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 Sixty - Nine

  

Inside the Louisiana Redan, 26 year old Sergeant William Henry Tunard, of “K” company – the Pelican Rifles – of the 3^rd Louisiana Tigers was keeping a diary. And on Monday, 25 May, 1863, he recorded that it was “Another clear and hot day...In the afternoon a flag of truce was sent into the lines, requesting a cessation of hostilities for the purpose of burying the dead. The effluvia from the putrefying bodies had become almost unbearable to friend an foe, and the request was granted, to continue for three hours.” Almost all the dead were Yankees.

The bodies had lain in the Mississippi heat and humidity for 3 days. Any truce to remove the dead would involve burial parties from both sides.  And that would have provided the rebels with a better view of Grant's army - after throwing themselves against the rebel forts now reduced to barely 40,000 men.   The need to keep his weaknesses from prying rebel eyes drove Grant to refuse earlier offers from local rebel commanders.  Only when the First Parallel of Yankee fortifications had been completed, did Grant request a cease fire. By then any wounded who could not crawl to safety, had long since succumbed.

During the following week, the citizens of Vicksburg felt the Union hold on their city grow subtly tighter. That week General Pemberton cut the soldiers rations in half. On 28 May, Dora Richards recorded that she had heard that “expert swimmers were crossing the Mississippi on logs to communicate with the outside world. But she did not bother to record the news, if there was any. Her concerns like those of all prisoners, had shrunk to her immediate surroundings. She noted, “I am so tired of corn-bread...that I eat it with tears in my eyes. We are lucky to get a quart of milk daily from a family near who have a cow they hourly expect to be killed.”

Every morning Dora handed $5 to her slave cook Martha, before sending her to find food. Hours later the terrified woman would return with a shrinking piece of mule of horse meat for Dora's husband.   Being Yankee sympathizers, the couple had few friends they could ask for help.  “The shells seem to have many different names,” noted Dora.” I hear the soldiers say, “That’s a mortar shell. There goes a Parrot. That’s a rifle shell.” They are all equally terrible.”

The Richards were one of the shrinking number of residents who chose to remain above ground in their rented home.  One night, as Dora's husband was watching the glowing fuses of shells falling on the city, he suddenly shouted, “Run!” “I started through the back room”, wrote Dora, “...when the crash came that threw me to the floor. It was the most appalling sensation I’d ever known. … Shaken and deafened, I picked myself up....we found the entire side of the room torn out.” (above)

Dora and her little family kept a private cistern for water. A second water source they surrendered to soldiers, “My heart bleeds for them. They have nothing but spoiled, greasy bacon, and bread made of musty pea flour, and but little of that. The sick ones can’t bolt it. They come into the kitchen when Martha puts the pan of cornbread in the stove, and beg for the bowl she mixes it in....they look so ashamed of their poor clothes. I know we saved the lives of two by giving a few meals…”

Looters set a fire in Vicksburg's business district, to cover their crimes. Edward Sanford Gregory, a 20 year old resident, watched as the flames went out of control. “There was nothing to do except to remove the articles of value from the houses within its range. A great crowd collected, notwithstanding the concentration of the mortar fire; and yet there were no remembered casualties. The whole block was burned, of course; and the wonder is, only one.”

Then on at Midnight on Sunday, 30 May, 1863 the nature of the siege abruptly changed. Privileged daughter of the Confederacy, Emma Balfour (above), recorded the event. “At (midnight)... the guns all along the lines opened and the parrot shells flew as thick as hail around us!” 

Emma lived in a mansion (above) at the corner of Crawford and Adam's streets,  atop Vicksburg's highest ridge line, with her husband, physician and plantation and slave owner, Dr. William Balfour. The couple had hosted the Christmas eve ball in their residence. As befitting their social status, they had refused to occupy one of the 500 caves carved out of the loam, and were lying in their 2nd floor beds when the general bombardment suddenly commenced.

“We came down in the sitting room,” Emma wrote, “...we remained there till a shell struck in the garden against a tree...We got thoroughly worn out and disheartened and after looking to see the damage, went into the parlor and lay on the sofas there until morning, feeling that at any moment a mortar shell might crash through the roof....”

The Balfour's mansion stood next door to the Willis home (above),  taken over by General Pemberton as his headquarters. Looking out at her neighbor's home Emma noted, “People were running in every direction to find a place of safety. The shells fell literally like hail. Mrs. Willis’ House was struck twice and two horses in front of her door were killed. General Pemberton and his staff had to quit it.”

