Campfire and Battlefield / An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson; Selden Connor; John Brown Gordon; Henry W. B. Howard; O. O. Howard; John Tyler Morgan; John Clark Ridpath

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.

OPERATIONS ON THE MISSISSIPPI—GRANT PLACED IN COMMAND—PLANS THE CAMPAIGN—LOSS AT HOLLY SPRINGS—SHERMAN AND PORTER DESCEND THE RIVER—SHERMAN'S ATTEMPT ON THE YAZOO—AT HAINES'S BLUFF—CAPTURE OF ARKANSAS POST—CUTTING A CANAL—YAZOO PASS ATTEMPTED—STEELE'S BAYOU—GRANT CROSSES THE MISSISSIPPI—GRIERSON'S RAID—ACTION AT RAYMOND—CAPTURE OF JACKSON—BATTLE OF CHAMPION'S HILL—PEMBERTON IN VICKSBURG—SIEGE OF THE CITY BEGUN—SURRENDER—OPERATIONS OF GUNBOAT ON THE RIVER—A DUMMY GUNBOAT—INTERESTING INCIDENTS DURING THE SIEGE.

In the autumn of 1862, after the battles of Iuka and Corinth, the National commanders in the West naturally began to think of further movements southward into the State of Mississippi, and of opening the great river and securing unobstructed navigation from Cairo to the Gulf. The project was slow in execution, principally from division of authority, and doubt as to what general would ultimately have the command. John A. McClernand, who had been a Democratic member of Congress from Illinois, and was what was known as a "political general," spent some time in Washington, urging the plan upon the President (who was an old acquaintance and personal friend), of course in the expectation that he would be intrusted with its execution. But he found little favor with General Halleck. At this time General Grant hardly knew what were the limits of his command, or whether, indeed, he really had any command at all.

Vicksburg is on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi, where it makes a sharp bend enclosing a long, narrow peninsula. The railroad from Shreveport, La., reaches the river at this point, and connects by ferry with the railroad running east from Vicksburg through Jackson, the State capital. The distance between the two cities is forty-five miles. About a hundred miles below Vicksburg is Port Hudson, similarly situated as to river and railways. Between these two points the great Red River, coming from the borders of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, flows into the Mississippi. As the Confederates drew a large part of their supplies from Texas and the country watered by the Red River, it was of the first importance to them to retain control of the Mississippi between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, especially after they had lost New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Memphis.

After taking New Orleans, in April, 1862, Farragut had gone up the river with some of his ships, in May, and demanded the surrender of Vicksburg; but, though the place was then but slightly fortified, the demand was refused, and without a land force he could not take the city, as it was too high to be damaged by his guns. He ran by the batteries in June, and communicated with the river fleet of Capt. Charles H. Davis. But all the while new batteries were being planted on the bluffs, and after a time it became exceedingly hazardous for any sort of craft to run the gantlet under their plunging fire. In August, a Confederate force, under Gen. John C. Breckinridge, attempted the capture of Baton Rouge, expecting to be assisted in the assault by an immense iron-clad ram, the Arkansas, which was coming down the river. The city was occupied by a force under Gen. Thomas Williams, who made a stubborn and bloody fight, driving off the enemy. General Williams was killed, as were also the Confederate General Clarke and numerous officers of lower rank on either side, and more than six hundred men in all were killed or wounded. The ram failed to take part in the fight, because her machinery broke down. She was attacked next day by two or three vessels, commanded by Captain (now Admiral) David D. Porter, and when she had been disabled her crew abandoned her and set her on fire, and she was blown into a thousand fragments. After this defeat, General Breckinridge turned his attention to the fortification of Port Hudson, which was made almost as strong as Vicksburg.

On the 12th of November, 1862, General Grant received a despatch from General Halleck placing him in command of all troops sent to his department, and telling him to fight the enemy where he pleased. Four days later Grant and Sherman had a conference at Columbus, and a plan was arranged and afterward modified, by which Grant (who then had about thirty thousand men under his personal command) was to move southward and confront an equal force, commanded by Gen. John C. Pemberton, on the Tallahatchie; while Sherman, with thirty thousand, was to move from Memphis down the eastern bank of the Mississippi, and, assisted by Porter and his gunboats, attempt the capture of Vicksburg from the rear. If Pemberton moved toward that city, Grant was to follow and engage him as soon as possible.

Sherman and Porter, with their usual energy, went to work with all speed to carry out their part of the programme. Grant moved more slowly, because he did not wish to force his enemy back upon Vicksburg, but to hold him as far north as possible. He established his dépôt of supplies at Holly Springs, and waited for Sherman's movement. But the whole scheme was ruined by the activity of two Confederate cavalry detachments under Generals Van Dorn and Forrest. On the 20th of December Van Dorn made a dash at Holly Springs, which was held by fifteen hundred men under a Colonel Murphy, and captured the place and its garrison. Grant had more than two million dollars' worth of supplies there, and as Van Dorn could not remove them he burned them all, together with the storehouses and railroad buildings. Forrest, making a wide detour, tore up a portion of the railroad between Jackson, Tenn., and Columbus, Ky., so that Grant's army was cut off from all communication with the North for more than a week. It had not yet occurred to anybody that a large army could leave its communications and subsist on supplies gathered in the enemy's country; so Grant gave up this part of his plan and moved back toward Memphis.

