunk
May 27. Says it was found in his floating trunk. The editorial says,
"The utmost confidence is felt that we can maintain our position until
succor comes from outside. The undaunted Johnston is at hand."
_June 18._--To-day the "Citizen" is printed on wallpaper; therefore has
grown a little in size. It says, "But a few days more and Johnston will
be here"; also that "Kirby Smith has driven Banks from Port Hudson," and
that "the enemy are throwing incendiary shells in."
_June 20._--The gentleman who took our cave came yesterday to invite us
to come to it, because, he said, "it's going to be very bad to-day." I
don't know why he thought so. We went, and found his own and another
family in it; sat outside and watched the shells till we concluded the
cellar was as good a place as that hillside. I fear the want of good
food is breaking down H. I know from my own feelings of weakness, but
mine is not an American constitution and has a recuperative power that
his has not.
_June 21._--I had gone up-stairs to-day during the interregnum to enjoy
a rest on my bed, and read the reliable items in the "Citizen," when a
shell burst right outside the window in front of me. Pieces flew in,
striking all around me, tearing down masses of plaster that came
tumbling over me. When H. rushed in I was crawling out of the plaster,
digging it out of my eyes and hair. When he picked up a piece as large
as a saucer beside my pillow, I realized my narrow escape. The
windowframe began to smoke, and we saw the house was on fire. H. ran for
a hatchet and I for water, and we put it out. Another [shell] came
crashing near, and I snatched up my comb and brush and ran down here. It
has taken all the afternoon to get the plaster out of my hair, for my
hands were rather shaky.
_June 25._--A horrible day. The most horrible yet to me, because I've
lost my nerve. We were all in the cellar, when a shell came tearing
through the roof, burst up-stairs, tore up that room, and the pieces
coming through both floors down into the cellar, one of them tore open
the leg of H.'s pantaloons. This was tangible proof the cellar was no
place of protection from them. On the heels of this came Mr. J. to tell
us that young Mrs. P. had had her thigh-bone crushed. When Martha went
for the milk she came back horror-stricken to tell us the black girl
there had her arm taken off by a shell. For the first time I quailed. I
do not think people who are physically brave deserve much credit for it;
it is a matter of nerves. In this way I am constitutionally brave, and
seldom think of danger till it is over; and death has not the terrors
for me it has for some others. Every night I had lain down expecting
death, and every morning rose to the same prospect, without being
unnerved. It was for H. I trembled. But now I first seemed to realize
that something worse than death might come: I might be crippled, and not
killed. Life, without all one's powers and limbs, was a thought that
broke down my courage. I said to H., "You must get me out of this
horrible place; I cannot stay; I know I shall be crippled." Now the
regret comes that I lost control, because H. is worried, and has lost
his composure, because my coolness has broken down.
_July 1._--Some months ago, thinking it might be useful, I obtained from
the consul of my birthplace, by sending to another town, a passport for
foreign parts. H. said if we went out to the lines we might be permitted
to get through on that. So we packed the trunks, got a carriage, and on
the 30th drove out there. General V. offered us seats in his tent. The
rifle-bullets were whizzing so _zip, zip_ from the sharpshooters on the
Federal lines that involuntarily I moved on my chair. He said, "Don't be
alarmed; you are out of range. They are firing at our mules yonder." His
horse, tied by the tent door, was quivering all over, the most intense
exhibition of fear I'd ever seen in an animal. General V. sent out a
flag of truce to the Federal headquarters, and while we waited wrote on
a piece of silk paper a few words. Then he said, "My wife is in
Tennessee. If you get through the lines, send her this. They will search
you, so I will put it in this toothpick." He crammed the silk paper into
a quill toothpick, and handed it to H. It was completely concealed. The
flag-of-truce officer came back flushed and angry. "General Grant says
no human being shall pass out of Vicksburg; but the lady may feel sure
danger will soon be over. Vicksburg will surrender on the 4th."
"Is that so, general?" inquired H. "Are arrangements for surrender
made?"
"We know nothing of the kind. Vicksburg will not surrender."
"Those were General Grant's exact words, sir," said the flag-officer.
"Of course it is nothing but their brag."
We went back sadly enough, but to-day H. says he will cross the river to
General Porter's lines and try there; I shall not be disappointed.
