"On another occasion, a gentleman sent me four large slices of ham, having been fortunate enough to procure a small piece himself. Already the men in the rifle-pits were on half rations—flour or meal enough to furnish bread equivalent in quantity to two biscuits in two days. They amused themselves, while lying in the pits, by cutting out little trinkets from the wood of the parapet and the minie-balls that fell around them. Major Fry, from Texas, excelled in skill and ready invention, I think; he sent me one day an armchair that he had cut from a minie-ball—the most minute affair of the kind I ever saw, yet perfectly symmetrical. At another time, he sent me a diminutive plough made from the parapet wood, with traces of lead, and a lead point made from a minie-ball.
"The courier brought many letters to the inhabitants from friends without. His manner of entering the city was singular. Taking a skiff in the Yazoo, he proceeded to its confluence with the Mississippi, where he tied the little boat, entered the woods, and awaited the night. At dark he took off his clothing, placed his despatches securely within them, bound the package firmly to a plank, and, going into the river, he sustained his head above the water by holding to the plank, and in this manner floated in the darkness through the fleet, and on two miles down the river to Vicksburg, where his arrival was hailed as an event of great importance in the still life of the city.
"The hill opposite our cave might be called 'death's point,' from the number of animals that had been killed in eating the grass on the sides and summit. Horses or mules that are tempted to mount the hill by the promise of grass that grows profusely there invariably come limping down wounded, to die at the base, or are brought down dead from the summit.
"A certain number of mules are killed each day by the commissaries, and are issued to the men, all of whom prefer the fresh meat, though it be of mule, to the bacon and salt rations that they have eaten for so long a time without change.
"I was sewing, one day, near one side of the cave, where the bank slopes and lights up the room like a window. Near this opening I was sitting, when I suddenly remembered some little article I wished in another part of the room. Crossing to procure it, I was returning, when a minie-ball came whizzing through the opening, passed my chair, and fell beyond it. Had I been still sitting, I should have stopped it."