| THE ADVANCE ON VICKSBURG—THE FIFTEENTH CORPS CROSSING THE BIG BLACK RIVER BY NIGHT, MAY 16, 1863. |
Of the innumerable incidents of the marches and the siege, in this campaign, some of the most interesting were told by Gen. Manning F. Force in a paper read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, all of them being drawn from his own experience. In that campaign he was colonel of the Twentieth Ohio infantry.
"About the 20th of April I was sent, with the Twentieth Ohio and the Thirtieth Illinois, seven miles out from Milliken's Bend, to build a road across a swamp. When the sun set, the leaves of the forest seemed to exude smoke, and the air became a saturated solution of gnats. When my mess sat down to supper under a tree, the gnats got into our mouths, noses, eyes, and ears. They swarmed upon our necks, seeming to encircle them with bands of hot iron. Tortured and blinded, we could neither eat nor see. We got a quantity of cotton, and made a circle around the group, and set it on fire. The pungent smoke made water stream from our eyes, but drove the gnats away. We then supped in anguish, but in peace. I sent back to camp and got some mosquito netting from a sutler. Covering my head with many folds, I slept, waking at intervals to burn a wad of cotton. Many of the men sat by the fire all night, fighting the gnats, and slept next day. In the woods we found stray cattle, sheep, and hogs. A large pond was full of fish. We lived royally.
"On the 25th of April, Logan's division marched. The Twentieth Ohio had just drawn new clothing, but had to leave it behind. Stacking spades and picks in the swamp, they took their place in the column as it appeared, taking with them only the scanty supplies they had there. Six days of plodding brought them over nearly seventy miles, to the shore of the river opposite Bruinsburg. We marched six miles one day, and those six miles by evening were strewn with wrecks of wagons and their loads and half-buried guns. At a halt of some hours the men stood in deep mud, for want of any means of sitting. Yet when we halted at night, every man answered to his name, and went laughing to bed on the sloppy ground.
"On the 12th of May the Seventeenth Corps marched on the road toward Raymond. The Thirtieth Illinois was deployed with a skirmish line in front, on the left of the road; the Twentieth Ohio, in like manner on the right. About noon we halted—the Twentieth Ohio in an open field, bounded by a fence to the front, beyond which was forest and rising ground. An unseen battery on some height beyond the timber began shelling the fields. The Twentieth advanced over the fence into the woods. The First Brigade came up and formed on our right. All at once the woods rang with the shrill rebel yell and a deafening din of musketry. The Twentieth rushed forward to a creek, and used the farther bank as breastworks. The timber beyond the creek and the fence was free from undergrowth. The Twentieth Illinois, the regiment next to the right of the Twentieth Ohio, knelt down in place and returned the fire. The enemy advanced into the creek in its front. I went to the lieutenant-colonel, who was kneeling at the left flank, and asked him why he did not advance into the creek. He said, 'We have no orders.' In a few minutes the colonel of the regiment was killed. It was too late to advance, it was murder to remain, and the lieutenant-colonel withdrew the regiment in order back behind the fence. I cannot tell how long the battle lasted. I remember noticing the forest leaves, cut by rifle-balls, falling in thick eddies, still as snowflakes. At one time the enemy in our front advanced to the border of the creek, and rifles of opposing lines crossed while firing. Men who were shot were burned by the powder of the rifles that sped the balls.
"In eighteen days Grant marched two hundred miles, won five battles, four of them in six days, inflicted a loss of five thousand men, captured eighty-eight pieces of artillery, compelled the abandonment of all outworks, and cooped Pemberton's army within the lines of Vicksburg, while he had opened for himself easy and safe communication with the North. During these eighteen days the men had been without shelter, and had subsisted on five days' rations and scanty supplies picked up on the way. The morning we crossed the Big Black I offered five dollars for a small piece of corn bread, and could not get it. The soldier said bread was worth more to him than money.
"The Twentieth was placed in a road-cut, which was enfiladed by one of the enemy's infantry intrenchments. But when we sat with our backs pressed against the side of the cut toward Vicksburg, the balls whistled by just outside of our knees. At sunset the company cooks were possessed to come to us with hot coffee. They succeeded in running the gantlet, and the garrison could hear the jingling of tin cups and shouts of laughter as the cramped men ate their supper. After dark we were recalled and placed on the slope of a sharp ridge, with orders to remain in place, ready to move at any moment, and with strict injunctions not to allow any man's head to appear above the ridge. There we lay two or three days in line. Coffee was brought to us by the cooks at meal-time. Not a man those two or three days left the line without a special order. The first night Lieutenant Weatherby, commanding the right company reported that the slope was so steep where he was that the men as soon as they fell asleep began to roll down hill. I had to give him leave to shift his position.
"One day when there was a general bombardment I was told a soldier wished to see me. Under the canopy of exploding shell I found a youth, a boy, lying on his back on the ground. He was pale and speechless; there was a crimson hole in his breast. As I knelt by his side he looked wistfully at me. I said, 'We must all die some time, and the man is happy who meets death in the discharge of duty. You have done your whole duty well.' It was all he wanted. His eyes brightened, a smile flickered on his lips, and I was kneeling beside a corpse.
"One day when the Twentieth Ohio was in advance, we came, at a turn in the road, upon two old colored people, man and woman, plump and sleek, riding mules, and coming toward us. As they caught sight of the long column of blue-coats, the woman, crossing her hands upon her bosom, rolled up her eyes and cried in ecstasy 'Bress de Lord! Bress Almighty God! Our friends is come, our friends is come!' On the return, we crossed a plantation where the field-hands were ploughing. The soldiers like mules, and the negroes gladly unharnessed them, and helped the soldiers to mount. I said to one, 'The soldiers are taking your mules.' The quick response was, 'An' dey is welcome to 'em, sar; dey is welcome to 'em.' Men and women looked wistfully at the marching column, and began to talk about joining us. They seemed to wait the determination of a gray-headed darky who was considering. Presently there was a shout, 'Uncle Pete's a-gwine, an' I'm a-gwine, too!' As they flocked after us, one tall, stern woman strode along, carrying a wooden tray and a crockery pitcher as all her effects, looking straight to the front. Some one asked, 'Auntie, where are you going?' She answered, without looking, 'I don't car' whicher way I go, so as I git away from dis place.'