The shelling held Mrs. Balfour in dreadful fascination. The shells, she wrote, “...came rushing down like some infernal demon, seemed to me to be coming exactly on me...They come gradually making their way higher and higher, tracked by their firing fuse till they reach their greatest altitude—then with a rush and whiz they come down furiously...

"Then lookout, for if they explode before reaching the ground which they generally do, the pieces fly in all directions—the very least of which will kill one and most of them of sufficient weight to team through a house from top to bottom! The parrot shells come directly so one can feel somewhat protected from them by getting under a wall, but when both come at once and so fast that one has not time to see where one shell is going before another comes—it wears one out.”

Come the dawn, the artillery continued their heavy work. And under their cover the sap lines began reaching out from the First Parallel for the rebel forts. John Alexander McClernand (above), being a natural born politician and a Major General by convenience, could not pass up the opportunity to raise the moral of his XIII Corps soldiers with a message he titled General Order 72. It was not an order. It was a prolonged pretentious platitudinous palaver filled promulgation of meadow muffins. As political speak it was harmless enough. As a military order it was suicide.

It began, “Comrades, As your commander, I am proud to congratulate you upon your constancy, valor, and successes. History affords no more brilliant example of soldierly qualities. Your victories have followed in such rapid succession that their echoes have not yet reached the country. They will challenge its grateful and enthusiastic applause. Yourselves striking out a new path, your comrades of the Army of the Tennessee followed, and a way was thus opened for them to redeem previous disappointments.”

The rest of the Army of the Tennessee followed the path blazed by the XIII Corps? What about Chickasaw Bayou? Where was the XIII Corps at Chickasaw Bayou? And where was the XIII Corps for four hours at Champion's Hill?  Beyond that, a  reasonable argument could be made that the bloodletting of 22 May had been brought on by the delay of XIII Corps in destroying the rebel left at Champion's Hill. And half of the horror of that day, caused by McClernand's childish seeking of glory.

Continued General McClernand's praise for his men, “...you were the first to...plant our colors in the State of Mississippi....you came up to the enemy near Port Gibson...by vigorously pressing him at all points drove him from his position, taking a large number of prisoners and small arms and five pieces of cannon. General Logan’s DIVISION came up in time to gallantly share in consummating the most valuable victory won since the capture of Fort Donelson.”

According to the verbose Major General, the victories at Raymond and Jackson were the result of the heroic actions of the XIII corps, with a little help from the rest of the army. And at Champion's Hill? Said McClernand, “... after a sanguinary and obstinate battle, with the assistance of General McPherson’s corps, beat and routed him, taking many prisoners and small arms and several pieces of cannon.” With the assistance of XVII Corps? In fact the attack failed to obliterate the rebel army because XIII Corps delayed their assault for 3 to 4 hours.

The boast too far was yet to come, but McClernand made it in the very next paragraph. “On the 22^nd... you assaulted the enemy’s defenses in front at 10 a. m., and within thirty minutes had made a lodgement and planted your colors upon two of his bastions....only gained by a bloody and protracted struggle....the largest success achieved anywhere along the whole line of our army. For nearly eight hours, under a scorching sun and destructive fire, you firmly held your footing... 

"How and why the general assault failed, it would be useless now to explain. The Thirteenth Army Corps, acknowledging the good intentions of all, would scorn indulgence in weak regrets and idle recriminations. According justice to all, it would only defend itself.  If, while the enemy was massing to crush it, assistance was asked for by a diversion at other points, or by re-enforcement, it only asked what in one case Major-General Grant had specifically and peremptorily ordered, namely, simultaneous and persistent attack all along our lines until the enemy’s outer works should be carried, and what, in the other, by massing a strong force in time upon a weakened point, would have probably insured success.”

And there it was. The attack on 22 May had failed because General Grant  (above) had delayed in supporting McClernand's assaults. McClernand had not actually said that, but he implied it. And in politics, implication is conviction. And what was the effect of Grant's lack of support for the brave and noble soldiers of McClenand's XIII Corps? “The enemy’s odious defenses still block your access to Vicksburg. Treason still rules that rebellious city, and closes the Mississippi River against rightful use by the Illinois who inhabit its sources and the great Northwest. "

And then he signed the knife sticking out of Grant's back, just in case anyone doubted who had placed it there - Abraham Lincoln's good friend, "JOHN A. McClernand, Major-General, Commanding. (above)”

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