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 - Six

 

Captain Yeger's saber flashed in the sun. Two squadrons of rebel cavalrymen opened fire on the Bear Creek bridge. And the single company of Harris' brigade, 28^th Mississippi cavalry spurred their horses forward, four abreast, down the narrow fenced road, directly into the open mouth of a 12 inch howitzer. The cannon belched fire and smoke. Hundreds of supersonic lead balls filled the air. And 100 Iowa Yankee carbines barked death.

Twice the Mississippi rebels charged, and twice the Iowa boys forced them back. But then, seeing the Yankees pulling the ugly little gun to the west side of the bridge, Captain Yerger ordered this men forward a third time. And this time the riders in butternut brown and gray scattered the blue clad gunners and captured the ugly little cannon. In victory the rebels barely notice the Yankees had fired the bridge, and it would soon be unusable.

History would insist that this 22 June, 1863 skirmish at Bear Creek, just west of the Birdsong Ferry over the Big Black River, was of importance only to the 13 Americans killed on both sides – including the brave Captain Yeger – and the 32 wounded , and, of course to the 40 horses killed. The bridge would be repaired, and that would take just a little time . But it did have a larger meaning to at least two other men.

As June slipped away, General Joseph Johnston's strongest unit, Major General William Henry Talbot Walker's 8,000 man division, was station 20 miles northwest of Canton, Mississippi at the crossroads village of Vernon. From there Walker could guard against a Yankee end run toward Yazoo City. And should Johnston take the offensive, as President Jefferson Davis had ordered, the first step for Walker would be a march 3 miles due west to Bogue Chitto – in the Choctaw language, Big Creek – and then another 4 mile march to the Big Black River at Birdsong Ferry, 10 miles north of the Big Black River Bridge battlefield. 

Just east of Canton, was the 6,000 man division of one armed Major General William Wing Loring. Based in part on the the success of the skirmish at Bear Creek Bridge, “Old Joe” Johnston intended both Walker and Loring's divisions to spear head a drive across the Big Black River to Bear Creek and beyond, to Grant's supply base on Chickasaw Bayou below Snyder's Bluff.

To support that 2 division thrust, General Johnston had stationed Major General John Cabel Breckenridge's 6,000 man division some 20 miles south of Vernon and 10 miles due west of Canton, defending the little railroad town of Bolton. The Southern rail line had been rendered useless for the past month. But the Big Black River Railroad Bridge was still standing, just 20 miles beyond  Bolton – a single day's march.

In addition, the 6,000 man division of wealthy slave owner Major General Samuel Gibbs French occupied the trenches at Jackson, at the end of the hastily repaired Central Mississippi railroad. The line was dependable only as far south as Canton. Beyond that the lack of ballast for the rails and the patchwork bridge repairs cut speeds in half or more. And now most of the slave workers had been switched to repairing the bridge over the Pearl River. Should the army move forward, Johnston could use French's division to support either Breckenridge or the thrust over the Big Black.

Finally, on Sunday, 28 June, General Johnston (above) gave the order, and the next morning, Monday, 29 June, his ramshackle Army of Relief, loaded with 3 days rations, lurched forward. Immediately problems showed Johnston's force had so exhausted itself in just getting to Jackson and Canton that it was still in no condition to take on Grant's Army of the Tennessee. On the first day General Walker's men managed to cover 6 miles, but they stumbled into camps on the Jones Plantation, still short of Birdsong Ferry.

And it was the inability of Breckenridge's men to move efficiently that drove the primadonna “Ole Blizzards” Loring (above) to throw yet another of his infamous hissy fits. His men were supposed to march this day from Canton to Bolton, then turn north, heading for Birdsong Ferry. 

But they could not get through Bolton, which was jammed with Breckenridge's men still being issued their 3 days of rations. Flashing his sword and temper, Loring tried shoving individual units out of his way, which only made the situation worse . And then the now disjointed Breckenridge's regiments elbowed their way in between Loring's regiments.

Word of the tangled mess reached Breckenridge before noon. He ordered his forward units to hold at Edward's Depot, while he raced back to Bolton and faced down Loring in a shouting match.  While all of that was going on, neither Loring's troops nor Breckenridge's troops moved very much at all. Eventually Johnston's staff officers intervened, and the mess slowly untangled. But Breckenridge's division got no farther than Edward's Depot, and Loring's division no further than Brownsville, Mississippi. And because those unit's did not reach their intended first day's objectives, General French's 6,000 men barely moved out of Jackson. All in all, the first day's march had been a minor disaster.

It seemed an indication that the numbers alone were not a fair measure of force provided by Johnston's Army of Relief.  He had some 27,000 men, but most had been heavily used just getting to Jackson and Canton, and were now placing demands on the Confederate supply system it could no longer sustain. They were making the kind of rookie mistakes you would expect from "green" soldiers, not veterans.  And when they finally reached the Big Black River Johnston's men discovered that the country to the west, which had been almost empty of Yankees in Mid-June, was far from that by the First of July.

Initially the only Yankees guarding Chickasaw Bayou were cavalry screens and Major General Parke's IX Corps, including 2 brigades in Major General Thomas Welsh's 1^st Division, and 3 weak brigades of Brigadier General Robert B. Potters' 2^nd Division. As May turned to June these men were pushed forward, until their trenches reached from the Yazoo River to Messanger Ford and Bush's Ferry, north of Birdsong Ferry. 

By mid-June those troops, now named the Army of Observation, had been placed under the command of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman (above), and reinforced with 1 division each from each of the armies other corps - "Parke's two divisions from Haines's Bluff out to the Benton or ridge road; Tuttle's division, of my corps, joining on and extending to a plantation called Young's, overlooking Bear Creek valley, which empties into the Big Black above Messinger's Ferry; then McArthur's division, of McPherson's corps, took up the line, and reached to Osterhaus's division of McClernand's corps, which held a strong fortified position at the railroad-crossing of the Big Black River. "

As the threat of a Vicksburg breakout faded, more divisions from the besieging army were fed into Sherman's command. By the end of the month three divisions of the XVI corps, under 43 year old Minneapolis flour mill owner Major General Cadwallader Colden Washburn provided a substantial reserve. Sherman now had a total of nearly 40,000 men. 

Johnston's Army of Relief could still muster only 27,000, and although the rebels were eager enough, they lacked the military stamina and equipment of the Yankee force.

After the war, Grant confided to journalist John Russell Young, that, “If I had known Johnston was coming (west of the Big Black), I would have told Pemberton to wait in Vicksburg until I wanted him, awaited Johnston’s advance, and given him battle. He could never have beaten that Vicksburg army, and thus I would have destroyed two armies perhaps.” Still Grant insisted, “...the South, in my opinion, had no better soldier than Joe Johnston – none at least that gave me more trouble.” And that included Robert E. Lee.

Johnston spent three days looking for an opening somewhere in Sherman's lines. He was cautious of being caught over the Big Black without a secure line of retreat, as Pemberton had been caught over Baker's Creek at Champion Hill. Finally, on the evening of 3 July, General Johnston decided he must act the next day, to relieve the pressure on Vicksburg's defenders. But that night, he received information which changed his mind.

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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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