But Sherman and Porter, not hearing of the disaster at Holly Springs, had proceeded with their preparations, embarked the troops, and gone down the river in a long procession, the gunboats being placed at intervals in the line of transports. Sherman says: "We manoeuvred by divisions and brigades when in motion, and it was a magnificent sight. What few of the inhabitants remained at the plantations on the river bank were unfriendly, except the slaves. Some few guerilla parties infested the banks, but did not dare to molest so strong a force as I then commanded." The guerilla bands alluded to had been a serious annoyance to the boats patrolling the river. Besides the sharp-shooters with their rifles, small parties would suddenly appear at one point or another with a field gun, fire at a passing boat, and disappear before any force could be landed to pursue them. Farragut had been obliged to destroy the town of Donaldsonville, in order to punish and break up this practice on the lower reaches of the river.

By permission of Dick & Fitzgerald, N. Y., from "Twelve Decisive Battles of the War."

The expedition arrived at Milliken's Bend on Christmas, where a division was left, and whence a brigade was sent to break the railroad from Shreveport. The next day the boats, with the three remaining divisions, ascended the Yazoo thirteen miles to a point opposite the bluffs north of Vicksburg, where the troops were landed. They were here on the low bottom-land, which was crossed by numerous bayous, some parts of it heavily wooded, the clearings being abandoned cotton plantations. The bluffs were crowned with artillery, and along their base was a deserted bed of the Yazoo. Most of the bridges were destroyed, and the whole district was subject to inundation. It was ugly ground for the operations of an army; but Sherman, confident that Grant was holding Pemberton, felt sure there could not be a heavy force on the heights, and resolved to capture them without delay. The 27th and 28th were spent in reconnoitring, selecting points for attack, and placing the troops. On the 29th, while the gunboats made a diversion at Haines's Bluff, and a part of Steele's division made a feint on the right, near Vicksburg, the main force crossed the intervening bayous at two points and attacked the centre of the position. The battle was begun by a heavy artillery fire, followed by musketry, and then the rush of the men. They had to face guns, at the foot of the bluff, that swept the narrow approaches, and at the same time endure a cross-fire from the heights. Blair's brigade reached the base of the hills, but was not properly supported by Morgan's, and had to fall back again, leaving five hundred of its men behind. The Sixth Missouri Regiment, at another point, had also gone forward unsupported, reached the bluff, and could not return. The men quickly scooped niches in the bank with their hands and sheltered themselves in them, while many of the enemy came to the edge of the hill, held out their muskets vertically at arm's-length, and fired down at them. These men were not able to get back to their lines till nightfall. This assault cost Sherman eighteen hundred and forty-eight men, and inflicted upon the Confederates a loss of but two hundred. He made arrangements to send a heavy force on the transports to Haines's Bluff in the night of December 30, to be debarked at dawn, and storm the works there, while the rest of the troops were to advance as soon as the defences had been thus taken in reverse. But a heavy fog prevented the boats from moving, and the next day a rain set in. Sherman observed the water-marks on the trees ten feet above his head, and a great deal more then ten feet above his head in the other direction he saw whole brigades of reinforcements marching into the enemy's intrenchments. He knew then that something must have gone wrong with Grant's co-operating force, and so he wisely re-embarked his men and munitions, and steamed down to the mouth of the Yazoo.

GUNBOATS PASSING VICKSBURG IN THE NIGHT.

On the 4th of January, 1863, General McClernand assumed command of the two corps that were commanded by Generals Sherman and George W. Morgan. A fortnight before, a Confederate boat had come out of Arkansas River and captured a mail boat, and it was known that there was a Confederate garrison of five thousand men at Fort Hindman, or Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas. It occurred to Sherman that there could be no safety for boats on the Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas till this post was captured or broken up; and accordingly he asked McClernand to let him attack it with his corps, assisted by some of the gunboats. McClernand concluded to go himself with the entire army, and Porter also accompanied in person. They landed on the 10th, below the fort, and drove in the pickets. That night the Confederates toiled all night to throw up a line of works reaching from the fort northward to an impassable swamp. On the 11th the whole National force moved forward simultaneously to the attack, the gunboats steaming up close to the fort and sweeping its bastions with their fire, while Morgan's corps moved against its eastern face, and Sherman's against the new line of works. The ground to be passed over was level, with little shelter save a few trees and logs; but the men advanced steadily, lying down behind every little projection, and so annoying the artillerymen with their sharp-shooting that the guns could not be well served. When the gunboats arrived abreast of the fort and enfiladed it, the gunners ran down into the ditch, a man with a white flag appeared on the parapet, and presently white flags and rags were fluttering all along the line. Firing was stopped at once, and the fort was surrendered by its commander, General Churchill. About one hundred and fifty of the garrison had been killed, and the remainder, numbering forty-eight hundred, were made prisoners. The National loss was about one thousand. The fort was dismantled and destroyed, and the stores taken on board the fleet. McClernand conceived a vague project for ascending the river farther, but on peremptory orders from Grant the expedition returned to the Mississippi, steaming down the Arkansas in a heavy snow-storm.

In accordance with instructions from Washington, Grant now took personal command of the operations on the Mississippi, dividing his entire force into four corps, to be commanded by Generals McClernand, Sherman, Stephen A. Hurlbut, and James B. McPherson. Hurlbut's corps was left to hold the lines east of Memphis, while the other troops, with reinforcements from the North, were united in the river expedition.

McClernand and Sherman went down the peninsula enclosed in the bend of the river opposite Vicksburg, and with immense labor dug a canal across it. Much was hoped from this, but it proved a failure, for the river would not flow through it. Furthermore, there were bluffs commanding the river below Vicksburg, and the Confederates had already begun to fortify them; so that if the canal had succeeded, navigation of the stream would have been as much obstructed as before. Still the work was continued till the 7th of March, when the river suddenly rose and overflowed the peninsula, and Sherman's men barely escaped drowning by regiments.

