CHAPTER XXII.
First sharp-shooting at Vicksburg—Silences two guns—The rifle-pit—Shoots a Carolinian—The Carolinian's comrade—Outshoots a squad of sixteen—The defiant rebel—Shoots for General McPherson and General Logan—Beats the Parrot rifles—Joke on the Adjutant-General—Visit to Admiral Porter—The French spy—The disclosures—Capture of a rebel dispatch—The fate of the spy.
I shall not attempt to give the reader a detailed history of the siege of Vicksburg, but shall confine myself to incidents in my own experience during the siege.
The country lying about the city of Vicksburg is of a very peculiar formation—very hilly and extremely broken. It consists of threads, or narrow ridges, with deep ravines between, running in every direction, with spurs or smaller ridges putting out from them.
The lines occupied by the two contending armies were a succession of those ridges, with a general course nearly parallel, but at unequal distances apart, forming an irregular circuit about the city from the river above to the river below.
The next day after the regiment to which I belong moved into its position at the rear of Vicksburg, two pieces of the enemy's artillery opened a very annoying fire upon it with shell. The men were under the necessity of laying flat on the ground, behind the ridge, for protection, and even then were in great danger from the explosion of the shells. I went to Colonel Force and asked him if I might go and try my hand at silencing the guns with my rifle.
He said, "Yes; but you must be very careful, for the shells are coming very low."
I started out, and made my way along under cover of the ridge on which we lay, until I came to one of the spurs mentioned, that approached much nearer to the enemy's works than did the ridge occupied by the regiment. From that I succeeded in getting a good view of the guns that were shelling us. In front of me was a dry oak log, and underneath it I dug out a hole that enabled me to shoot under it, and the log prevented the enemy from seeing me.
As soon as I had become fixed in my position, I commenced to pick off the gunners. I succeeded so well that only two shells were fired after I took my position. Several ineffectual attempts were made to load the guns, but the moment a gunner stepped up to fill the place of his fallen comrade, I picked him off, and, finally, the guns were abandoned, and the bodies of those that had fallen left where they fell.
My success seemed incredible. To put it beyond a doubt, I concluded to go back and get some officer to come and see what execution I had done. I went back to the regiment, where I found Colonel Force. I said to him, "Colonel, I have silenced those two guns that were shelling us."
"I see they haven't fired much since you left."
"How many did they fire after I went away?"
"Only two or three, I believe."
"Well, now, Colonel, for my credit, please to go over with me where I have been at work, and see what I have been doing."
"Really, I don't know as I ought to leave here a moment, but I want to learn the lay of the ground, and I don't care if I go."
He followed along behind me to where I had been at work, and then commenced looking with his glasses.
"See there! see—see—see that man leading that horse yonder!" "Do you see him?" said he.
"Yes."
"Well, try him a pull."
"Don't get me excited, Colonel, but watch the man."
"Crack!" went my rifle.
"I declare!" said the Colonel, "that's—that's a valuable piece! Excuse me, I must go back."
Rifle-trenches were immediately dug on the ridges of ground nearest the enemy's works, and in them were stationed sharp-shooters, who kept up a constant fire, night and day, which answered as a cover for our fatigue parties engaged in digging approaches to his works, and also prevented him from doing much execution with his artillery. Our artillery was not idle but kept up a fire from some part of the line at all hours of the day and night.
A few days after the siege was fairly in operation, General Logan asked me to go out, at night, to an elevated spot of ground between our rifle-trenches and the enemy's, on which stood a large stump, and dig myself a pit behind the stump and see if I could pick off some of the rebel sharp-shooters.
As soon as it was dark, I took a spade and a canteen of water and went over. The spot was not more than fifty yards from the enemy's trenches. During the night, I dug myself a pit large enough so that I could squat down in it. When daylight came, I found that I had an excellent view of the enemy's trenches, without being seen myself. I worked out a little hole underneath one of the roots of the stump, and through that I did my shooting. Toward the middle of the day the sun shone down excessively hot, and I had nothing to shade me from its burning rays. My pit was not large enough for comfort, and, besides, I had neglected to take any rations with me. My supply of water also gave out, and by noon my position seemed almost unbearable. To leave it in daylight would be certain death. I bore my situation as well as I could, and improved it to the best advantage. During the day I had several fair shots, which I improved, and did good execution.
About 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a rebel sharp-shooter (whom, from his dress, I took to be a Carolinian) undertook to crawl up to the top of their earth-works, behind a stump that hid him from the view of our sharp-shooters, that he might be enabled to get a shot at them. He crawled along, with his gun in his right hand, till near the spot, and then took off his big-brimmed hat and turned his head up sideways to look around the side of the stump at our sharp-shooters. My position to him was such that I could see every movement that he made. He evidently did not know where I was. While his head was turned up my gun cracked, and his feet flew straight behind him.
