The soldiers grew desperate. General Pemberton hoped they could cut their way out, and caused boats to be made out of some of the houses,—they planned to make two thousand,—which they could use in their escape down the river.
Finally, when all became hopeless, Pemberton said, "Far better would it be for me to die at the head of my army, even in a vain effort to force the enemy's lines, than to surrender it and live and meet the obloquy which I know will be heaped upon me. But my duty is to sacrifice myself to save the army which has so nobly done its duty to defend Vicksburg."
July 4, 1863, Pemberton surrendered his garrison of over thirty-one thousand men, sixty thousand muskets, and over one hundred and seventy cannon.
Grant said of Sherman, "His untiring energy and great efficiency during the campaign entitled him to a full share of all the credit due for its success. He could not have done more if the plan had been his own."
Before sunset of July 4, Sherman, with fifty thousand men, was in pursuit of Johnston, who had been trying to aid Pemberton. Johnston marched rapidly, driving all cattle, hogs, and sheep into the ponds, and shooting them, so that they should not furnish food for the Federals, and also to spoil the water. Johnston made a stand at Jackson, but soon evacuated the place.
For bravery and success in this campaign, Grant was made major-general in the regular army, the highest grade then allowed by law, and Sherman and McPherson brigadier-generals in the regular army.
After the fall of Vicksburg, Sherman's family, Mrs. Sherman, Minnie, Lizzie, Willie, and Tom, came from Ohio to visit him. Willie was nine years old, fond of the parade of war, and was made a "sergeant" in the regular battalion. He became ill in the low marshy country, and died of typhoid fever, just after the family reached the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis.
This death was a great blow to Sherman, as he showed in a letter which he wrote to Captain C. C. Smith, commanding Battalion Thirteenth United States Regulars: "I cannot sleep to-night till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child.... The child that bore my name, and in whose future I reposed with more confidence than I did in my own plan of life, now being carried by steamer a mere corpse, seeking a grave in a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters clustered about him. For myself I ask no sympathy. On, on I must go, to meet a soldier's fate, or live to see our country rise superior to all factions, till its flag is adored and respected by ourselves and by all the powers of the earth....
"Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and love of country, which should animate all soldiers.... Assure each and all, if in after years they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regulars when Willie was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has; that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust!"