To prevent surprise attacks, both armies posted pickets in advance of their lines at night. With the lines so close in the latter stages of the siege, pickets would often stand within a few feet of one another, or even side by side. Discussions of good shots and bad officers, or vice versa, helped to pass the long night watches. By common agreement, out of respect for the exposed and unprotected position of the sentinels, there was no firing at men on picket duty.
One Union veteran best remembered the siege of Vicksburg for the nightly verbal exchanges with the “Rebs” when “we used to talk to each other after fighting all day.”
In the evening when everything had stopped for the day, some of our men or some of the Johnnies would yell, “hello Johnnie” or “hello Yank” “how did you enjoy the day?” The other would say “Fine;” then some one would say, “Johnnie, how do you like mule meat?” and they answer “Fine;” then “How do you like beef dried on the bone?” to which they would reply “Not so well; it is too close to the bone to be good.” Then some one would say, “Come over and we will give you some ‘sow belly’ to fry it in.” They would reply, “We can’t eat meat alone;” then the reply was, “We will give you some hardtack.” Then they would reply, “The tack you sent over today was so hard we could not chew it.” So you see how soon those on both sides forgot their troubles when night came, but in the morning about daylight, when the business of the day was about to open, we would say, “Watch out Johnnie, and hunt your hole,” and things were on in earnest for the day.
Maj. Gen. John S. Bowen, commanding the Confederate troops at the battle of Port Gibson. Courtesy Confederate Museum, Richmond.
Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand, commanding the Union XIII Corps. Courtesy National Archives.
JOHNSTON’S DILEMMA.
Pemberton’s foremost objective in prolonging the siege had been to afford Johnston and the Confederate government time to collect sufficient troops to raise the siege. But shortly after Grant had invested the city, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia began its invasion of the North, which ended on the field of Gettysburg. No troops could be spared from that point. To have removed troops from Lt. Gen. Braxton Bragg’s army in Tennessee would have dangerously weakened that place in a desperate attempt to save the Mississippi. Johnston wired Secretary of War James A. Seddon “We cannot hold both.”
