At six o’clock in the evening, we saw the second flag of truce and firing ceased all around the lines. On the morning of the 4th of July, at eight o’clock, a salute of eight blank cartridges was shot from each heavy gun all along the line. At nine o’clock General Pemberton and his staff rode out and met General Grant under a large live oak tree, near the lines. Here Grant accepted the surrender of Vicksburg with twenty-seven thousand prisoners, fifty thousand stands of small arms and three hundred and fifty pieces of artillery.
White flags went up on each fort and the rebels marched out and stacked their guns. Yanks and rebs were soon all mixed up and talking as sociably as if nothing had happened. They were almost starved and soon we were all at the same tables, eating a good square meal of hardtack, sow belly and coffee.
Later I went inside their works and found several kettles of poor mule beef, cooking on fires back of their forts. It was horrible to witness the sights in the town, especially the hospitals. It did not take long to get enough of sight seeing for the rotten smell in that hole of death was terrible.
General Grant soon went to Washington, D. C. to receive thanks and congratulations for the part he had taken in putting down the rebellion, and General Sherman took temporary command of the army at Vicksburg.
THE SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.
From the History of D. H. Montgomery.
On the Mississippi, Vicksburg and vicinity was held by a strong Confederate force under General Pemberton. Early in the spring of 1863, General J. E. Johnson, then at Chattanooga, Tennessee, moved with an army to join Pemberton. In a number of masterly battles, Grant defeated Pemberton before Johnson could unite with him. He forced Pemberton to retreat into Vicksburg, and drove Johnson off of the field.
For several weeks Grant and Sherman, with over seventy thousand, besieged Vicksburg. Union men were shelling the city night and day. Food was so scarce that the Confederates had but one cracker a day. The town was so knocked to pieces that women and children had to live in caves, dug in the earth. They too were reduced to a few mouthsful of food a day. Mule steaks gave out and many had to choose between eating cats and rats.