VICKSBURG Chapter Eight - Seven

 

A young white woman living through the siege recorded 25 June, 1863, as her worst day. “We were all in the cellar,” she recalled, “when a shell came tearing through the roof, burst upstairs, tore up that room, and the pieces coming through both floors down into the cellar.” A fragment tore her husband's 'pantaloons', proof that the cellar did not offer absolute protection. 

Then a neighbor arrived to inform the shaken couple that a female friend had her thigh crushed by a Yankee shell. And shortly thereafter the owner's black slave girl returned from an errand for milk with the report she had seen the arm of another young slave girl taken off by another Yankee shell. Wrote the young woman of Vicksburg, “For the first time I quailed.”

She added, “I do not think people who are physically brave deserve much credit for it; it is a matter of nerves. In this way I am constitutionally brave...But now I first seemed to realize that something worse than death might come; I might be crippled...Life, without all one’s powers and limbs, was a thought that broke down my courage.” She pleaded with her husband, “I cannot stay. I know I shall be crippled.” And yet, she stayed. 

At about 1:30 p.m., on Wednesday, 1 July, 1863, a second Yankee mine of 1,800 pounds of black powder was ignited under what was left of the Louisiana Redan. Wrote a southern witness, “The entire left face, part of the right, and the entire... (center) of the redan were blown up...” The chasm left behind was 20 feet deep and 30 to 50 feet across. The 3^rd Louisiana lost another 1 killed and 21 wounded. But the 6^th Missouri, which had replaced the Louisiana soldiers inside the remnants of the redan, lost about 90 men, killed and wounded.

Corporal Gilbert Stark, Company B, 32^nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry noted in his diary, “The explosion was not so loud as before, but it was more effective. It blew 4 rebs clear over to our lines. 2 were dead, 1 was badly wounded. The other I don't think is hurt much. It must of blew lots of the rebs to hell…” But as the dust settled, curiously, “Our men did not advance...”

There had been 8 slaves forced to dig a counter mine under the redan, overseen by a white corporal. When the mine was ignited the corporal was killed as were 7 of the 8 slaves. The man who survived was identified only as Abraham (above) . Thrown 150 feet, he landed among Yankee soldiers.  Surgeon Silas Thompson Trowbridge, from Decatur, Illinois, found Abraham was “Badly bruised”, but noted he had fallen “on soft ground, and evidently on the back part of his head and shoulders...” Shortly thereafter, as he lay in a tent to recover, the soldiers charged admission just to look at him. There is no record of how he handled the psychological impact of his survival. But later he was hired as a kitchen assistant for a Yankee general. Or so the story went.

A story was told that late in the siege of Vicksburg a white male broke down in public. With tears streaming down his face he began to sob, and through paroxysms of exhaustion and fear and grief he pleaded, “I wish they would stop fighting, or surrender or something, I want to go home and see my Ma.” One of the hardened soldiers of the 3^rd Mississippi responded by mocking the man, and quickly the lament began to move north and south along the trench line - “Boo hoo. I want to go home.” It became the soldier's mantra, and never failed to produce smiles. “Boo hoo. I want to go home.” Or so the story was told.

There was no attempt to advance after the second explosion, in part because the redan no longer existed, and in part because the situation no longer demanded such sacrifice. On Monday, 30 June, Grant's engineers had reported there were now 13 mines ready or almost ready to be ignited under rebel works. Instead, Yankee infantry were ordered to broaden the trench approaches to the mined forts, so that the Federal troops could charge 4 abreast into their ruins. Tentatively, Grant set the ignitions and final mass attack for Sunday, 5 or Monday, 6 July.

That Wednesday, after the elimination of the Louisiana redan, Lieutenant General John Pemberton (above) sent a confidential message to his division commanders, Major Generals Carter Stevenson, John Forney, Martin Smith and John Bowen, asking them to immediately poll their general officers. “Unless the siege of Vicksburg is raised, or supplies are thrown in,” he wrote, “it will become necessary very shortly to evacuate the place....You are, therefore, requested to inform me with as little delay as possible, as to the condition of your troops and their ability to make the marches and undergo the fatigues necessary to accomplish a successful evacuation.”

