"Your answer is in the spirit of patriotism heretofore manifested by you. The need is sore, but you must not forget your own necessities."
On the 1st of June General Johnston telegraphed to me that the troops at his disposal available against Grant amounted to twenty-four thousand one hundred, not including Jackson's cavalry command and a few hundred irregular cavalry. Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, replied to him stating the force to be thirty-two thousand. In another dispatch, of June 5th, the Secretary says his statement rested on official reports of numbers sent, regrets his inability to promise more, as we had drained our resources even to the danger of several points, and urged speedy action. "With the facilities and resources of the enemy time works against us." Again, on the 16th, Secretary Seddon says:
"If better resources do not offer, you must hazard attack."
On the 18th, while Pemberton was inspecting the intrenchments along which his command had been placed, he received by courier a communication from General Johnston, dated "May 17, 1863, camp between Livingston and Brownsville," in answer to Pemberton's report of the result of the battles of Baker's Creek and Big Black, and the consequent evacuation of Snyder's Mills. General Johnston wrote:
"If Haines's Bluff is untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and can not be held. If, therefore, you are invested in Vicksburg, you must ultimately surrender. Under such circumstances, instead of losing both troops and place, we must, if possible, save the troops. If it is not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and its dependencies, and march to the northeast."
Pemberton, in his report, remarks:
"This meant the fall of Port Hudson, the surrender of the Mississippi
River, and the severance of the Confederacy."
He recurs to a former correspondence with myself in which he had suggested the possibility of the investment of Vicksburg by land and water, and the necessity for ample supplies to stand a siege, and says his application met my favorable consideration, and that additional ammunition was ordered. Confident in his ability, with the preparations which had been made, to stand a siege, and firmly relying on the desire of the President and of General Johnston to raise it, he "felt that every effort would be made, and believed it would be successful." He, however, summoned a council of war, composed of all his general officers, laid before them General Johnston's communication, and desired their opinion on "the question of practicability," and on the 18th replied to General Johnston that he had placed his instructions before the general officers of the command, and that "the opinion was unanimously expressed that it was impossible to withdraw the army from this position with such morale and material as to be of further service to the Confederacy." He then announces his decision to hold Vicksburg as long as possible, and expresses the hope that he may be assisted in keeping this obstruction to the enemy's free navigation of the Mississippi River. He closes his letter thus:
"I still conceive it to be the most important point in the
Confederacy."
While the council of war was assembled, the guns of the enemy opened on the works, and the siege proper commenced.