CHAPTER III.
SHARPSHOOTING FROM WALNUT HILLS.
WITH the first faint flush of day the morning of the 20th, I was up and taking soundings for the locality of my company headquarters. I was as stiff as an old foundered horse, and my head ached and felt swelled. The battle was still being waged by the advance pickets of the contending forces, but the fearful rumble of yesterday's battle had subsided entirely. Nothing appeared in that early morning, at first, to recall the horrors of yesterday, but as the daylight began to pour in amongst the trees, and the mists of night lifted, some evidences of the fray came into sight. The smoke that filled the heavens during that conflict had rolled together into one great windrow and hung away out on the rim of the horizon. The light breath of wind wafted from over the battlefield, it seemed to me, savored of blood. At the rear of the field hospital a score of legs and arms were stacked up awaiting burial and some blood stained stretchers laid where the tired stretcher bearers had carelessly abandoned them. The faithful surgeons had plied the knife, and worked on, ever since the assault began, and now at the dawn of another day were not nearly done.
Old Sol was splashing his crimson and gold over the blue of the eastern concave when I finally found my company quarters, and the men were already blazing away at the enemy from the crest of the nearby hill. In the headquarters tent I found three delicious smoked hams, from which I at once carved three or four slices and ate them raw. From the lacerated appearance of those hams it was apparent that other famishing men had dined there before me. Think of making a meal on raw smoked ham and water. I hadn't a mouthful of bread or anything that would take the place of bread, not even slippery elm, to chuck in with that ham. We were hungry when we got to Vicksburg on the 18th, because we had been living on half rations and what we could cramp on the march ever since we left Grand Gulf. I had one last hardtack when I got to Vicksburg that I saved and carried for several days, and it looked like a medallion off a prize cook stove. The luster arising from the sweat and grime on that hardtack was too dazzling for anything. The worms lurking within it came out occasionally and admired their reflections mirrored upon its surface. Men got very hungry on that march to the rear of Vicksburg. It will be remembered that Grant cut loose from his base of supplies when he left Grand Gulf. I heard men say that they partially subsisted by chewing newspaper advertisements of provisions. Such a delicious breakfast as that raw ham I never ate before nor since. I was never more thankful for a meal. I blessed the hog that furnished the ham and the swain who salted and smoked it.
My breakfast dispatched, I joined my company behind a slight breastwork on the crest of the hill, where we blazed away at the rebel stockade with little, if any, intermission all day long. Heavy ordnance was brought into play as well as muskets, and gave and took solid shot and shell to our heart's content. All that day our army was hurrying up additional heavy ordnance onto the besieging line its whole extent, and each new piece, as it came up to its position joined its hoarse bark to the din of all our other war dogs. Such a jolly old racket it was to be sure!
All day long the loopholes in the rebel stockade were spitefully spitting red fire in our faces, which fire we returned with a vengeance. We made a good deal of noise all that day and the next with very little execution, because both the enemy and ourselves were under cover. Some funny things happened in those first days of the investment. When we arrived at the rear of Vicksburg on the afternoon of the 18th a picnic party of about thirty ladies, mostly rebel officers' wives, was intercepted and forbidden to return to the beleaguered city. They plead and threatened, tearfully, scornfully, impertinently, to effect their release, but all to no purpose. They were informed that the city was then besieged, that the lid, as it were, was on, that none could now go in but armed men, and none could come out but prisoners. What could they do but submit? We were 30,000 strong. They were three ciphers less. We outnumbered them by a crushing majority. General Grant ordered them to be quartered in a large furnished double house, which the owners had abandoned upon our coming, and there under a safety guard they drew their U. S. army rations from day to day during the forty-two days of the siege and raised Ned generally. An old discordant piano happened to be in their prison, and they pounded the poor old thing until it would bellow like the bull of Bashon. One day General Grant and an adjutant general rode up in front of the house, and while there upon their horses, one of the ladies, who was promenading backward and forward across the piazza, observing that Grant was smoking a cigar, said to him, "Soldier, give me a cigar." "With pleasure, madam," said the General, handing her a weed. Adjutant General Robbins, understanding that the little lady was wholly unacquainted with the name or rank of the distinguished individual whom she was so flippantly addressing, said: "Madam, allow me to make you acquainted with General Grant, of the United States army." The poor frightened woman turned pale, stared wildly at the General, dropped her cigar, and fled inside the house. As the officers rode away, about thirty noses were flattened against the windows as those beautiful captives peered fearfully out to catch a glance of that terrible General whom the south feared most "of all."
When the Waterhouse battery was throwing an occasional shot or shell against the stockade trying to effect a breach in it, a voice behind the enemy's works would call out at every shot, "A little more to the right," or "A little more to the left," as the case might be, evidently trying to make light of our shooting. The battery officer thought he pretty nearly located the owner of the voice, and trained his gun for the next shot upon that point. After firing for several seconds nothing was heard, and just as we had about made up our minds the derisive cuss was killed he yelled, "For God's sake cease firing." He had evidently had a close call.
On the night of May 21st we were informed that tomorrow morning we would again assault the works by the engagement of the whole line. It was arranged for the assault to take place at precisely 10 o'clock on the morning of the 22nd. So determined was Grant to have the attack by the various corps simultaneous that he had all of the corps commanders' watches set by his own.