About noon on the 4th we arrived at the little town of Satartia on the left bank of the Yazoo, and about 40 miles above its mouth; there the fleet halted, tied up, and the troops debarked, and marched out to the highlands back of the town. We were now in a region that was new to us, and we soon saw several novel and strange things. There was a remarkable natural growth, called "Spanish moss," that was very plentiful, and a most fantastic looking thing. It grew on nearly all the trees, was of a grayish-white color, with long, pendulous stems. The lightest puff of air would set it in motion, and on a starlight night, or when the moon was on the wane and there was a slight breeze, it presented a most ghostly and uncanny appearance. And the woods were full of an unusual sort of squirrels, being just as black as crows. They were in size, as I now remember, of a grade intermediate the fox-and gray-squirrels we had at home. But all their actions and habits appeared to be just the same as those of their northern cousins. And there was a most singular bird of the night that was quite numerous here, called the "chuck-will's widow," on account of the resemblance its note bore to those words. It belonged to the whippoorwill family, but was some larger. It would sound its monotonous call in the night for hours at a stretch, and I think its mournful cry, heard when alone, on picket at night out in dense, gloomy woods, is just the most lonesome, depressing strain I ever heard.
On the afternoon of the 4th all our force advanced in the direction of the little town of Mechanicsburg, which lay a few miles back of the river. Those in the front encountered Confederate cavalry, and a lively little skirmish ensued, in which our regiment was not engaged. Our troops burnt Mechanicsburg, and captured about forty of the Confederates. I was standing by the side of the road when these prisoners were being taken to the rear. They were all young chaps, fine, hearty looking fellows, and were the best looking little bunch of Confederates I saw during the war. Early in the morning of June 6th we fell into line and marched southwest, in the direction of Vicksburg. Our route, in the main, was down the valley of the Yazoo river. And it will be said here that this was the hottest, most exhausting march I was on during my entire service. In the first place, the weather was intensely hot. Then the road down the valley on which we marched mostly ran through immense fields of corn higher than our heads. The fields next the road were not fenced, and the corn grew close to the beaten track. Not the faintest breeze was stirring, and the hot, stifling dust enveloped us like a blanket. Every now and then we would pass a soldier lying by the side of the road, overcome by the heat and unconscious, while one or two of his comrades would be standing by him, bathing his face and chest with water, and trying to revive him. I put green hickory leaves in my cap, and kept them well saturated with water from my canteen. The leaves would retain the moisture and keep my head cool, and when they became stale and withered, would be thrown away, and fresh ones procured. Several men died on this march from sun-stroke; none, however, from our regiment, but we all suffered fearfully. And pure drinking water was very scarce too. It was pitiful to see the men struggling for water at the farm house wells we occasionally passed. In their frenzied desperation they would spill much more than they saved, and ere long would have the well drawn dry. But one redeeming feature about this march was—we were not hurried. There were frequent halts, to give the men time to breathe, and on such occasions, if we were fortunate enough to find a pool of stagnant swamp-water, we would wash the dirt and dust from our faces and out of our eyes.
As we trudged down the Yazoo valley, we continued to see things that were new and strange. We passed by fields of growing rice, and I saw many fig trees, loaded with fruit, but which was yet green. And in the yards of the most of the farm houses was a profusion of domestic flowers, such as did not bloom in the north, of wonderful color and beauty. But, on the other hand, on the afternoon of the second day's march, I happened to notice by the side of the road an enormous rattlesnake, which evidently had been killed by some soldier only a short time before we passed. It seemingly was between five and six feet long, and the middle of its body appeared to be as thick as a man's thigh. Its rattles had been removed, presumably as a trophy. It was certainly a giant among rattlesnakes, and doubtless was an "old-timer."
On the evening of June 7th, about sundown, we arrived at Haines' Bluff on the Yazoo river, and there went into camp. This point was about twelve miles north of Vicksburg, and had been strongly fortified by the Confederates, but Grant's movements had compelled them to abandon their works without a battle. There had been a large number of the Confederates camped there, and the ground was littered with the trash and rubbish that accumulates in quarters. And our friends in gray had left some things in these old camps which ere long we all fervently wished they had taken with them, namely, a most plentiful quantity of the insect known as "Pediculus vestimenti," which forthwith assailed us as voraciously as if they had been on quarter rations, or less, ever since the beginning of the war.