On Thursday, 2 July, the Vicksburg Wig published one of their famous wallpaper editions, in which they recorded the death of a Mrs. Cisco, who while traveling on the Jackson Road had been struck by Yankee shell and killed instantly. According to the paper, her husband was a member of “Moody's Artillery” - aka the Madison Louisiana Light Artillery – on service in Virginia. All told, about a dozen civilians were killed by the 16,000 Yankee shells thrown at Vicksburg. But they included a young girl, enjoying a moment of freedom from her families' cave, who was struck in the side by a piece of shrapnel, and a young boy whose arm was “struck and broken” while playing outside of his cave.

Typical of the responses to Pemberton's query, was that from Brigadier General Louis Herbert, (above) in Forney's division, who canvased his own regimental commanders. “Without exception”, he now told his bosses, “all concurred...that their men could not fight and march 10 miles in one day; that even without being harassed by the enemy...they could not expect their men to march 15 miles the first day; hundreds would break down or straggle off even before the first lines of the enemy were fairly passed. This inability on the part of the soldiers does not arise from want of spirit, or courage, or willingness to fight, but from real physical disability... the question...is not between " surrender" and "cutting out;" it is are my men able to "cut out." My answer is No!”

But General Herbert did not stop there. “So long as they are fighting for Vicksburg,” he told Forney, “they are as true soldiers as the army has, but they will certainly leave us so soon as we leave Vicksburg. If caught without arms by the enemy, they will be no worse off than other prisoners of war...If they succeed in getting home, they will not be brought back to the army for months, and many not at all...I could not expect to keep together one-tenth of my men a distance of 10 miles.” This discouraging note was signed, “sincerely yours, Louis Hebert, Brigadier-General.”

None of the general officers urged Pemberton to hold out. Two bluntly stated that the army should be surrendered at once. Typically, Pemberton responded to the pressure by calling for a council of war, delaying the decision until his general officers again discussed what was already an almost unanimous opinion.  According to Pemberton's engineer – Alabama's Major Samuel Henry Lockett (above) – they had been short ammunition from the beginning of the siege, they were short provisions, no man had been off duty for longer than “a small part of each day”, their lines were badly battered, many of their cannon were dismounted, and the Yankees had pushed their saps so close that “a single dash could have precipitated them upon us in overwhelming numbers”.

Pemberton then admitted that he had given up all hope for General Johnston's Army of Relief. The choice then was to “either to surrender while we still had ammunition enough to demand terms, or to sell our lives as dearly as possible” in a breakout attempt. He then asked for a final vote. All but 2 of his officers voted for an immediate surrender.

At 10:00 a.m. on Friday, 3 July, 1863, white flags appeared above a length of  the Confederate trenches. Slowly the steady, killing gun fire along that section of the battle lines, ceased. And then two officers in gray began walking toward the Union lines, carrying a white flag.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty - Five

 

On the south side of a high bluff, over a mile behind the forts and trenches defending the landward side of Vicksburg, and just a half mile from the riverfront batteries holding off the Yankee navy to the west, stood a 2 story brick mansion, one of the finest homes in Vicksburg (above).  It's address was 1018 Crawford Street.  Across the street stood a church, next door the Balfour Mansion.

On Sunday, 28 June, 1863 it was called “the Willis' house”, because one of the cities' wealthiest men owned it - grand-nephew to the town's founder, “planter” and slave owner 42 year old Thomas Vick Willis. The siege caught him away, tending to his slaves and properties. 

But up the lovely spiral staircase on the second floor resided Tom's 30 year old wife  Mary with their 4 children and her slaves, all trapped in Vicksburg because her latest pregnancy had made travel unsafe.  

And on the ground floor, in the five public rooms, resided and worked the unhappiest man in all of  Vicksburg,  48 year old Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton (below).