Grant was surveying the country in every direction, for some feasible approach to the flanks of his enemy. One scheme was to move through Lake Providence and the bayous west of the Mississippi, from a point far above Vicksburg to one far below. This involved the cutting of another canal, from the Mississippi to one of the bayous, and McPherson's corps spent a large part of the month of March in digging and dredging; but this also was a failure. On the eastern side of the Mississippi there had once been an opening, known as Yazoo Pass, by which boats from Memphis made their way into Coldwater River, thence into the Tallahatchie, and thence into the Yazoo above Yazoo City; but the pass had been closed by a levee or embankment. Grant blew up the levee, and tried this approach. But the Confederates had information of every movement, and took prompt measures to thwart it. The banks of the streams where his boats had to pass were heavily wooded, and great trees were felled across the channel. Worse than this, after the boats had passed in and removed many of the obstructions, it was found that the enemy were felling trees across the channel behind them, so that they might not get out again. Earthworks also were thrown up at the point where the Yallabusha and Tallahatchie unite to form the Yazoo, and heavily manned. Here the advance division of the expedition had a slight engagement, with no result. Reinforcements arrived under Gen. Isaac F. Quinby, who assumed command, and began operations for crossing the Yallabusha and rendering the Confederate fortification useless, when he was recalled by Grant, who had found that the necessary light-draught boats for carrying his whole force through to that point could not be had.

One more attempt in this direction was made before the effort to flank Vicksburg on the north was given up. It was proposed to ascend the Yazoo a short distance from its mouth, turn into Steele's bayou, ascend this, and by certain passes that had been discovered get into Big Sunflower River, and then descend that stream into the Yazoo above Haines's Bluff. Porter and Sherman took the lead in this expedition, and encountered all the difficulties of the Yazoo Pass project, magnified several times—the narrow channels, the felled trees, the want of solid ground on which troops could be manoeuvred, the horrible swamps and canebrakes, through some of which they picked their way with lighted candles, and the annoyance from unseen sharp-shooters that swarmed through the whole region. Porter at one time was on the point of abandoning his boats; but finally all were extricated, though some of them had to back out through the narrow pass for a distance of thirty miles.

REAR-ADMIRAL HENRY WALKE. (Commander of the "Tyler" and "Carondelet.")

In March, Farragut with his flagship and one gunboat had run by the batteries at Port Hudson, but the remainder of his fleet had failed to pass. Several boats had run by the batteries at Vicksburg; and Grant now turned his attention to a project for moving an army by transports through bayous west of the Mississippi to a point below the city, where Porter, after running by the batteries with his iron-clads, was to meet him and ferry the troops across to the eastern bank. The use of the bayous was finally given up, and the army marched by the roads. The fleet ran by the batteries on the night of April 16. As soon as it was discovered approaching, the Confederates set fire to immense piles of wood that they had prepared on the bank, the whole scene became as light as day, and for an hour and a half the fleet was under a heavy fire, which it returned as it steadily steamed by; but beyond the destruction of one transport there was no serious loss.

Bridges had to be built over bayous, and a suitable place discovered for crossing the Mississippi. New Carthage was tried, but found impracticable, as it was nearly surrounded by water. Grand Gulf was strongly fortified, and on the 29th of April seven of Porter's gunboats attacked it. They fired five hundred shots an hour for five hours, and damaged the works somewhat, but only killed or wounded eighteen men, while the fleet lost twenty-six men, and one boat was seriously disabled. Grant therefore gave up the project of crossing here, moved his transports down stream under cover of darkness, and at daylight on the 30th began the crossing at Bruinsburg. McClernand's corps was in the advance, and marched on Port Gibson that night. At dawn the enemy was found in a strong position three miles west of that place. There was sharp fighting all day, the Confederate force numbering about eight thousand, and contesting every foot of the ground; but the line was finally disrupted, and at night-fall they made an orderly retreat, burning bridges behind them. The National loss had been eight hundred and forty-nine men, killed, wounded, or missing; the Confederate, about one thousand. Grant's movements at this time were greatly assisted by one of the most effective cavalry raids of the war. This was conducted by Col. Benjamin H. Grierson, who with seventeen hundred men set out from La Grange, Tenn., on the 17th of April, and rode southward through the whole State of Mississippi, tearing up railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies, eluding every strong force that was sent out to stop him, defeating several small ones, floundering through swamps, swimming rivers, spreading consternation by the celerity and uncertainty of his movements, and finally riding into Baton Rouge at the end of sixteen days with half his men asleep in their saddles. He had lost but twenty-seven.

The fortifications at Grand Gulf were abandoned. Porter took possession of them, and Grant established his base there. A bridge had to be rebuilt at Port Gibson, and then Crocker's division pushed on in pursuit of the retreating Confederates, saved a burning bridge at Bayou Pierre, came up with them at Willow Springs, and after a slight engagement drove them across the Big Black at Hankinson's Ferry, and saved the bridge. There was a slight delay, for Sherman's corps and the supplies to arrive, and then Grant pressed on resolutely with his whole army. He had with him about forty-one thousand men, subsequently increased to forty-five thousand; and Pemberton at this time had about fifty thousand.