On June 16th we left Haines' Bluff, and marched about two miles down the Yazoo river to Snyder's Bluff, where we went into camp. Our duties here, as they had been at Haines', were standing picket, and constructing fortifications. We had the usual dress parade at sunset, but the drills were abandoned; we had more important work to do. General Joe Johnston, the Confederate commander outside of Vicksburg, was at Jackson, Mississippi, or in that immediate vicinity, and was collecting a force to move on Grant's rear, in order to compel him to raise the siege. Grant thought that if Johnston attacked, it would be from the northeast, so he established a line of defense extending southeast, from Haines' Bluff on the north to Black river on the south, and placed Gen. Sherman in command of this line. As Grant has said somewhere in his Memoirs, the country in this part of Mississippi "stands on edge." That is to say, it consists largely of a succession of high ridges with sharp, narrow summits. Along this line of defense, the general course of these ridges was such that they were admirably adapted for defensive purposes. We went to work on the ridges with spades and mattocks, and constructed the strongest field fortifications that I ever saw during the war. We dug away the crests, throwing the dirt to the front, and made long lines of breastworks along our entire front, facing, of course, the northeast. Then, at various places, on commanding points, were erected strong redoubts for artillery, floored, and revetted on the inner walls with thick and strong green lumber and timbers. On the exterior slopes of the ridges were dug three lines of trenches, or rifle pits, extending in a parallel form from near the base of the ridges almost to the summit, with intervals between the lines. All the trees and bushes in our front on the slopes of the ridges were cut down, with their tops outwards, thus forming a tangled abattis which looked as if a rabbit could hardly get through. And finally, on the inner slope of the ridges, a little below their summits, was constructed a "covered way;" that is, a road dug along the sides of the ridges, and over which an army, with batteries of artillery, could have marched with perfect safety. The purpose of these covered ways was to have a safe and sheltered road right along our rear by which any position on the line could be promptly reinforced, if necessary.
Sometimes I would walk along the parapet of our works, looking off to the northeast where the Confederates were supposed to be, and I ardently wished that they would attack us. Our defenses were so strong that in my opinion it would have been a physical impossibility for flesh and blood to have carried them. Had Johnston tried, he simply would have sacrificed thousands of his men without accomplishing anything to his own advantage.
It will be said here that I have no recollection of having personally taken part in the construction of the fortifications above mentioned. In fact, I never did an hour's work in the trenches, with spade and mattock, during all my time. I never "took" willingly to that kind of soldiering. But there were plenty of the boys who preferred it to standing picket, because when on fatigue duty, as it was called, they would quit about sundown, and then get an unbroken night's sleep. So, when it fell to my lot to be detailed for fatigue, I would swap with someone who had been assigned to picket,—he would do my duty, and I would perform his; we were both satisfied, and the fair inference is that no harm was thereby done to the cause. And it was intensely interesting to me, when on picket at night on the crest of some high ridge, to stand and listen to the roar of our cannon pounding at Vicksburg, and watch the flight of the shells from Grant's siege guns and from the heavy guns of our gunboats on the Mississippi. The shells they threw seemed principally to be of the "fuse" variety, and the burning fuse, as the shell flew through the air, left a stream of bright red light behind it like a rocket. I would lean on my gun and contemplate the spectacle with far more complacency and satisfaction than was felt when anxiously watching the practice on us by the other fellows at Salem Cemetery about six months before.
There was another thing I was wont to observe with peculiar attention, when on picket at night during the siege; namely, the operations of the Signal Corps. In the night time they used lighted lanterns in the transmission of intelligence, and they had a code by which the signals could be read with practically the same accuracy as if they had been printed words. The movements of the lights looked curious and strange, something elf-like, with a suspicion of witchcraft, or deviltry of some kind, about them. They would make all sorts of gyrations, up, down, a circle, a half circle to the right, then one to the left, and so on. Sometimes they would be unusually active. Haines' Bluff would talk to Snyder's; Snyder's to Sherman's headquarters; Sherman's to Grant's, and back and forth, all along the line. Occasionally at some station the lights would act almost like some nervous man talking at his highest speed in a perfect splutter of excitement,—and then they would seem as if drunk, or crazy. Of course, I knew nothing of the code of interpretation, and so understood nothing,—could only look and speculate. In modern warfare the telephone has probably superseded the Signal Service, but the latter certainly played an important part in our Civil War.