A comrade of his then undertook to crawl up and drag him away. When he was about ready to grasp the dead man by the legs, my gun again cracked, and he rolled over on his back near his comrade. Both of them remained there until dark, without any attempt being made to remove them.
As soon as it was dark I made my way back to my quarters, well satisfied with my experience in an advanced rifle-pit.
Not many days after the foregoing incident, I was passing along the intrenchments, when I found a squad of sixteen men, part of them of the 23d Indiana Regiment, and the rest from the 45th Illinois, engaged in sharp-shooting. They saw me passing with my rifle, and, having heard of its long range and accuracy, called me, and expressed a desire to have me try it on a fellow that they had been shooting at for about two hours, but without success.
The fellow that they had been shooting at was engaged in digging a rifle-pit in advance of the enemy's intrenchments, and while digging he was exposed to full view.
I asked the boys what distance they had been shooting, and they informed me that they had been trying him at a range of nine hundred yards, and had succeeded in hitting the dirt about him. I raised the sight of my rifle to nine hundred yards, and then requested the squad to cease firing for a few minutes, and let the smoke clear away, and then to watch where my ball struck. As soon as the atmosphere was clear of smoke, and every thing quiet, I leveled my piece and fired.
"You've hit him! you've hit him!" exclaimed several.
The fellow straightened up, whirled about, as if angry, and flung his shovel from him as far as he could, and then sat down. In about a minute after he began gradually to throw up his hands, and then fell over backward on the ground, evidently dead, where he remained, as he had fallen, during the rest of the day. The next morning his body had been removed.
On another occasion, two companies of the 20th Ohio were engaged at digging in the approaches to the rebel Fort Hill, and were subjected to a very annoying fire from a squad of about fifteen rebel sharp-shooters, stationed in a ditch, not accessible, at that time, to our artillery.
I was sent for, and requested to bring my rifle and see if I could silence them. A place had been fixed for me near where the companies were at work, considerably in advance of any other sharp-shooter. I worked a long time at them, during which time I hit several. After awhile there was but one to be seen; the rest had either been disabled or so badly frightened as to have laid down in the bottom of the ditch for safety. I kept up a fire at the single individual for some time. My balls would strike the ground close to him, and then he would swing his hat in defiance or return my shot. Twice he put his balls within an inch of my head; once a sliver from the timber under which I shot was knocked off and struck me on the head, hurting me considerably. Another ball hit a bayonet that I had placed in the dirt to rest my rifle upon, and, glancing upward, just missed my head.
A Lieutenant came along, and I told him what I had been doing. He got upon the earth-works where I was, and, seeing the defiant rebel, asked me to let him try his hand at him. He fired several shots, but with no better success than I had had.
By that time it was nearly night, and I had fired at the squad forty-eight shots, so I concluded to give up the shooting of the defiant man as a bad job.
The next day the ditch was unoccupied; the experience of the day before had evidently satisfied them.
On another occasion, while I was engaged in sharp-shooting, General McPherson and General Logan came into the fortifications, and were watching a party of ten or twelve rebels engaged in digging a ditch. They called me, and General McPherson said:
"Bunker, can you shoot into that ditch yonder, where those men are at work? They have been shooting at them with the Parrot rifles, and haven't thrown any shot in there yet."
"Yes, I think I can."
"Well, try it."
I raised my sight to one thousand yards, and fired at the ditch.
"There!" said McPherson, looking through his glasses, "you've hit one of them!"
"By G—d! they are carrying out one!" said Logan, looking with his glasses.
"Try it again," said McPherson.
I did try. I fired two more shots into the ditch, and the whole squad ran out and left it.
A few days afterward, I chanced to meet General McPherson, who asked me how my ammunition held out. I told him that it was nearly all gone.
"Well, Bunker," said he, "come over to my tent day after to-morrow, and I will try to have some on hand for you. I think that I can keep you supplied."
In the morning of the day agreed upon, I went over to General McPherson's tent. He was absent; but Colonel ——, Assistant Adjutant-General, was there, who, as soon as I entered, inquired of me what I wanted.
"I want to see General McPherson."
"What do you want of General McPherson?"
"I want to see him about some ammunition."
"Who are you?"
"I am an Arkansas school-master."
"What kind of ammunition do you want?"
"Cartridges for one of Henry's repeating rifles."