Grant moved northeasterly, toward Jackson, and on the 12th of May found a hostile force near Raymond. It numbered but three thousand, and was soon swept away, though not until it had lost five hundred men and inflicted a loss of four hundred and thirty-two upon the National troops. It was the purpose of the Union commander to move swiftly, and beat the enemy as much as possible in detail before the scattered forces could concentrate against him. Believing there was a considerable force at Jackson, which he would not like to leave in his rear, he marched on that place, and the next conflict occurred there, May 14th. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (whom we took leave of when he was wounded at Seven Pines, nearly a year before) had just been ordered by the Confederate Government to take command of all the forces in Mississippi, and arrived at Jackson in the evening of the 13th, finding there about twelve thousand men subject to his orders. Pemberton was at Edwards Station, thirty miles westward, and Grant was between them. Johnston telegraphed to Richmond that he was too late, but took what measures he could for defence. It rained heavily that night, and the next morning, when the corps of Sherman and McPherson marched against the city, they travelled roads that were a foot under water. McPherson came up on the west, and Sherman on the southwest and south. The enemy was met two miles out, and driven in with heavy skirmishing. While manoeuvring was going on before the intrenchments, the Union commanders seeking for a suitable point to assault, it was discovered that the enemy was evacuating the place, and Grant and his men went in at once and hoisted the National colors. They had lost two hundred and ninety men in the skirmishing; the enemy, eight hundred and forty-five, mostly captured. Seventeen guns were taken, but the Confederates burned most of their stores.

Leaving Sherman at Jackson to destroy the railroad, and the factories that were turning out goods for the Confederacy, which he did very thoroughly, Grant ordered all his other forces to concentrate at Bolton, twenty miles west. Marching thence westward, keeping the corps well together, and ordering Sherman to send forward an ammunition-train—for he knew that a battle must soon be fought—Grant found Pemberton with twenty-three thousand men waiting to receive him at Champion's Hill, on high ground well selected for defence, which covered the three roads leading westward. The battle, May 15th, lasted four hours, and was the bloodiest of the campaign. The brunt of it, on the National side, was borne by the divisions of Hovey, Logan, and Crocker; and Hovey lost more than one-third of his men. Logan's division pushed forward on the right, passed Pemberton's left flank, and held the only road by which the enemy could retreat. But this was not known to the Union commander at the time, and when Hovey, hard pressed, called for help, Logan was drawn back to his assistance, and the road uncovered. A little later Pemberton was in full retreat toward the crossing of the Big Black River, leaving his dead and wounded and thirty guns on the field. Grant's loss in the action—killed, wounded, and missing—was twenty-four hundred and forty-one. Pemberton's was over three thousand killed and wounded (including General Tilghman killed), besides nearly as many more captured in battle or on the retreat.

The enemy was next found at the Big Black River, where he had placed his main line on the high land west of the stream, and stationed his advance (or, properly speaking, his rear guard) along the edge of a bayou that ran through the low ground on the east. This advanced position was attacked vigorously on the 17th, and when Lawler's brigade flanked it on the right, that general leading a charge in his shirt-sleeves, the whole line gave way, and Pemberton resumed his retreat, burning the bridge behind him and leaving his men in the lowland to their fate. Some swam the river, some were drowned, and seventeen hundred and fifty were made prisoners. Eighteen guns were captured here. The National loss was two hundred and seventy-nine.

Sherman now came up with his corps, and Grant ordered the building of three bridges. One was a floating or raft bridge. One was made by felling trees on both sides of the stream and letting them fall so that their boughs would interlace over the channel, the trunks not being cut entirely through, and so hanging to the stumps. Planks laid crosswise on these trees made a good roadway. The third bridge was made by using cotton bales for pontoons. Sherman's troops made a fourth bridge farther up the stream; and that night he and Grant sat on a log and watched the long procession of blue-coated men with gleaming muskets marching across the swaying structure by the light of pitch-pine torches. All the bridges were finished by morning, and that day, the 18th, the entire army was west of the river.

Pemberton marched straight into Vicksburg, which had a long line of defences on the land side as well as on the water front, and shut himself up there. Grant, following closely, invested the place on the 19th. Sherman, holding the right of the line, was at Haines's Bluff, occupying the very ground beneath which his men had suffered defeat some months before. Here, on the Yazoo, Grant established a new base for supplies. McPherson's corps was next to Sherman's on the left, and McClernand's next, reaching to the river below the city. Sharp skirmishing went on while the armies were getting into position, and an assault in the afternoon of the 19th gained the National troops some advantage in the advancement of the line to better ground. Grant's army had been living for three weeks on five days' rations, with what they could pick up in the country they passed through, which was not a little; and his first care was to construct roads in the rear of his line, so that supplies could be brought up from the Yazoo rapidly and regularly. He had now about thirty thousand men, the line of defences before him was eight miles long, and he expected an attack from Johnston in the rear. At ten o'clock on the 22d, therefore, he ordered a grand assault, hoping to carry the works by storm. But though the men at several points reached the breastworks and planted their battle-flags on them, it was found impossible to take them. McClernand falsely reported that he had carried two forts at his end of the line, and asked for reinforcements, which were sent to him, and a renewal of the assault was made to help him. This caused additional loss of life, to no purpose, and shortly afterward that general was relieved of his command, which was given to Gen. E. O. C. Ord.

