VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty-Seven

 

A woman of Vicksburg awoke in her cave on Saturday morning, 4 July, 1863 to an unusual sound. Silence. Returning to her home, later that morning, in her kitchen,  she met a soldier looking for scraps. He told her that “...the men in Vicksburg will never forgive Pemberton...A child would have known better than to shut men up in this cursed trap to starve to death...Haven’t I seen my friends carted out three or four in a box, that had died of starvation... because we had a fool for a general.”

At about 10 a.m., white flags began to appear along the rebel fortifications. Painfully thin Confederate regiments (above)  " “staggered like drunken men from emaciation, and...wept like children..." and formed pale skinned ranks on the ridge line. They stacked their rifles, handguns, shotguns, swords and bayonets and furled their battle flags. Then they glumly waited.

John Benjamin Sanborn (above) was a 36 year old widowed lawyer from St. Paul, Minnesota, who had fought in every major engagement of the campaign since the Battle of Port Gibson.  Now a full bird Colonel, he and his old regiment, the 4^th Minnesota infantry, were General Logan's choice to lead the 3^rd division into Vicksburg. The evening before Sanborn's brigade had been issued new uniforms. The soldiers had shined the brass on their muskets and buttons until it shown like new as they formed up along the Jackson Road behind their band.

With General Grant and his staff in the lead, followed by General John Alexander Logan and his 3^rd division staff, the Yankees marched through the remnants of the Louisiana redoubt and down into the heart of Vicksburg. The 3^rd division band was playing “Hail Columbia”, the defacto national anthem since 1800, as well as “The Star Spangled Banner”, which would not be the official anthem until 1931.

Carried in an ambulance at the head of the 45^th Illinois, second regiment in the column, was the wounded Colonel Jasper Adalmorn Maltby. His head bandages still seeped blood from the 22 June battle in the crater of the Louisiana redan,  but the 36 year old gunsmith from Galena was determined to celebrate with his regiment, both crippled in the victory. He would shortly be promoted to Brigadier General, but would struggle to recover from his injuries.

As the column passed into the city itself, the victorious Yankee cannon outside slowly fired a 31 gun salute – one shot for each state in the union, including those in rebellion. By limiting the salute in this way, Grant disguised the number of cannon already moved to Sherman's front 20 miles to the east, which was now preparing to advance against Joe Johnston's Army of Relief. At the junction with Cherry Street the regiment reached the Warren County Courthouse (above) , where they formed around the base of the building. 

In front of the east portico, Grant dismounted and (above) was greeted by his defeated foe - Lieutenant General Pemberton. This set the Yankee soldiers to cheering.

A resident of the United States for just 5 years, Norwegian born 22 year old Private Knud Helling, wrote his best friend, “ We marched into the city in good order with (band) playing and the flags flying...The Rebel soldiers and the inhabitants stood in groups on the street corners and stared at us while we passed them...The inhabitants....looked very pale and wretched...The city is somewhat damaged by the horrible bombardment, and many of the houses have marks from our cannon balls....” John Thurston, also with the 4^th Minnesota, recalled it as “...the most glorious 4^th of July I ever spent.”

The cheering, happy blue coats drove the weary Confederates to evacuate the court house. With them gone, Yankee staff officers clambered up the iron staircase to the cupola, for an unimpeded view of their victory. One of them, who had imbibed of spirits, noticed the staircase had been forged in Cincinnati, and promptly cursed “...the impudence of the people who thought they could whip the United States when they couldn't even make their own staircases.”

Confederate Captain John Henry Jones was so reduced by hunger that he approached a Union lieutenant and requested permission to buy food. The lieutenant responded that request had to go through military channels, to which Jones replied it must be obvious from his appearance, “I would be dead some days before its return”.  

Laughing at the shared frustration with military bureaucracy, the Yankee remembered he had some “trash” in his haversack. The 32 year old Jones wrote that, “The “trash” consisted of "...about two pounds of gingersnaps and butter crackers; luxuries I had not seen for three years. I was struck dumb with amazement....I fell upon that “trash” like a hungry wolf....the memory of that sumptuous feast still lingers, and my heart yet warms with gratitude towards that good officer for the blessing he bestowed.”

Viewing from her nearby home, Dora Miller with her husband watched the American flag unfurled atop the Warren County Courthouse. They shared northern sympathies and he . “...drew a long breath of contentment. Dora herself wrote, “Now I feel once more at home in mine own country.” In an hour more a grand rush of civilians set out for the river. With the riverfront batteries silent, the Federal fleet of transports now swarmed to the empty docks (above), carrying “coffee and flour.” First come, first served,’ you know,” the couple were told. Within hours crowds were dashing “...through the streets with their arms full, canned goods predominating.”

Grant wrote in his memoirs, “Our soldiers were no sooner inside the lines than the two armies began to fraternize...I myself saw our men taking bread from their haversacks and giving it to the enemy they had so recently been engaged in starving out. It was accepted with avidity and with thanks.” Not every southerner was willing to be gracious. Margaret Lord, wife of the Reverend Lord and mother to Lida, turned down a Yankee offer of food.