"Well, this a'n't the place to get ammunition. Go to the ordnance officer, and see if you can't get it of him."
I did as I was directed, but found no cartridges. I returned to the tent, and said to him, "Colonel, that officer didn't have any cartridges."
"Yes, sir, I'm a soldier."
"Well, you had better go to your quarters."
"Oh, yes, I'll go to my quarters! I'd like to see General McPherson first, though; he told me to come here. Haven't you got some whisky, that you can give me two or three hundred swallows before I go?"
"Yes, I'll give you some whisky if you'll leave and go to your quarters."
"Oh, yes, I'll go to my quarters if you'll give me some whisky!"
He turned me out enough for three drinks, to spite me, I suppose, for my impudence in asking him for it, and I deliberately drank it all down. "Thank you!" said I, and went out. Before I had got out of hearing, General McPherson entered, and I heard some one tell him that there was a man just in to see him, and that he had stepped out. The General came out and called me back.
"Well, Bunker," said he, "I haven't got those cartridges yet; but you go over to General Grant's head-quarters, and tell his Chief-of-Staff that I sent you over to get some cartridges for your rifle. He has got a rifle of that kind, and I presume that he has got some cartridges."
"Well, I'll go and see. But it's a pretty warm morning, General, and I hate to come all the way up here for nothing. I think your Adjutant-General has got some pretty good whisky in there; can't you induce him to give me a drink before I go back?"
"Yes! Adjutant, give Bunker two or three hundred swallows of whisky!"
The Adjutant-General looked at me and then at General McPherson, as if about to say that I had just had some, and then, as if recollecting that it was military to obey orders without questioning them, turned me out a large tumblerful, which I drank, and then went out.
By the time I had reached my quarters, my physical nature was so much under the influence of the "spiritual," that I deferred my visit to General Grant's head-quarters until the next morning.
In the morning, early, I went over to General Grant's head-quarters, and told him that General McPherson had sent me there to see if I could get some ammunition for my rifle from his Chief-of-Staff. He told me that his Chief-of-Staff had gone to St. Louis, and had taken his rifle with him.
"Do you know of any body that has got any of that kind of cartridges?" I inquired.
"I think," said, the General, "that Admiral Porter has got ammunition of that kind, and I will give you a request to carry to him, and you may go and see him about it."
He wrote a note for me to hand to Admiral Porter, and commenced to write me a pass, but was interrupted by some business, so he handed me the note, and told me to step over to the Provost-marshal and ask him to write me a pass.
I did so; but, being a stranger to him, he did not know that I was a soldier, and the pass that I received read as follows:
"Head-quarters Dep't of the Tennessee.
"Rear of Vicksburg, Miss., June —, 1863.
"Lorain Ruggles, a citizen of the South, has leave to visit Admiral Porter's flag-ship and return with a gun.
"—— ——
"Provost-marshal."
I took my rifle and went to Chickasaw Landing, on the Yazoo river, where I succeeded in getting on board the steamer Diligent, a dispatch-boat, as she went down to the gun-boats with dispatches. The flag-ship, at that time, lay in the Mississippi River, a short distance above Vicksburg.
I found the Admiral, and handed him the note from General Grant, which he read; and then, giving me a searching look from head to foot, he said:
"Well, Mr. Scout, you want some ammunition for your rifle; but I don't keep any such trifling guns about me, and, consequently, I have got none of that kind of ammunition."
"Look'e here, Mr. Admiral," said I; "that gun a'n't so small a trifle as you imagine. I can kill a reb. with it at a distance of nine hundred yards, and I can outshoot the Parrot rifles!"
"Ah, you can't commence with my guns! They are better than that. Orderly, go down and bring up one of my favorites."
The orderly soon returned with a beautiful Spencer rifle. "There," said the Admiral, handing me the gun; "how do you like the looks of that?"
I took it and examined it carefully all over. It was a seven-shooter, with a bayonet, and every part of it most beautifully finished. It suited me to a charm.
"Well, inasmuch as I have got no cartridges for my gun, how will you trade guns with me?"
"I can't part with that gun; you might as well try to get my wife as that gun!"
He then told me that if General Grant wanted I should have one, he would get one like it for me. I told him that I could not carry two guns, and that I did not want one unless I could trade him mine. He promised, however, to make an effort to get me some cartridges. By this time the dispatch-boat was ready to return, and I went back to Chickasaw Landing.
On my arrival at the landing, I met a little Frenchman, whom I had frequently seen in Memphis, and at the camps about there, and I had for some time suspected that he was a Confederate spy.