After this assault, which had cost him nearly twenty-five hundred men, Grant settled down to a siege of Vicksburg by regular approaches. The work went on day by day, with the usual incidents of a siege. There was mining and counter-mining, and two large mines were exploded under angles of the Confederate works, but without any practical result. The great guns were booming night and day, throwing thousands of shells into the city, and more than one citizen picked up and threw into a heap hundreds of pounds of the iron fragments that fell into his yard. Caves were dug in the banks where the streets had been cut through the clayey hills, and in these the people found refuge from the shells. A newspaper was issued regularly even to the last day of the siege, but it was printed on the back of wallpaper. Provisions of course became scarce, and mule-meat was eaten. Somebody printed a humorous bill of fare, which consisted entirely of mule-meat in the various forms of soup, roast, stew, etc. All the while the besiegers were digging away, bringing their trenches closer to the defences, till the soldiers of the hostile lines bandied jests across the narrow intervening space. At the end of forty-seven days the works arrived at the point where a grand assault must be the next thing, and at the same time famine threatened, and the National holiday was at hand. After some negotiation General Pemberton unconditionally surrendered the city and his army of thirty-one thousand six hundred men, on the 4th of July, 1863, one day after Lee's defeat at Gettysburg.

MAJOR-GENERAL RICHARD J. OGLESBY.

Port Hudson, which Banks with twelve thousand men and Farragut with his fleet had besieged for weeks, was surrendered with its garrison of six thousand men, five days after the fall of Vicksburg. The entire Confederate loss in Mississippi, from the time Grant entered the State at Bruinsburg to the surrender, was about fifty thousand; Grant's was about nine thousand. But the great triumph was in the opening of the Mississippi River, which cut the Confederacy completely in two.

By Grant's orders there was no cheering, no firing of salutes, no expression of exultation at the surrender; because the triumph was over our own countrymen, and the object of it all was to establish a permanent Union.

In his correspondence with Pemberton, while demanding an unconditional surrender, Grant had written: "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 to prisoners of war. I do not favor the proposition of appointing commissioners to arrange the terms of capitulation, because I have no terms other than those indicated above." As soon as the surrender was effected, the famished Confederate army was liberally supplied with food, Grant's men taking it out of their own haversacks. All the prisoners at Vicksburg and Port Hudson were immediately paroled and furnished with transportation and supplies, under the supposition that they would go to their homes and remain there till properly exchanged.

The coöperation of Porter's fleet of river gunboats above the city, and some of Farragut's vessels below it, had been a great assistance during the siege, in cutting off the city from communication across the river. General Grant's thoughtfulness and mastery of details in great military movements are suggested by one of his letters to Farragut at this time. Knowing that Farragut's ships would need a constant supply of coal, he sent him a large cargo, and wrote: "Hearing nothing from Admiral Porter, I have determined to send you a barge of coal from here. The barge will be cast adrift from the upper end of the canal at ten o'clock to-night. Troops on the opposite side of the point will be on the lookout, and, should the barge run into the eddy, will start it adrift again."

BRIGADIER-GENERAL GABRIEL J. RAINS, C. S. A.

One of the most ludicrous incidents of the siege was the career of the dummy monitor, sometimes called the "Black Terror." The Indianola, of Porter's fleet, had been attacked by the Confederates and captured in a sinking condition. They were hard at work trying to raise her, when they saw something coming down the river that struck them with terror. Admiral Porter had fitted up an old flat-boat so that, at a little distance, it looked like a monitor. It had mud furnaces and a smokestack made of pork barrels. Fire was built in the furnaces, and she was set adrift on the river without a single person on board. The men at the Vicksburg batteries were startled at the appearance of a monitor in those waters, and opened a furious cannonade, but did not succeed in stopping the stranger, which passed on with the current. In the excitement, orders were given to destroy the Indianola, and she was blown up just before the trick was discovered.

A few days after the capture of Vicksburg, President Lincoln wrote this characteristically frank and generous letter to 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 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 Fort Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General 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.

After the surrender Grant reorganized his army, issued instructions for the care and government of the blacks who had escaped from slavery and come within his lines, and gave orders for furloughs to be granted freely to those of his soldiers who had been conspicuous for their valor and attention to duty during the campaign. It is said that he also took particular care that no exorbitant prices should be demanded of these soldiers on the steamboats by which they ascended the river in going to their homes. His own modesty and loyalty are exhibited in a letter that he wrote, a month later, when the loyal citizens of Memphis proposed to give him a public dinner. He said: "In accepting this testimonial, which I do at great sacrifice of personal feelings, I simply desire to pay a tribute to the first public exhibition in Memphis of loyalty to the Government which I represent in the Department of the Tennessee. I should dislike to refuse, for considerations of personal convenience, to acknowledge anywhere or in any form the existence of sentiments which I have so long and so ardently desired to see manifested in this department. The stability of this Government and the unity of this nation depends solely on the cordial support and the earnest loyalty of the people."

THE ADVANCE ON VICKSBURG—THE FIFTEENTH CORPS CROSSING THE BIG BLACK RIVER BY NIGHT, MAY 16, 1863.

Of the innumerable incidents of the marches and the siege, in this campaign, some of the most interesting were told by Gen. Manning F. Force in a paper read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, all of them being drawn from his own experience. In that campaign he was colonel of the Twentieth Ohio infantry.

"About the 20th of April I was sent, with the Twentieth Ohio and the Thirtieth Illinois, seven miles out from Milliken's Bend, to build a road across a swamp. When the sun set, the leaves of the forest seemed to exude smoke, and the air became a saturated solution of gnats. When my mess sat down to supper under a tree, the gnats got into our mouths, noses, eyes, and ears. They swarmed upon our necks, seeming to encircle them with bands of hot iron. Tortured and blinded, we could neither eat nor see. We got a quantity of cotton, and made a circle around the group, and set it on fire. The pungent smoke made water stream from our eyes, but drove the gnats away. We then supped in anguish, but in peace. I sent back to camp and got some mosquito netting from a sutler. Covering my head with many folds, I slept, waking at intervals to burn a wad of cotton. Many of the men sat by the fire all night, fighting the gnats, and slept next day. In the woods we found stray cattle, sheep, and hogs. A large pond was full of fish. We lived royally.