On this day, the General had received an extraordinary letter. How it came into his hand is unknown, but it might have been passed to him by the recently promoted Major General John Steven's Bowen. No author signed the letter, although it claimed to speak for “Many Soldiers” in the trenches. And Pemberton can have harbored little doubt that it did. “Sir: In accordance with my own feelings,” it began, “ and that of my fellow soldiers, with whom I have conferred, I submit to your serious consideration the following note...”

Clearly, the author or author's knew generals, because they began by feeding his vanity. “We, as an army,” it said, “have as much confidence in you as a commanding general as we perhaps ought to have. We believe you have displayed as much generalship as any other man could have done under similar circumstances. We give you great credit for the stern patriotism you have evinced in the defense of Vicksburg during a protracted and unparalleled siege.”

Except, it was not an unparalleled siege. The Roman's siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. lasted some 4 months, and that same year the hill top fortress of Massada held out for about 90 days – more than twice as long as Vicksburg. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had laid siege to Grenada, Spain from April 1491 to 2 January, 1492 – almost 8 months And Gibraltar had survived its “Great” siege from 24 June, 1779 to 7 February, 1783 – 3 years and 7 months. When General Pemberton got this note, Vicksburg had been under siege for a little over one month. And, historically, that seems to be just about “parallel” for the average siege.

Choosing to ignore such unpleasant realities, the writer continued. “ I also feel proud of the gallant conduct of the soldiers under your command in repulsing the enemy at every assault and bearing with patient endurance all the privations and hardships incident to a siege of forty-odd days' duration. Everybody admits that we have all covered ourselves in glory, but, alas! alas! General, a crisis has arrived in the midst of our siege.”

“Our rations have been cut down to one biscuit and a small bit of bacon per day. Not enough, scarcely, to keep soul and body together, much less to stand the hardships we are called upon to stand.” The writer noted, “...there is complaining and general dissatisfaction through out our lines.” The cause of all this was obvious. “Men don't want to starve,” warned the writer, “ and don't intend to, but they call upon you for justice...” Soldiers asking a commanding general for justice was coming close to insubordination. Still, the writer forged ahead. “The emergency of the case demands prompt and decided action on your part. If you can't feed us, you had better surrender us.”

This clearly was insubordination, and maybe even treason. But, warned the author, “Horrible as the idea is, (better this) than suffer this noble army to disgrace themselves by desertion.” Arguing these were “stubborn facts” the author insisted, “ I tell you plainly, men are not going to lie here and perish... hunger will compel a man to do almost anything. You had better heed a warning voice, though it is the voice of a private soldier. This army is now ripe for mutiny, unless it can be fed.”

The grammar was too perfect to be that of a “private soldier.”  General Pemberton (above) would have surely recognized that instantly. And there are no signatures on the single surviving copy. So why did Pemberton preserve this note? We are told it was found in his private papers after the siege. Perhaps it was to be used as evidence for Pemberton's defense at a court martial. There was another possibility, of course. The letter  may have come from the other side of the trenches. The Army of the Tennessee knew perfectly well the conditions inside Vicksburg, as Mr. Dana's message to Stanton and Lincoln revealed.  This note might have been Yankee “psy-op”, and if it was, that would hold its own specific dread for the commander of the “American Gibraltar”. A hungry army is no threat to the enemy if the enemy knows how hungry they are.

By the end of June it was obvious to everyone that every warning  General Joseph Johnston had issued about Vicksburg had come true.  

And as "Old Joe" had warned, the key to Vicksburg was not the trench lines or the fortifications or the water batteries, not the Warren County Court house atop the highest hill in the city of hills. The key to Vicksburg was Snyder's Bluff, and Chickasaw Bayou six miles away. And just as Johnston had said, once that position fell, Vicksburg could not be held.

And as Joe Johnston had pointed out, having lost the long bridge over the Pearl River south of Jackson, any practical reason for holding Snyder's Bluff was also lost.  