From the docks, Grant dispatched a staff officer to Cairo, the nearest secure telegraph station, with the following message for Washington: “The enemy surrendered this morning. The only terms allowed is their parole as prisoners of war. This I regard as a great advantage to us at this moment. It saves, probably, several days in the capture, and leaves (our) troops and transports ready for immediate service...

"....Sherman, with a large force, moves immediately on Johnston, to drive him from the State. I will send troops to the relief of Banks, and return the 9th army corps to Burnside.” The dispatch boat arrived in Cairo about noon on Tuesday, 7 July, 1863. And then the entire world knew.

Grant meanwhile returned to his headquarters, where he ordered all but a few units to prepare to join the march on the Big Black River.   About 5:00 that evening, Logan's men began to spread out into the town. Noted the woman of Vicksburg, “What a contrast to the suffering creatures we had seen so long were these stalwart, well-fed men...Sleek horses, polished arms, bright plumes, - this was the pride and panoply of war. Civilization, discipline, and order seemed to enter with the measured tramp of those marching columns; and the heart turned with throbs of added pity to the worn men in gray, who were being blindly dashed against this embodiment of modern power. And now this “silence that is golden...” 

It would be a another week before the 31,000 rebel soldiers, including sick and wounded, would receive their parole papers, and set out for their homes or other bases to await exchange. The Confederates also surrendered 50 smooth bore field cannons, 31 rifled field guns, 22 howitzers, 46 smooth bore siege guns, 21 rifled siege guns, 1 siege howitzer, and a 10-inch mortar - 172 artillery pieces in total. 

The Yankees also removed from Confederate control 38,000 artillery shells, 58,000 pounds of black powder, 4,800 artillery cartridges and 60,000 muskets.

Editor John Shannon had dismissed a Yankee boast that one day Grant would eat dinner in Vicksburg, by advising the recipe for cooking rabbit was “First, Ketch your rabbit”. The honorable Mr. Shannon now admitted in the last edition of his publication, printed on the back of wallpaper, that Grant had indeed caught his rabbit.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty-Six

 

At about 10:00 a.m. on Friday, 3 July, 1863, a pair of rebel officers walked 100 yards to the Yankee trenches. Once safely below ground level they were introduced to the short and feisty commander of the 10^th division, XIII Corps, 48 year old regular army General Andrew Jackson Smith. (above). 

The junior Confederate officer, Colonel L.M. Montgomery, carried a letter from Lieutenant General John Crawford Pemberton, which read, “I have the honor to propose an armistice...with the view to arranging terms for the capitulation of Vicksburg. To this end, if agreeable to you, I will appoint three commissioners, to meet a like number to be named by yourself, at such place and hour today as you may find convenient. I make this proposition to save the further effusion of blood, which must otherwise be shed to a frightful extent, feeling myself fully able to maintain my position for a yet indefinite period....”

The letter went from General Smith to Major General James McPherson, and was read by those officers and discussed with their staffs. By the time it had reached Grant, the contents were common knowledge among staff officers, as was the identity of the senior rebel officer, 32 year old Major General John Stevens Bowen (above). He had been promoted to Major General after the Federal noose had cut Vicksburg off from the outside world, so the Confederate Congress was unaware of Pemberton's largess toward the man who had forced the court martial of General Van Dorn – Pemberton's predecessor. Bad feelings in Richmond might delay approval of Bowen's promotion. Still, few would have questioned his qualifications as displayed at Shiloh and Cornith and Champion's Hill.

Like Grant, John Bowen (above, pre war) had graduated West Point. And like Grant, he had been posted to the Jefferson barracks in St. Louis. Both men had married into prominent Missouri families. Transferred to duty in the west, both men were so miserable they resigned from the army. But Grant had then been forced to try his hand at farming, while Bowen could fall back on a family fortune. Bowen became an architect, and returned to St. Louis in the 1850's to open a successful firm with Charles Miller. When Grant was reduced to selling firewood on the street, the firm of Bowen and Miller bought their firewood from Grant. It was not a relationship designed to encourage camaraderie.

Grant's (above) reply to Pemberton reversed the path of the appeal, and was just as widely known. “Your note of this date is just received, proposing an armistice...The useless effusion of blood you propose...can be ended at any time you may choose, by the unconditional surrender of the city and garrison...I have no terms other than those...”

In retrospect Pemberton's note seemed to invite the repetition of Grant's terms from 16 February, 1862, at Fort Donaldson (above), “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works”. Once again Ulysses  Grant would become “Unconditional Surrender Grant" in the press. But Bowen, reading the response while still in the Yankee trenches decided he could not wait for gentlemanly formalities.