"On the 25th of April, Logan's division marched. The Twentieth Ohio had just drawn new clothing, but had to leave it behind. Stacking spades and picks in the swamp, they took their place in the column as it appeared, taking with them only the scanty supplies they had there. Six days of plodding brought them over nearly seventy miles, to the shore of the river opposite Bruinsburg. We marched six miles one day, and those six miles by evening were strewn with wrecks of wagons and their loads and half-buried guns. At a halt of some hours the men stood in deep mud, for want of any means of sitting. Yet when we halted at night, every man answered to his name, and went laughing to bed on the sloppy ground.

"On the 12th of May the Seventeenth Corps marched on the road toward Raymond. The Thirtieth Illinois was deployed with a skirmish line in front, on the left of the road; the Twentieth Ohio, in like manner on the right. About noon we halted—the Twentieth Ohio in an open field, bounded by a fence to the front, beyond which was forest and rising ground. An unseen battery on some height beyond the timber began shelling the fields. The Twentieth advanced over the fence into the woods. The First Brigade came up and formed on our right. All at once the woods rang with the shrill rebel yell and a deafening din of musketry. The Twentieth rushed forward to a creek, and used the farther bank as breastworks. The timber beyond the creek and the fence was free from undergrowth. The Twentieth Illinois, the regiment next to the right of the Twentieth Ohio, knelt down in place and returned the fire. The enemy advanced into the creek in its front. I went to the lieutenant-colonel, who was kneeling at the left flank, and asked him why he did not advance into the creek. He said, 'We have no orders.' In a few minutes the colonel of the regiment was killed. It was too late to advance, it was murder to remain, and the lieutenant-colonel withdrew the regiment in order back behind the fence. I cannot tell how long the battle lasted. I remember noticing the forest leaves, cut by rifle-balls, falling in thick eddies, still as snowflakes. At one time the enemy in our front advanced to the border of the creek, and rifles of opposing lines crossed while firing. Men who were shot were burned by the powder of the rifles that sped the balls.

"In eighteen days Grant marched two hundred miles, won five battles, four of them in six days, inflicted a loss of five thousand men, captured eighty-eight pieces of artillery, compelled the abandonment of all outworks, and cooped Pemberton's army within the lines of Vicksburg, while he had opened for himself easy and safe communication with the North. During these eighteen days the men had been without shelter, and had subsisted on five days' rations and scanty supplies picked up on the way. The morning we crossed the Big Black I offered five dollars for a small piece of corn bread, and could not get it. The soldier said bread was worth more to him than money.

"The Twentieth was placed in a road-cut, which was enfiladed by one of the enemy's infantry intrenchments. But when we sat with our backs pressed against the side of the cut toward Vicksburg, the balls whistled by just outside of our knees. At sunset the company cooks were possessed to come to us with hot coffee. They succeeded in running the gantlet, and the garrison could hear the jingling of tin cups and shouts of laughter as the cramped men ate their supper. After dark we were recalled and placed on the slope of a sharp ridge, with orders to remain in place, ready to move at any moment, and with strict injunctions not to allow any man's head to appear above the ridge. There we lay two or three days in line. Coffee was brought to us by the cooks at meal-time. Not a man those two or three days left the line without a special order. The first night Lieutenant Weatherby, commanding the right company reported that the slope was so steep where he was that the men as soon as they fell asleep began to roll down hill. I had to give him leave to shift his position.

"One day when there was a general bombardment I was told a soldier wished to see me. Under the canopy of exploding shell I found a youth, a boy, lying on his back on the ground. He was pale and speechless; there was a crimson hole in his breast. As I knelt by his side he looked wistfully at me. I said, 'We must all die some time, and the man is happy who meets death in the discharge of duty. You have done your whole duty well.' It was all he wanted. His eyes brightened, a smile flickered on his lips, and I was kneeling beside a corpse.

"One day when the Twentieth Ohio was in advance, we came, at a turn in the road, upon two old colored people, man and woman, plump and sleek, riding mules, and coming toward us. As they caught sight of the long column of blue-coats, the woman, crossing her hands upon her bosom, rolled up her eyes and cried in ecstasy 'Bress de Lord! Bress Almighty God! Our friends is come, our friends is come!' On the return, we crossed a plantation where the field-hands were ploughing. The soldiers like mules, and the negroes gladly unharnessed them, and helped the soldiers to mount. I said to one, 'The soldiers are taking your mules.' The quick response was, 'An' dey is welcome to 'em, sar; dey is welcome to 'em.' Men and women looked wistfully at the marching column, and began to talk about joining us. They seemed to wait the determination of a gray-headed darky who was considering. Presently there was a shout, 'Uncle Pete's a-gwine, an' I'm a-gwine, too!' As they flocked after us, one tall, stern woman strode along, carrying a wooden tray and a crockery pitcher as all her effects, looking straight to the front. Some one asked, 'Auntie, where are you going?' She answered, without looking, 'I don't car' whicher way I go, so as I git away from dis place.'

"When the working parties carried the saps to the base of the works, the besieged used to light the fuses of six-pound shells and toss them over the parapet. They would roll down among the working parties and explode, sometimes doing serious damage. A young soldier of the Twentieth Ohio, named Friend, devised wooden mortars. A very small charge of powder in one of these would just lift a shell over the enemy's parapet and drop it within. After the surrender there was much inquiry from the garrison how they were contrived."