I first saw him in the camps of the 20th, 78th, and 68th Ohio, and the 23d Indiana regiments, engaged in buying Confederate money of the soldiers. At that time he wore very long hair, and was dressed like a citizen; but on this occasion his hair was cut short, and he was dressed like a clerk about some head-quarters.
I saw him several times at Memphis, while I was under the assumed character of a rebel Major. He had never seen me in any other dress than that of a citizen.
I expressed delight at meeting him, shook hands with him, and inquired about his health, etc.
"Who are you to work for now?" he inquired.
"For General Johnston."
"Are you? So am I!"
"Nothing new. Have you any news?"
"No, not at present. Come, let us go over to the steamer Arago and get something to drink before we separate. There is an old friend of ours that is commissary clerk aboard of her. He used to live in Holly Springs, Miss., and, when we were in Memphis last winter, he was there engaged in buying mules and smuggling them through the Yankee lines to sell. Let us go over and see him."
The Frenchman accompanied me on board the steamboat, and there we found the clerk I had told him about, who took us to the bar and got us something to drink. He also induced the barkeeper to sell me a canteen of whisky, as a favor to a special friend.
Having procured the whisky, I prevailed upon the Frenchman to accompany me, and we went up the bank of the river to a secluded place, where we sat down to enjoy ourselves.
My companion seemed to relish the whisky much better than I did, and its effects soon made him very communicative, so that I was enabled to draw out a great deal of information concerning his business as a spy. He told me that he was engaged in getting dispatches through the Federal lines at Vicksburg to Generals Johnston and Pemberton.
During his visits to the Federal camps at Memphis, to purchase Confederate money, he had noted down the names of the officers in the different regiments, and the companies to which they belonged.
With that knowledge, whenever he wanted to get from Chickasaw Landing into our lines, he would go to the Provost-marshal and represent himself as belonging to Captain such-a-one's company, in such a regiment, on detached service, and get a pass to visit his regiment, and with it he could pass our lines.
The dispatches of General Johnston were brought across the country, by cavalry, to a point on the Yazoo River above Haines' Bluff. There the spy received them, and crossed over to the opposite side of the river, and then came down the river opposite to Snyder's Bluff; there he would manage to cross at night in a canoe, and land inside of our lines, without being seen. There he would get on board a dispatch-boat and come down to Chickasaw Landing, and there he would procure a pass, as I have explained. From there he would go to Mr. Smith's, who lived between the picket lines at the landing and the troops at the rear of Vicksburg.
He would give the dispatches to Mr. Smith's daughter, and she would give them to a servant of hers, a smart, intelligent colored boy, rather small of his age, who would carry them to the river above Vicksburg. He described to me the route the colored boy would take to get to the river.
At the river, the colored boy would give them to a fisherman, who staid there, and was engaged in catching fish and selling them to the gun-boatmen and the soldiers. The fisherman had lost a hand while in the rebel army, in the battle of Shiloh, and had been discharged.
He had represented to Admiral Porter that he had belonged to the Federal army, and had been wounded, as before stated, and discharged, and had succeeded in getting permission from him to fish in the river and visit his lines at all hours of the night. He had managed to make himself a favorite at the picket-post near the river, and his frequent visits to his lines near the post, at all hours of the day and night, had ceased to excite any suspicion whatever.
The fisherman would take the dispatches, and at night, while visiting his lines, pass the pickets, and carry them to the rebel pickets and then return.
In the same channel, General Pemberton's dispatches went out. How long communication had been kept up in that way I did not learn.
After having drank the most of the whisky, we returned to the landing and separated. I went to the Provost-marshal, and told him that there was one of General Johnston's spies there, and requested him to send some guards and arrest him.
"Are you a soldier?" he inquired.
"Yes!"
"Where did you come from?"
"Admiral Porter's flag-ship."
"Have you got a pass?"
"Yes!"
"Let me see it."
I handed it to him, and he commenced reading, "Lorain Ruggles, a citizen of the South"—"You go to h—l!" he exclaimed. "You a'n't any better than the rest of them!"
I went out and found that the Frenchman was just stepping on board the dispatch-boat Diligent, and in a moment more the boat was under way for Snyder's Bluff.
I reported to General Grant the information that I had received, and then asked him if I might kill the spy wherever I found him. He told me to do with him just as I thought proper, under the circumstances, and that the military authorities should not hurt me for it.
In two days after, the colored boy was captured, and a dispatch from General Johnston found on his person. About the same time the fishing arrangement at the river was broken up. I can also assure the reader that the little Frenchman, though never arrested, will never buy any more Confederate money nor carry any more rebel dispatches.