Since 1832 railroad engineers had known it took only 8 pounds of force to start 1 ton of cargo moving on rails. And once the “track resistance” - inertia – was overcome the heavier the train, the lower the cost to move a ton of cargo on that train.  A 30 horsepower engine could keep a 70 ton train moving at 20 miles per hour – the distance a horse drawn wagon might cover in a good day – for as long as the fuel lasted. Any connection between the between Vicksburg Mississippi and Richmond Virginia not held together by rail lines was practically speaking, an illusion.

It was a lesson Johnston had been trying to explain to General Pemberton for six months  And it seems likely Pemberton (above) had agreed all along. But President Davis in far off Richmond did not. And Davis issued the orders. Vicksburg must be held. In so ordering him  Davis had created a trap which Pemberton could not escape. This was abundantly clear as June faded into July.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Seventy - Six

 

One Vicksburg woman remembered that June began with a “clear and unusually warm day. The men sought shelter from the sun's scorching rays beneath the shade of outstretched blankets and in small excavations and huts in the hill sides...” However she was also  forced to admit that it was not only the sun from which the besieged citizens sought protection. “We have slept scarcely none now for two days and two nights.” What was disturbing the lady's sleep were the 200 Federal artillery cannon arrayed against the city.

For Lida Lord (above), daughter of a minister, the siege meant sharing a large cave complex with up to 65 others, “packed in, black and white, like sardines in a box.” Forced underground by the Yankee guns the civilians suffered an endless lists of indignities. “We were...in hourly dread of snakes,” she wrote. “...A large rattlesnake was found one morning under a mattress on which some of us had slept all night.”

An 18 year old Confederate signal corpsman from Virginia, Edward Sanford Gregory, remembered, “...hardly any part of the city was outside the range of the enemy’s artillery. … Just across the Mississippi … mortars were put in position and trained directly on the homes of the people. … Twenty-four hours of each day....their deadly hail of iron dropped through roofs and tore up the deserted and denuded streets. …How many of them came and burst, nobody can have the least idea …”

In fact the Federal commissary had to account for every shell. On average each Yankee gun fired 14 rounds a day - an average one round every 2 minutes. But the guns moored across the river on rafts were not army weapons, but 6 ugly, brutal U.S. Navy 13 inch Seacoast mortars (above)  forged in Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania. Their squat barrels alone weighed 17,250 pounds, the carriages another ton. These were not mobile artillery, but they were unusually accurate. And they weren't aimed at people's homes. They arched 200 pound projectiles from the DeSoto peninsula and precisely dropped them, half a mile away, at the corner of Washington and First Streets, along the Vicksburg waterfront.

Their target was the foundry operated by Adam Breach Reading and his brother, C.A.. Antebellum the firm had serviced the steamboat trade, and repaired the occasional locomotive (above). 

Once the war broke out they began producing 6 and 12 pound bronze cannon. Their production was only about 2 a month and perhaps 40 in all were cast before the supply of copper was cut off. But day and night the big mortars kept pounding the site, 7,000 shells in all. Occasionally they overshot, in the process destroying the offices of “The Vicksburg Whig” newspaper, and some private homes. Such insults fell into the category of collateral damage.

And these were not the only Naval guns belching fire upon the city. In the original run passed the Vicksburg batteries on the night of 16 April, 1863, the charge had been led by the ironclad USS Benton (above).  She suffered damage that night, and a more serious injury on 29 April during the ironclad duel with rebel guns at Grand Gulf.  Over the last month the Benton had been tied up along the Mississippi shore while her engines were being repaired. But Admiral Porter was never one to let a gun grow cold.

Two 1 ton 42 pound rifled cannons from the USS Benton were off-loaded at the abandoned port town of Warrenton, 2 miles south of Vicksburg. They were manhandled to within range of the South Fort (above), where they were operated by a detachment from the 34^th Iowa Infantry, and commanded by a Missouri artillery lieutenant named Joseph Atwater,   Battery Benton began to methodically pound the South Fort into silence. 

At the opposite end of the 5 mile long Federal line was Battery Selfridge, whose weapons were navy owned and operated – operated in this case by the very brave and the often sunk, Thomas Oliver Selfridge.