Bowen appealed directly to General Smith, requesting that he ask Grant if he would not at least meet with Pemberton in person, today. After a few moments wait a runner returned with Grant's agreement to meet between the lines in front of General McPherson's Corps, at a time of Pemberton's choosing. And then the pair of Confederates carried their rejected truce flag back to the Confederate lines.

Grant's harsh terms set off an animated discussion in Pemberton's headquarters (above) . Honor insisted  the rebels chose to fight rather than accept humiliation. It was insane, of course. There were already 10,000 men on rebel sick lists - 1/3rd of the army too disabled by diarrhea, disease and wounds to participate in a march let alone an attack to reach Johnston's Army of Relief. Then Bowen announced, “General Grant would like to negotiate this afternoon with General Pemberton.”

Grant, of course, had suggested no such thing. Bowen had suggested the meeting. But other than a momentary wonder that Bowen had waited to mention this, the Confederates were greatly relieved. What else could they think except that Grant's written demand was a mere publicity stunt and there were to be the very negotiations which Pemberton had offered in his note. Pemberton (above) quickly sent word through the Yankee lines that he and his negotiators would meet with Grant and his, at 3:00 p.m.

But why had Bowen waited to announce Grant's acceptance of a  meeting? And why had he created the impression that Grant sought negotiations? Bowen knew that with Johnston's army at the Big Black River,  Grant was motivated to drop his demand for unconditional surrender - as he had at Fort Donaldson.   Bowen also knew that most rebels paroled from Vicksburg could re-enter the fight – and they would do that Atlanta in 1864.   But in trying to manipulate Grant and Pemberton into a quicker resolution, the risk was that when Bowen's ruse would be discovered, as it must be, both men would feel cheated, and their anger could result in a slaughter. Why was Bowen running such a risk?

Like every one inside Vicksburg, Bowen was exhausted and near a physical and emotional collapse. Suffering already from the malady which would soon kill him, Bowen may have felt he had not the strength to wait for the slow witted Pemberton to face reality, or for Grant to accept the victory he was being offered, instead of the one he wanted. Bowen may have felt the situation had to be forced. Or he may just been a tired sick man, slowly losing control of his mind and body.

They met at 3:00 p.m under one of the few trees still standing near the rebel trenches (above). Pemberton, ever the gentleman, began by seeking to make Grant's come-down as easy as possible. He said he understood the Yankee had asked for this personal interview. Surprised, Grant honestly answered that he had not. Shaken, but determined, Pemberton then asked what other terms might Grant be willing to offer. Grant replied there were none. And for a moment Pemberton stood silent, feeling as if he had been slapped on the face. Ever the gentleman, he now said stiffly, “Then, sir, it is unnecessary that you and I should hold any further conversation; we will go to fighting again at once.”

And it was now, according to Grant, that John Bowen stepped forward. He began by saying he was anxious that the surrender be consummated right here, and now. He suggested that he and Yankee General Andrew Smith negotiate between themselves. In Pemberton's version, he was the one who made the suggestion. 

In any case, while Grant (above) and Pemberton small talked about the Mexican War, while Smith and Bowen agreed to a cease fire until final terms were decided. Then Bowen suggested Vicksburg would surrender while the Army of Mississippi would simply leave. Presumably Grant would believe they presented no threat because of their physical condition. Grant killed that idea out right. The General from Galena was now so frustrated he ended the meeting.  He accepted the cease fire, and said he would counter Bowen's offer by 10:00 p.m. that night.

It must have been an interesting evening meal in Pemberton's headquarters. The food, what there was of it, was at least warm.  Maybe John Pemberton was too ill to accuse Bowen of duplicity.  But the emotional roller coaster day of that had left them all exhausted. The Gentlemen from the south must have known, no matter what terms Grant offered, they had little choice but to accept them.

Grant must have been struggling with his temper. He'd been lied to. But once he got over that anger, as usual, he saw the situation with clarity. At 10:00 p.m. a white flag appeared over Smith's trench line, heralding a letter addressed to Pemberton – not Bowen. It was a not a negotiation, but a statement of intent. 

“ I will march in one division as a guard and take possession at 8 A.M. tomorrow. As soon as paroles can be made out and signed by the officers and men, you will be allowed to march out of our lines, the officers taking with them their regimental clothing, and Staff, Field and cavalry officers one horse each. The rank and file will be allowed all their clothing, but no other property...any amount of rations you may deem necessary can be taken from the stores you now have...You will be allowed to transport such articles as cannot be carried along. The same conditions will be allowed to all sick and wounded officers and privates as fast as they become able to travel...”

At dawn on Saturday, 4 July, 1863, Pemberton sent his reply. He sought 2 small face saving addendum. First, his men would stack their own arms and colors in front of their current positions, and second they would evacuate their trenches at 10:00 a.m. without turning them over to the Yankees.  Since Grant voiced no objections, that was the way it would be done.

The only thing left for Pemberton to do was to sign his parole and leave town.

Vicksburg had fallen.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty-Five

 

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 offered no real 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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