Concerning this tossing of the shells, one who had been a private in Grant's army said to the writer: "I was in the trenches one evening when a shell came over without noise, as if thrown by hand. Fortunately it did not explode, or it would have injured a good many of us. This greatly surprised me, and when in a few minutes another came, I was on the watch and noted the point from which it seemed to start. By strange luck this also failed to explode. I then laid my rifle across the breastwork, cocked it, and put my eye to the sight, with the muzzle facing the point from which the shell had come. Presently I saw a man rise in the enemy's trench with a third shell in his hand—but he never threw it."

SIEGE OF VICKSBURG—SHOWING SOME OF THE FEDERAL INTRENCHMENTS.

When the siege began, General Pemberton issued an order that all non-combatants leave the city; but many of them refused to go—some because they had no other home, or means to sustain themselves elsewhere—and a few women and children were among those who remained. One lady, wife of an officer in Pemberton's army, published the next year an account of her life in the city during the siege, which is especially interesting for its picturesque and suggestive details, many of which are not to be found elsewhere. A few passages are here reproduced:

"The cave [of a friend] was an excavation in the earth the size of a large room, high enough for the tallest person to stand perfectly erect, provided with comfortable seats, and altogether quite a large and habitable abode (compared with some of the caves in the city), were it not for the dampness and the constant contact with the soft earthy walls.

"Two negroes were coming with a small trunk between them, and a carpet-bag or two, evidently trying to show others of the profession how careless of danger they were, and how foolish 'niggars' were to run 'dat sort o' way.' A shell came through the air and fell a few yards beyond the braves, when, lo! the trunk was sent tumbling, and landed bottom upward; the carpet-bag followed—one grand somerset; and amid the cloud of dust that arose, I discovered one porter doubled up by the side of the trunk, and the other crouching close by a pile of plank. A shout from the negroes on the cars, and much laughter, brought them on their feet, brushing their knees and giggling, yet looking quite foolish, feeling their former prestige gone. The excitement was intense in the city. Groups of people stood on every available position where a view could be obtained of the distant hills, where the jets of white smoke constantly passed out from among the trees.

"The caves were plainly becoming a necessity, as some persons had been killed on the street by fragments of shells. The room that I had so lately slept in had been struck by a fragment of a shell during the first night, and a large hole made in the ceiling. Terror-stricken, we remained crouched in the cave, while shell after shell followed each other in quick succession. I endeavored by constant prayer to prepare myself for the sudden death I was almost certain awaited me. My heart stood still as we would hear the reports from the guns, and the rushing and fearful sound of the shell as it came toward us. As it neared, the noise became more deafening; the air was full of the rushing sound; pains darted through my temples; my ears were full of the confusing noise; and, as it exploded, the report flashed through my head like an electric shock, leaving me in a quiet state of terror the most painful that I can imagine, cowering in a corner, holding my child to my heart—the only feeling of my life being the choking throbs of my heart, that rendered me almost breathless. I saw one fall in the road without the mouth of the cave, like a flame of fire, making the earth tremble, and, with a low, singing sound, the fragments sped on in their work of death.

"So constantly dropped the shells around the city that the inhabitants all made preparations to live under ground during the siege. M—— sent over and had a cave made in a hill near by. We seized the opportunity one evening, when the gunners were probably at their supper, for we had a few moments of quiet, to go over and take possession.

"Some families had light bread made in large quantities, and subsisted on it with milk (provided their cows were not killed from one milking time to another), without any more cooking, until called on to replenish. Though most of us lived on corn bread and bacon, served three times a day, the only luxury of the meal consisting in its warmth, I had some flour, and frequently had some hard, tough biscuit made from it, there being no soda or yeast to be procured. At this time we could also procure beef. A gentleman friend was kind enough to offer me his camp-bed; another had his tent-fly stretched over the mouth of our residence to shield us from the sun. And so I went regularly to work keeping house under ground. Our new habitation was an excavation made in the earth, and branching six feet from the entrance, forming a cave in the shape of a T. In one of the wings my bed fitted; the other I used as a kind of dressing-room. In this the earth had been cut down a foot or two below the floor of the main cave; I could stand erect here; and when tired of sitting in other portions of my residence I bowed myself into it, and stood impassively resting at full height—one of the variations in the still shell-expectant life.

"We were safe at least from fragments of shell, and they were flying in all directions. We had our roof arched and braced, the supports of the bracing taking up much room in our confined quarters. The earth was about five feet thick above, and seemed hard and compact.

"'Miss M——,' said one of the more timid servants, 'do they want to kill us all dead? Will they keep doing this until we all die?' I said most heartily, 'I hope not.' The servants we had with us seemed to possess more courage than is usually attributed to negroes. They seldom hesitated to cross the street for water at any time. The 'boy' slept at the entrance of the cave, with a pistol I had given him, telling me I need not be 'afeared—dat any one dat come dar would have to go over his body first.' He never refused to carry out any little article to M—— on the battlefield. I laughed heartily at a dilemma he was placed in one day. The mule that he had mounted to ride out to the battlefield took him to a dangerous locality, where the shells were flying thickly, and then, suddenly stopping, through fright, obstinately refused to stir. It was in vain that George kicked and beat him—go he would not; so, clinching his hand, he hit him severely in the head several times, jumped down, ran home, and left him. The mule stood a few minutes rigidly; then, looking round, and seeing George at some distance from him, turned and followed quite demurely.

MAKING GABIONS.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL SETH M. BARTON, C. S. A.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL N. G. EVANS, C. S. A.

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM PRESTON, C. S. A.