The outbreak of the civil war found the 26 year old naval lieutenant, and son of a Naval Captain, Thomas Selfridge (above),  in command of the 6 gun forward battery aboard the 50 gun frigate the USS Cumberland. 

On Saturday, 8 March, 1862, the Cumberland was rammed and sunk by the Confederate Ironclad CSS Virginia. Thomas did not allow his men to abandon their guns until ordered to do so, despite their shots failing to penetrate the iron skin of the rebel ship. 

As reward for his bravery, Thomas was then given command of the first Yankee submarine, the 47 foot long USS Alligator. She broke down on a test cruise up the Potomac, and had to be towed back to the naval yard by a passing schooner (above). Disgusted with the sub, and having lost his place in the promotion line for the blue water navy, Thomas now begged a transfer to the brown water navy.

In November he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and given command of the city class ironclad the USS Cairo, with a crew of 215 men and officers. On Thursday, 11 December, 1862, the USS Cairo was steaming up the rain swollen Yazoo river,  following 2 tin-clad gun boats, the USS Marmora and the Signal. When they suspected trouble and slowed, the impatient Lieutenant Commander Selfridge steamed ahead and ran into two torpedoes (above). The ironclad went down in  only 12 minutes, luckily without any loss of life. The "Oft Sunk" Thomas was then transferred to gun boats in less exposed positions. But he still kept pushing to get in the fight.

On 27 May of 1863, the ironclad USS Cincinnati had been sunk in 18 feet of water just north of the Vicksburg lines. Naval engineers were able to quickly raise three 9,200 pound 8 inch Columbiad cannons from the wreck. The first week in June these were mounted atop Steele's Hill, in “Battery Selfridge” (above), manned by crewmen from the USS Cairo, and commanded by its namesake. At least on land the "oft sunk" Lieutenant could not be sunk so easily.

On Saturday, 6 June, 1863, one of the Navy's mortar shells punctured the roof of the 4 story tall Washington Hotel (above, at the corner of Washington and China Street hill). Luckily the shell exploded on contact, only destroying three adjacent storage rooms. The hotel had been converted into a hospital, and as yet did not have many patients. So the only person injured was a surgeon whose leg was so mangled it had to be amputated. But the round also destroyed most the rebel morphine and quinine supplies.  The siege had not begun well for the rebel forces.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Sixty - Seven

 

It's unlikely the Jo Davis county courthouse (above) had ever heard a more rousing speech. And the speaker, handsome and profane lawyer, John Aron Rawlins, brought the crowd to its feet with an appeal for the “God of battles to aid the great cause of the North”. Immediately volunteers lined up to sign up. It was Thursday evening, 18 April, 1861. Just 48 hours earlier President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to defend the union had reached the lead mining boom town of Galena, Illinois.

It was a busy place in the 19^th century. Every day 6 – 700 people arrived on the banks of the Fever River by boat, stagecoach or railroad. Most quickly moved on, but enough stayed for the town to boast the largest hotel west of Chicago - the 240 room DeSoto House (above) . It also supported 2 daily newspapers, a dozen mills, 7 breweries and 3 leather shops, including Grant and Perkin's of St. Louis, owned by Jesse Root Grant. 

The Galena store  (above) had been run for several years by Jesse's middle son, Samuel Simpson Grant, with his younger brother Orville.  Samuel's elder brother, Ulysses, had arrived in Galena just the year before, broke and forced to return to the family business he had abandoned for West Point. 

In fact, Ulysses (above)  had been asked to chair the April 1861 courthouse meeting by dint of his experience in the Mexican War.   Few outside the army  knew that he had been forced to resign his commission because of excessive drinking. But the now teetotaler clerk Ulysses Grant struck up a friendship with the well spoken teetotaler lawyer, John Rawlings.

While Grant was easy going, the charismatic Rawlings (above) had, in the words of one biographer, “Austere habits, severe morals, aggressive temper, inflexible will, resolution and courage.” Both men were Douglas Democrats, opposing the rebellious south without opposing slavery.   And both men had loved ones who were being consumed from the inside by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis.   Both wife Emily Rawlings and brother Samuel Grant would tragically die in September of 1861, freeing Grant from a life dependent on animal hides, and allowing Rawlings to run away to join Grant's military staff. 

