[CHAPTER IV.]
IN CAMP AND BATTLE WITH GRANT AND HIS GENERALS.
Marching into the enemy's country—A night in a church with a Bible for pillow—Our communications are cut—Entering the capital of Mississippi—The War Department gives Grant full authority—Battle of Champion's Hill—General Logan's peculiarity—Battlefield incidents—Vicksburg invested and the siege begun—Personal traits of Sherman, McPherson, and McClernand.
It was the second day of May, 1863, when I rode into Port Gibson, Miss., and inquired for Grant's headquarters. I found the general in a little house of the village, busily directing the advance of the army. He told me that in the battle of the day before the Confederates had been driven back on the roads to Grand Gulf and Vicksburg, and that our forces were now in full pursuit. By the next morning, May 3d, our troops had possession of the roads as far as the Big Black. As soon as he was sure of this, General Grant started with a brigade of infantry and some twenty cavalrymen for Grand Gulf. I accompanied him on the trip. When within about seven miles of Grand Gulf we found that the town had been deserted, and leaving the brigade we entered with the cavalry escort.
During this ride to Grand Gulf Grant made inquiries on every side about the food supplies of the country we were entering. He told me he had been gathering information on this point ever since the army crossed the Mississippi, and had made up his mind that both beef and cattle and corn were abundant in the country. The result of this inquiry was that here at Grand Gulf Grant took the resolve which makes the Vicksburg campaign so famous—that of abandoning entirely his base of supplies as soon as the army was all up and the rations on the way arrived, boldly striking into the interior, and depending on the country for meat and even for bread.
We did not reach Grand Gulf until late on May 3d, but at one o'clock on the morning of the 4th Grant was off for the front. He had decided that it was useless to bring up the army to this place, to the capture of which we had been so long looking, and which had been abandoned so quickly now that our army was across the Mississippi. I did not follow until later in the day, and so had an opportunity of seeing General Sherman. His corps was marching from above as rapidly as possible down to Hard Times landing, and he had come over to Grand Gulf to see about debarking his troops there; this he succeeded in doing a couple of days later.
That evening I joined Grant at his new headquarters at Hankinson's Ferry on the Big Black, and now began my first experience with army marching into an enemy's territory. A glimpse of my life at this time is given in a letter to a child, written the morning after I rejoined Grant:
"All of a sudden it is very cold here. Two days ago it was hot like summer, but now I sit in my tent in my overcoat, writing, and thinking if I only were at home instead of being almost two thousand miles away.