Famous leaders among men

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

"Oh, no. He is a good man, and don't need your prayers. You may pray for him if you feel like it, but there's no compulsion."

To some of the editors in Memphis, Sherman said, "If I find the press of Memphis actuated by high principle and a sole devotion to their country, I will be their best friend; but if I find them personal, abusive, dealing in innuendoes and hints at a blind venture, and looking to their own selfish aggrandizement and fame, then they had better look out; for I regard such persons as greater enemies to their country and to mankind than the men who, from a mistaken sense of State pride, have taken up muskets, and fight us about as hard as we care about."

Sherman went to the Argus office one day, and, in his familiar manner, said to the young editors, as he sat down and rested his feet on the table: "Boys, I have been ordered to suppress your paper, but I don't like to do that. I just dropped in to warn you not to be so free with your pencils. If you don't ease up, you'll get into trouble."

When some complained of the acts of the soldiers, Sherman replied that he knew of several instances where their conduct had been provoked by sneering remarks about "Northern barbarians" and "Lincoln's hirelings." "People who use such language," he said, "must seek redress through some one else, for I will not tolerate insults to our country or cause."

All sorts of ruses were adopted by the Southern army to obtain things from Memphis. While General Van Dorn was at Holly Springs, he desired supplies for his men. Some of our soldiers found, in a farmer's barn, a large hearse with pall and plumes, which had been used at a big funeral. It was filled with medicines for Van Dorn's army! "It was a good trick," said Sherman, "but diminished our respect for such pageants afterward."

In December there was a concerted movement by Grant and Sherman to capture Vicksburg. The latter was to move down the river, and with Admiral Porter's gunboats, "proceed," said Grant, "to the reduction of that place in such manner as circumstances and your own judgment may dictate." Sherman was to make the attack by land, in the rear, while Porter attacked by river front. Three divisions of Sherman's army were landed in the low, marshy lands, cut by the Chickasaw Bayou and other creeks, where a slight rise in the Mississippi River would drown them all. The bluffs of Walnut Hills, on which Vicksburg stands, are two hundred feet high, and impregnable.

Against these the fearless troops were led Dec. 29, with great slaughter. De Courcy's brigade of Morgan's division, and Frank Blair's brigade of Steele's division, with the Fourth Iowa, were under the hottest fire. De Courcy lost 700, Blair 743, and the Fourth Iowa 111 men; the Confederate loss was only about 187.

Sherman says, "The men of the Sixth Missouri actually scooped out with their hands caves in the bank, which sheltered them against the fire of the enemy, who, right over their heads, held their muskets outside the parapet vertically, and fired down. So critical was the position, that we could not recall the men till after dark, and then one at a time. Our loss had been pretty heavy, and we had accomplished nothing."

It was evident that Vicksburg must be taken in some other manner. Grant decided to cut a canal across the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, that he might get below the city. All through January and February, Sherman's men were digging the canal, planned to be sixty feet wide and nine feet deep, and fighting off the Mississippi, which continued to rise, and threatened to drown them. When the men were not digging canals, they were clearing bayous, which were filled with cypress and cottonwood trees. Sometimes they marched at night through canebrakes, carrying lighted candles, Sherman walking with them, the water above his hips. The drummer-boys carried their drums on their heads, and the men slung their cartridge-boxes around their necks.

Admiral Porter, from his gunboats, used to send Sherman messages, written on tissue paper, concealed in a piece of tobacco. A negro carried them through the swamps.