Grant's new purpose was to save the Union of the states, and Rawlings' was to save Grant. In the invasion of Mississippi, Rawlings gained a powerful ally in Julia Grant (above). Ulysses never drank around Julia. 

That left Rawlings,(above) as Grant's defacto Chief-of-Staff, to protect the general from political threats, like John McClernand. Grant referred to John Rawlings as the one indispensable man – including himself - in the army. Without his friend, General Grant would not have been half as effective a commander.

Grant's other ally in the investment of Vicksburg was a 330 year old orphan from Burgundy, France, named Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban (above)  – pronounced “vobah”.   During the last half of the 17^th century, as a favorite of the spendthrift Sun King, Louis XIV of France, Vauban built 150 fortresses across France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy, and captured half as many. It was said, "Whatever he invested, fell; whatever he defended, held.” 

And his book, “On Siege and Fortification”, written in 1706, made the Marquis de Vauban the most famous military engineer of the gunpowder age. He died a year later in Paris suffering from “an inflammation of the lungs” - probably tuberculosis. His heart now rests in Paris, a few feet from the sarcophagus of his greatest admirer, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Vobahn invented the socket bayonet which fit over the end of all Yankee and rebel rifles, combining musketeer and pike man.  The redoubt, the redan and the lenette were all Vauban's inventions. And he created the "Méthode” for destroying and capturing them all.   First, just beyond the range of the defender's artillery, the besieging army would create parallel fortifications – known as the First Parallel. This would prevent the defenders from surprise charges out of their forts to disrupt the attacking forces. And it ensured the enemy could no longer be supplied with food or ammunition.

Engineers would then dig a series of zig-zag trenches, called “saps”, toward the enemy lines. The switch backs would prevent the defenders from firing down the entire length of any approach – what was called enfilading fire.  Once within artillery range, the engineers – now referred to as “sappers” - would create The Second Parallel to protect the construction of advanced artillery batteries. 

From these gunners and snipers would harass the enemy while “sappers” pushed ever closer to their forts. Occasionally a Third or even a Fourth Parallel might be required. But once the defender's artillery was suppressed, infantry would burst from the sap to breach the weakened redans and redoubts.

Vobahn's method never failed, unless the enemy could resupply, or an outside force could intervene.

And the truth was, Grant's Army of the Tennessee did not have enough men for an effective siege of Vicksburg. Admiral Porter could be relied upon to blockade the river side of the town, preventing many supplies from crossing the Mississippi. But Grant's 35,000 troops could not extend their trenches 6 miles to effectively blockade the southern end of the rebel line around Vicksburg. And then there was the problem of Joe Johnston, gathering troops just 50 miles to the west in Jackson, Mississippi. 

Still, just two eventful years after his Galena speech, and 3 days after the disastrous assaults of 22 May, on Monday, 25 May, 1863, 32 year old Lieutenant Colonel John Aron Rawlins issued Special Order Number 140.  It read in full, “Corps commanders will immediately commence work at reducing the enemy by regular approaches. 

"It is desirable that no more loss of life be sustained in the reduction of Vicksburg and the capture of the garrison. Every advantage will be taken of the natural inequities of the ground to gain positions from which to start mines, trenches or advance batteries. 

"The work will be under the immediate charge of the Corps engineers, Corps Commanders being responsible that the work in their immediate front is pushed with all vigor. Captain F.E. Prime, Chief Engineer of the department, will have general superintendence of the entire work. He will be obeyed and respected accordingly. By order of Major General U.S. Grant. Signed, John A, Rawlings, Assistant Adjutant-General."

But if the siege of Vicksburg was going to succeed, it was clear to everybody – Grant, Rawlings, Pemberton, Joe Johnston, Abraham Lincoln and even Jefferson Davis – that the Yankees were going to need to find more men from someplace. And right away.

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