THE CLOSING SCENES.
IT was stated that within a week after the investment of Vicksburg, its garrison was reduced to 14-1/2 ounces of food for each man a day. And the rebel commander declared he would hold the town until the last dog was eaten. I guess Pemberton kept his word, for after their surrender I don't remember of seeing a single dog in the city of Vicksburg. How the tables were turned on poor Fido to be sure—that the biter should not only be bitten but eaten. A lieutenant on the 6th Missouri who had been taken a prisoner during the assault of the 19th, on June 5 was paroled by the rebs and returned to us. He said the living over there when he left was anything but invigorating; that good juicy mule cutlets were eagerly sought for by the elite of the city and brought fabulous prices; the tomcat-weinerwurst was a luxury there that was seldom enjoyed by the best families; that the squad in which he was quartered while a prisoner on the day before his parole had boiled victuals composed of a pair of gumboots for meat, some croquet balls for potatoes and an old green umbrella cover for greens; said he didn't enjoy those extra dishes at all; and preferred just common fare only. We used to twit the Johnnies with eating mule meat in some of our games of blackguard with them in the rifle pits, but until the surrender we didn't know we had been twitting upon facts. We had the advantage of the rebel garrison in many ways because we were sheltered from the blistering heat of the sun by the forest shade, and had plenty to eat and the cool springs in the ravines furnished us an abundance of pure water, while the enemy was wholly unsheltered in their defensive works, reduced to almost starvation rations and a scarcity of good water. One day we captured a Johnnie skulking down in the ravine with a dozen canteens over his shoulder after water for himself and comrades.
The prices of foodstuffs in Vicksburg before the end of that siege were awful; flour was $1,000 a barrel; meal, $140 a bushel; beef, $250 a pound, and everything else in proportion. It is a wonder that poor people managed to eat at all. All the while the beleaguered garrison was sustained in their hardships and privations by the belief that Johnson would surely come to their relief, which belief was doomed to disappointment and sadly misplaced. Though 'tis stated upon good authority, that Johnson did finally march towards the Big Black and actually dispatched a messenger to Pemberton on the night of July 3rd notifying him that he was then ready to make a diversion to enable him to cut his way out. Before the messenger got there Vicksburg had been surrendered. The days of this long siege were kept from becoming monotonous by a hundred and one duties we had to perform, and innumerable exciting incidents that daily happened. All the time the firing was continuous on our side, and almost so on the part of the enemy. Every minute, almost, a tick-a-ka-tick of minie bullets was registered by the twigs and leaves above and around us. Many of our boys were killed or wounded in their bowers and beds by the stray bullets. Referring to my journal, I find June 4, a man of the 6th Missouri shot while lying in his bed; June 10, two of our men wounded at night in bed by stray bullets; June 11, heavy picket firing, men continually getting wounded in camp by stray bullets; June 13, a man of Company A shot in rifle pits, died while bringing him into camp; June 14, three men wounded in camp; June 15, today walking with my comrade, John Gubtail, over the crest of a hill, suddenly fell prostrate at my feet. I thought he was trying to act funny, but he got up in a few minutes and showed me a bullet hole through his cap and a shallow furrow across his scalp where the bullet had ploughed. The rebel sharpshooter had just missed his target partially. We went down to lower ground then.
One day Mrs. Hoge, of sanitary fame, and the mother of the colonel of my regiment, came into our camp and after getting all the soldiers of my regiment there not on duty, assembled for an audience, she made a stirring speech. Among other things she said, "Before you left Chicago we ladies presented your regiment with a flag, and your colonel when he received that flag pledged himself that it should ever be defended, and sustained with honor. What has become of that flag? I desire to see how well you have kept that promise." The color sergeant brought it to her. Said she, "There are suspicious looking holes and rents in this flag. How is that?" "That flag," said the color bearer proudly, "has been many times carried in the front when we went across the edge of battle, and those marks were made by bullets and fragments of shell, and madam, two men who carried it before me, fell with it in their hands, and both are dead from the effects of their wounds." "Enough," said the old lady, "You have redeemed your pledge, and I will tell the women of Chicago who presented that flag to you, when I go back, how nobly your pledge has been redeemed." Then she asked some of us who knew the song, to come forward and sing with her "The Star Spangled Banner." I was one who with others thus volunteered, and amid the thunder of artillery firing and the click of minie bullets over our heads we sang that song with Mrs. Hoge, as she held the flag in her arms.
One day when we had our men out in the rifle pits at the extreme front we saw a union flag lying in a slight ravine a little ways in front of our rifle pits, which had been abandoned by some regiment in one of the charges, and at the risk of his life one of our boys crawled out and brought in the flag. It proved to be the regimental colors of the 4th Virginia, and when we were relieved from duty we marched up to the colonel's tent of the 4th Virginia and called him out, and I with a few simple, and I thought well chosen remarks restored the lost colors of his regiment to him and wound up by saying, "Take back your flag colonel, and next time when you are in battle hang on to it." He took the flag spitefully from me, turning very red in the face, said nothing about setting up the cigars or drinks and without thanking us even, vanished into the bowels of his tent. We boys were all mad, and if we had known how he was going to act we would have left the flag out there on the battlefield where they had abandoned it. I thought afterwards, that perhaps my presentation speech wasn't just to his taste.
On June 20th my regiment was changed in the line to the mouth of the Yazoo river on the banks of the Chickasaw Bayou. We established our new camp at that point, little thinking at the time what an unfortunate move it was for us. In the formation of these new quarters my tent position came down close to the waters of the stagnant bayou, and when I was driving stakes for my new home, a great green headed alligator poked his nozzle above the surface of the bayou waters and smiled at me. Upon examination of the ground along the bayou shore, I discovered alligator tracks where they had waltzed around under the beautiful light of the moon upon a very recent occasion, so I built my bunk high enough to enable me to roost out of reach of those hideous creatures at night.
Though I had built high enough to escape the prowling alligators I had not built high enough to get above the deadly malaria distilled by that cantankerous bayou. We soon learned what a loss we had sustained in exchanging the pure cold springs of the Walnut hills for the poisonous waters of our new vicinity. At first the blue waters of the Yazoo fooled us. It was as blue and clear as lake water, and we drank copiously of it, but felt badly afterwards. We didn't know we were drinking poisoned water until an old colored citizen one day warned us. Then we looked the matter up, and found that the interpretation of the word Yazoo was "The river of death," and that its beautiful blue waters were the drainings of vast swamps and swails. We learned too late, however, for the safety of our men, and lost in the next few weeks nearly half of our regiment from malarial or swamp fevers. In the meantime Vicksburg was starving.