During the siege we lived high on some comestibles not included in the regular army rations. Corn was in the roasting ear state, and there were plenty of big fields of it beyond and near the picket lines, and we helped ourselves liberally. Our favorite method of cooking the corn was to roast it in the "shuck." We would "snap" the ears from the stalk, leaving the shuck intact, daub over the outside a thin plaster of mud (or sometimes just saturate the ears in water), then cover them with hot ashes and live coals. By the time the fire had consumed the shuck down to the last or inner layer, the corn was done, and it made most delicious eating. We had no butter to spread on it, but it was good enough without. And then the blackberries! I have never seen them so numerous and so large as they were there on those ridges in the rear of Vicksburg. I liked them best raw, taken right from the vine, but sometimes, for a change, would stew them in my coffee can, adding a little sugar, and prepared in this manner they were fine. But, like the darkey's rabbit,—they were good any way. The only serious drawback that we had on our part of the line was the unusual amount of fatal sickness that prevailed among the men. The principal types of disease were camp diarrhea and malarial fevers, resulting, in all probability, largely from the impure water we drank. At first we procured water from shallow and improvised wells that we dug in the hollows and ravines. Wild cane grew luxuriantly in this locality, attaining a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and all other wild vegetation was rank in proportion. The annual growth of all this plant life had been dying and rotting on the ground for ages, and the water would filter through this decomposing mass, and become well-nigh poisonous. An order was soon issued that we should get all water for drinking and cooking purposes from the Yazoo river, and boil it before using, but it was impossible to compel complete obedience to such an order. When men got thirsty, they would drink whatever was handy,—orders to the contrary notwithstanding. And the water of the river was about as bad as the swamp water. I have read somewhere that "Yazoo" is an Indian word, signifying "The River of Death," and if so, it surely was correctly named. It is just my opinion, as a common soldier, that the epidemic of camp diarrhea could have been substantially prevented if all the men had eaten freely of blackberries. I didn't have a touch of that disorder during all the time we were in that locality, and I attribute my immunity to the fact that I ate liberally of blackberries about every day. But camp diarrhea is something that gets in its work quick, and after the men got down with it, they possibly had no chance to get the berries. And all the time we were at Snyder, nearly every hour of the day, could be heard the doleful, mournful notes of the "Dead March," played by the military bands, as some poor fellow was being taken to his long home. It seemed to me at the time, and seems so yet, that they should have left out that piece of music. It did no good, and its effect was very depressing, especially on the sick. Under such circumstances, it would seem that common sense, if exercised, would have dictated the keeping dumb of such saddening funeral strains.
Sometime during the latter part of June the regiment was paid two months' pay by Major C. L. Bernay, a Paymaster of the U.S. Army. He was a fine old German, of remarkably kind and benevolent appearance, and looked more like a venerable Catholic priest than a military man. After he had paid off the regiment, his escort loaded his money chest and his personal stuff into an ambulance, and he was soon ready to go to some other regiment. Several of our officers had assembled to bid him good-by, and I happened to be passing along, and witnessed what transpired. The few farewell remarks of the old man were punctuated by the roar of the big guns of our army and navy pounding away at Vicksburg, and the incident impressed me as somewhat pathetic. "Goot-by, Colonel," said Major Bernay, extending his hand; (Boom!) "Goot-by Major;" (Boom!) "Goot-by, Captain;" (Boom!) and so on, to the others. Then, with a wave of his hand to all the little group, "Goot-by, shentlemens, all." (Boom!) "Maybe so (Boom!) we meet not again." (Boom, boom, boom!) It was quite apparent that he was thinking of the so-called "fortunes of war." Then he sprang into his ambulance, and drove away. His prediction proved true—we never met again.