Vicksburg is a beautiful city, built on a steep cliff, continually in sight of the broad, brown, passive streams of the Delta and the strips of forest which break up the waters. Above it all are the beautiful lawns and terraces of the National Cemetery rising from the Mississippi shore, and the dead lie in view, as it were, of the broad loveliness of the river. Sixteen thousand Americans hallow the soil. They are mostly of Grant’s army, but over and above there is another burying ground with many of his enemies. No vulgar notice warns you not to pick the flowers. Pick them if you will. But poems and prayers are scattered everywhere, and still as you go you pause and read, and pause and read again—
On Fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
Tiny cubes of white marble give the soldiers’ numbers and names and regiments. It reminds one now somehow of the great cemeteries of France.
The mighty troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle’s stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din, the shout, are past,