"One morning, after breakfast, the shells began falling so thickly around us, that they seemed aimed at the particular spot on which our cave was located. Two or three fell immediately in the rear of it, exploding a few minutes before reaching the ground, and the fragments went singing over the top of our habitation. I at length became so much alarmed—as the cave trembled excessively—for our safety, that I determined, rather than be buried alive, to stand out from under the earth; so taking my child in my arms, and calling the servants, we ran to a refuge near the roots of a large fig-tree, that branched out over the bank, and served as a protection from the fragments of shells. As we stood trembling there—for the shells were falling all around us—some of my gentleman friends came up to reassure me, telling me that the tree would protect us, and that the range would probably be changed in a short time. While they spoke, a shell, that seemed to be of enormous size, fell, screaming and hissing, immediately before the mouth of our cave, sending up a huge column of smoke and earth, and jarring the ground most sensibly where we stood. What seemed very strange, the earth closed in around the shell, and left only the newly upturned soil to show where it had fallen.

"The cave we inhabited was about five squares from the levee. A great many had been made in a hill immediately beyond us; and near this hill we could see most of the shells fall. Caves were the fashion—the rage—over besieged Vicksburg. Negroes who understood their business hired themselves out to dig them, at from thirty to fifty dollars, according to the size. Many persons, considering different localities unsafe, would sell them to others who had been less fortunate or less provident; and so great was the demand for cave workmen, that a new branch of industry sprang up and became popular—particularly as the personal safety of the workman was secured, and money withal.

"A large trunk was picked up after the sinking of the Cincinnati, belonging to a surgeon on board. It contained valuable surgical instruments that could not be procured in the Confederacy.

"I was sitting near the entrance, about five o'clock, thinking of the pleasant change—oh, bless me!—that to-morrow would bring, 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. 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 powder, smoke, and dust. I stood with a tingling, prickling sensation in my head, hands, and feet, and with a confused brain. Yet alive!—was the first glad thought that came to me; child, servants, all here, and saved!—from some great danger, I felt. I stepped out, to find a group of persons before my cave, looking anxiously for me; and lying all around, freshly torn, rose-bushes, arbor-vitæ trees, large clods of earth, splinters, pieces of plank, wood, etc. 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 good refuge.

"A young girl, becoming weary in the confinement of the cave, hastily ran to the house in the interval that elapsed between the slowly falling shells. On returning, an explosion sounded near her—one wild scream, and she ran into her mother's presence, sinking like a wounded dove, the life-blood flowing over the light summer dress in crimson ripples from a death-wound in her side, caused by the shell fragment. A fragment had also struck and broken the arm of a little boy playing near the mouth of his mother's cave. This was one day's account.

"I was distressed to hear of a young Federal lieutenant who had been severely wounded and left on the field by his comrades. He had lived in this condition from Saturday until Monday, lying in the burning sun without water or food; and the men on both sides could witness the agony of the life thus prolonged, without the power to assist him in any way. I was glad, indeed, when I heard the poor man had expired on Monday morning. Another soldier left on the field, badly wounded in the leg, had begged most piteously for water; and lying near the Confederate intrenchments, his cries were all directed to the Confederate soldiers. The firing was heaviest where he lay, and it would have been at the risk of a life to have gone to him; yet a Confederate soldier asked and obtained leave to carry water to him, and stood and fanned him in the midst of the firing, while he eagerly drank from the heroic soldier's canteen.

"One morning George made an important discovery—a newly made stump of sassafras, very near the cave, with large roots extending in every direction, affording us an inexhaustible vein of tea for future use. We had been drinking water with our meals previous to this disclosure; coffee and tea had long since been among the things that were, in the army. We, however, were more fortunate than many of the officers, having access to an excellent cistern near us; while many of our friends used muddy water or river water.

"On another occasion, a gentleman sent me four large slices of ham, having been fortunate enough to procure a small piece himself. Already the men in the rifle-pits were on half rations—flour or meal enough to furnish bread equivalent in quantity to two biscuits in two days. They amused themselves, while lying in the pits, by cutting out little trinkets from the wood of the parapet and the minie-balls that fell around them. Major Fry, from Texas, excelled in skill and ready invention, I think; he sent me one day an armchair that he had cut from a minie-ball—the most minute affair of the kind I ever saw, yet perfectly symmetrical. At another time, he sent me a diminutive plough made from the parapet wood, with traces of lead, and a lead point made from a minie-ball.

"The courier brought many letters to the inhabitants from friends without. His manner of entering the city was singular. Taking a skiff in the Yazoo, he proceeded to its confluence with the Mississippi, where he tied the little boat, entered the woods, and awaited the night. At dark he took off his clothing, placed his despatches securely within them, bound the package firmly to a plank, and, going into the river, he sustained his head above the water by holding to the plank, and in this manner floated in the darkness through the fleet, and on two miles down the river to Vicksburg, where his arrival was hailed as an event of great importance in the still life of the city.

"The hill opposite our cave might be called 'death's point,' from the number of animals that had been killed in eating the grass on the sides and summit. Horses or mules that are tempted to mount the hill by the promise of grass that grows profusely there invariably come limping down wounded, to die at the base, or are brought down dead from the summit.

"A certain number of mules are killed each day by the commissaries, and are issued to the men, all of whom prefer the fresh meat, though it be of mule, to the bacon and salt rations that they have eaten for so long a time without change.

"I was sewing, one day, near one side of the cave, where the bank slopes and lights up the room like a window. Near this opening I was sitting, when I suddenly remembered some little article I wished in another part of the room. Crossing to procure it, I was returning, when a minie-ball came whizzing through the opening, passed my chair, and fell beyond it. Had I been still sitting, I should have stopped it."