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.
