It
was the afternoon of Friday, 25 June, 1863 - the 38th day
of the siege of Vicksburg - and Sergeant Morris was the last man in
the tunnel. He felt the cold brass fittings of the navel fuses (above) in
the dark, making certain the squib was nestled deep among the rough
grains of black powder - in the bottom bag of 20 bags of black
powder stacked in the chamber. The Ohio Sergeant ran his fingers
along the twin wires running from the squib, out of the bag and
across the dirt floor of the left forward gallery. Feeling no break,
and bent double, he struggled through the 4 foot high 3 foot wide
passage for 15 feet toward the lantern.
The
man in charge was a 25 year old captain of engineers, Andrew
Hickenlooper (above). And in an organization obsessed with rank and
seniority, the Corps of Engineers was the only part where brains and
education might preceded either. Andrew had been born in August of
1837 in the east central Ohio coal town of Harding. It was also the
home to Levi Coffin, unofficial “President of the Underground
Railroad”, which after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 secretly
shepherded desperate people north to Canada.
At
the apex of “Y” junction, the sergeant turned into the dark
again. In the pitch black right forward gallery he repeated his squib
and fuse check on it's 500 pounds of black powder. Then backing
slowly to the junction, he made certain the squib and fuses for the
700 pounds of powder stacked here were secure. And only then did he
pick up the lantern and retreat, moving faster now that the roof was
5 feet high, running the 6 wires loosely through his palm until, 45
feet later, he stumbled into daylight.
In
Dutch-German Hickenlooper meant a hedge-hopper or runner and carried
the vague connotation of a thief. Andrew's father was honest and hard
working but blessed with a lack of ambition. Looking for a more
interesting job he moved his family to Cincinnati, where Andrew
attended the Woodward Grammar School and Xavier College. The Jesuits
who ran both instilled more than enough ambition in young
Hickenlooper. At 19 he went to work for the city surveyor, and 3
years later was elected to the job himself. He married and quickly
had two children
Exiting
the tunnel in a trench labeled “Logan's Approach” (above), Sergeant
Morris was greeted by Lieutenant Thomas Russel, from Missouri. He
took the loose bundle of wires, all 6 cut to equal length, from
Morris. A work gang under the sergeant immediately began refilling
the tunnel – leaving a crevice for the fuse wires to pass through
cleanly. As they did, the Missouri lieutenant carefully laid the
wires along a wooden plank, and staked them firmly. Then the ends of
the wires were stripped, and a musket cap placed upon the bare end of
each wire. Lastly, a stick was tied down over all the caps.
On
Sunday morning, 6 April, 1862, the 5th Ohio light
artillery, a 6 gun battery recruited and commanded by Lieutenant
Andrew Hickenlooper, was surprised and almost overrun while in camp
northwest of the Quaker “Shiloh Meeting House”. The lieutenant
managed to save all but 2 of his 6 pounders, and rushed them to support
Union soldiers in what became known as “The Hornet's Nest” (above). “Then
came the long triple lines of bristling steel,” Andrew wrote later,
“whose stern face bearers...came pressing on, until our cannon's
loud acceptance of their challenge...caused the assailants to
hesitate, break in confusion and hastily retire". Over 8 hours
Andrew and his 4 remaining cannon repelled as many as 8 attacks,
until ordered to withdraw about 4:30 that afternoon.
Because
of his courage and skill at Shiloh, Hickenlooper was promoted and
made Chief Engineer for the XVII Corps. Under Grant's Special
Order Number 140, issued on 25 May, Andrew was responsible for
prosecuting the siege of Vicksburg to his front.
He described the
topography and his plans this way. “The highest point between the
(Louisiana redan) and the (Shirley) House (above) was selected...to locate a
battery (named Battery Hickenlooper)..."
"....covering the extensions of the sap beyond that point. Two
8-inch naval guns located in battery(Archer) south-east of this
point...(silenced) the guns of the Confederate fort; thus leaving the
Union soldiers exposed only to the ever vigilant sharp-shooters of
the enemy...."
"A favorite amusement of the soldiers was to place a cap
on the end of a ramrod and to raise it just above the head-logs
betting on the number of bullets which would pass through it within a
given time.”
Then,
on Monday, 21 June, Captain Hickenlooper put out a call for men
experienced in mining. From those volunteers he picked 36 men, who he
divided into a day and a night shift, with each shift broken into 3
“reliefs”. Andrew later explained, “ On the night of the 22d
these men, properly equipped with drills, short-handled picks,
shovels...(began) driving a gallery...” Lieutenant Russel pushed
the first shift 12 feet into the hill beneath the Louisiana redan.
“
Each relief worked an hour at a time, two picking, two shoveling,
and two handing back the grain sacks filled with earth...The
soil...(showed ) remarkable tenacity, (and was) easily cut and
requiring but little bracing.”
During Thursday, 24 June, the miners
pushed the tunnel another 40 feet under the Confederate position.
“The
powder was brought up in barrels and kept in the main sap at a safe
distance....and there opened and placed in grain-sacks....” By
“...the morning of the 25th, the miners commenced
depositing the powder,...” Captain Hickenlooper explained, “These
were taken up on the backs of the miners, who made the run over the
exposed ground...nearly one hundred trips with the dangerous loads,
all were landed in the mine without a single accident.”
Informed
that Hickenlooper expected everything to be ready by 3:00 p.m. that
Friday, Grant ordered a powerful attack against the redan, lead by
volunteers from the 31st and 45th Illinois
volunteer regiments. But “follow on” regiments were no prepared. The attack, when it came, was to be of limited scope. However, Grant was there himself to witness the
“remarkable” explosion. The entire army was in on the secret, and
as 3:00 p.m. approached, the constant boom and snap of Federal
artillery and sniper fire faded into an anticipatory silence.
At
3:15 p.m. Captain Hickenlooper gave the command. Lieutenant Russel
slammed a hammer down on the board, and all six fuse lines crackled.
A foot high plume of white smoke began to walk toward the wall of
earth and rock which now blocked the tunnel's entrance. The crackling
white smoke danced into the crevice and disappeared into hill side. And now, other than the anxious stares and nervous body language of
50,000 Yankees outside of Vicksburg, there was no indication of the
catastrophe which was about to come.
The
lines had been cut to a 15 minute fuse. But 3:25 came and went with
the redan still impassively towering over the Yankee saps and
trenches. Then 3:26. Whispers began to scurry about the Yankee lines. At 3:27, the miners began to ponder who was going to “volunteer”
to crawl back into the dank tunnel, find the break in the fuses, repair and relight them. If we are to believe what Andrew Hickenlooper wrote
years later, he had no doubts. “Every eye was riveted,” he wrote,
“upon that huge redoubt standing high above...
"At the
appointed moment it appeared as though the whole fort and connecting
outworks commenced an upward movement, gradually breaking into
fragments and growing less bulky in appearance, until it looked like
an immense fountain of finely pulverized earth, mingled with flashes
of fire and clouds of smoke, through which could occasionally be
caught a glimpse of some dark objects,-men, gun-carriages, shelters,
etc.”
The
breech in the defenses of Vicksburg had been made. Or so it seemed.
- 30
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