Shell! sweet mother mine, Oh! shell!—"
the original is closely followed and equally distorted.
But strangest, amid all strange humors of the war, was that which echoed laughter over the leaguered walls of scarred, starving, desperate Vicksburg! No siege in all history tells of greater peril and suffering, borne with wondrous endurance and heroism, by men and women. It is a story of privation unparalleled, met by fortitude and calm acceptance which recall the early martyrdoms for faith! And, indeed, love of country grew to be a religion, especially with the women of the South, though happily none proved it by stress so dire as those of her heroic city; and they cherished it in the darkest midnight of their cause, with constancy and hope that nerved the strong and shamed the laggard.
That history is one long series of perils and privations—of absolute isolation—sufficient to have worn down the strongest and to have quenched even
The smile of the South, on the lips and the eyes—
Of her barefooted boys!
Yet, even in Vicksburg—torn by shot and shell, hopeless of relief from without, reduced to direst straits of hunger within—the supreme rebel humor rose above nature; and men toiled and starved, fought their hopeless fight and died—not with the stoicism of the fatalist, but with the cheerfulness of duty well performed! And when Vicksburg fell, a curious proof of this was found; a manuscript bill-of-fare, surmounted by rough sketch of a mule's head crossed by a human hand holding a Bowie-knife. That memorable menu reads:
HOTEL DE VICKSBURG, BILL OF FARE, FOR JULY, 1863.
- Soup: Mule tail.
- Boiled: Mule bacon, with poke greens; mule ham, canvassed.
- Roast: Mule sirloin; mule rump, stuffed with rice; saddle-of-mule, à l'armee.
- Vegetables: Boiled rice; rice, hard boiled; hard rice, any way.
- Entrées: Mule head, stuffed à la Reb; mule beef, jerked à la Yankie; mule ears, fricasseed à la getch; mule side, stewed—new style, hair on; mule liver, hashed à l'explosion.
- Side Dishes: Mule salad; mule hoof, soused; mule brains à l'omelette; mule kidneys, braisés on ramrod; mule tripe, on half (Parrot) shell; mule tongue, cold, à la Bray.
- Jellies: Mule foot (3-to-yard); mule bone, à la trench.
- Pastry: Rice pudding, pokeberry sauce; cottonwood-berry pie, à la iron-clad; chinaberry tart.
- Dessert: White-oak acorns; beech-nuts; blackberry-leaf tea; genuine Confederate coffee.
- Liquors: Mississippi water, vintage 1492, very superior, $3; limestone water, late importation, very fine, $3.75; spring water, Vicksburg bottled up, $4.
- Meals at few hours. Gentlemen to wait upon themselves. Any inattention in service should be promptly reported at the office.
- Jeff Davis & Co., Proprietors.
- Card: The proprietors of the justly-celebrated Hotel de Vicksburg, having enlarged and refitted the same, are now prepared to accommodate all who may favor them with a call. Parties arriving by the river, or by Grant's inland route, will find Grape, Cannister & Co.'s carriages at the landing, or any depot on the line of entrenchments. Buck, Ball & Co. take charge of all baggage. No effort will be spared to make the visit of all as interesting as possible.
This capture was printed in the Chicago Tribune, with the comment that it was a ghastly and melancholy burlesque. There is really a train of melancholy in the reflection that it was so little of a burlesque; that they who could endure such a siege, on such fare, should have been compelled to bear their trial in vain. But the quick-satisfying reflection must follow of the truth, the heroism—the moral invincibility—of a people who could so endure and—laugh!