_July 3._--H. was going to headquarters for the requisite pass, and he
saw General Pemberton crawling out of a cave, for the shelling had been
as hot as ever. He got the pass, but did not act with his usual caution,
for the boat he secured was a miserable, leaky one--a mere trough.
Leaving Martha in charge, we went to the river, had our trunks put in
the boat, and embarked; but the boat became utterly unmanageable, and
began to fill with water rapidly. H. saw that we could not cross in it,
and turned to come back; yet in spite of that the pickets at the battery
fired on us. H. raised the white flag he had, yet they fired again, and
I gave a cry of horror that none of these dreadful things had wrung from
me. I thought H. was struck. When we landed H. showed the pass, and said
that the officer had told him the battery would be notified we were to
cross. The officer apologized and said they were not notified. He
furnished a cart to get home, and to-day we are down in the cellar
again, shells flying as thick as ever; provisions so nearly gone,
except the hogshead of sugar, that a few more days will bring us to
starvation indeed. Martha says rats are hanging dressed in the market
for sale with mule-meat: there is nothing else. The officer at the
battery told me he had eaten one yesterday. We have tried to leave this
Tophet and failed, and if the siege continues I must summon that higher
kind of courage--moral bravery--to subdue my fears of possible
mutilation.
_July 4._--It is evening. All is still. Silence and night are once more
united. I can sit at the table in the parlor and write. Two candles are
lighted. I would like a dozen. We have had wheat supper and wheat bread
once more. H. is leaning back in the rocking-chair; he says:
"G., it seems to me I can hear the silence, and feel it, too. It wraps
me like a soft garment; how else can I express this peace?"
But I must write the history of the last twenty-four hours. About five
yesterday afternoon, Mr. J., H.'s assistant, who, having no wife to keep
him in, dodges about at every change and brings us the news, came to H.
and said:
"Mr. L., you must both come to our cave to-night. I hear that to-night
the shelling is to surpass everything yet. An assault will be made in
front and rear. You know we have a double cave; there is room for you in
mine, and mother and sister will make a place for Mrs. L. Come right up;
the ball will open about seven."
We got ready, shut up the house, told Martha to go to the church again
if she preferred it to the cellar, and walked up to Mr. J.'s. When
supper was eaten, all secure, and ladies in their cave night toilet, it
was just six, and we crossed the street to the cave opposite. As I
crossed a mighty shell flew screaming right over my head. It was the
last thrown into Vicksburg. We lay on our pallets waiting for the
expected roar, but no sound came except the chatter from neighboring
caves, and at last we dropped asleep. I woke at dawn stiff. A draft from
the funnel-shaped opening had been blowing on me all night. Every one
was expressing surprise at the quiet. We started for home and met the
editor of the "Daily Citizen." H. said:
"This is strangely quiet, Mr. L."
"Ah, sir," shaking his head gloomily, "I'm afraid (?) the last shell has
been thrown into Vicksburg."
"Why do you fear so?"
"It is surrender. At six last evening a man went down to the river and
blew a truce signal; the shelling stopped at once."
When I entered the kitchen a soldier was there waiting for the bowl of
scrapings (they took turns for it).
"Good morning, madam," he said; "we won't bother you much longer. We
can't thank you enough for letting us come, for getting this soup boiled
has helped some of us to keep alive; but now all this is over."
"Is it true about the surrender?"
"Yes; we have had no official notice, but they are paroling out at the
lines now, and the men in Vicksburg will never forgive Pemberton. An old
granny! A child would have known better than to shut men up in this
cursed trap to starve to death like useless vermin." His eyes flashed
with an insane fire as he spoke, "Haven't I seen my friends carried out
three or four in a box, that had died of starvation! Nothing else,
madam! Starved to death because we had a fool for a general."
"Don't you think you're rather hard on Pemberton? He thought it his duty
to wait for Johnston."
"Some people may excuse him, ma'am; but we'll curse him to our dying
day. Anyhow, you'll see the blue-coats directly."
Breakfast despatched, we went on the upper gallery. What I expected to
see was files of soldiers marching in, but it was very different. The
street was deserted, save by a few people carrying home bedding from
their caves. Among these was a group taking home a little creature born
in a cave a few days previous, and its wan-looking mother. About eleven
o'clock a soldier in blue came sauntering along, who looked about
curiously. Then two more followed him, and then another.
"H., do you think these can be the Federal soldiers?"
"Why, yes; here come more up the street."