VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty - Four

 

When Captain William Yeger's company of cavalry slipped back into Jackson, Mississippi, late in the afternoon of 16 May, 1863, the town had been occupied by Yankees for less than 48 hours.  Still, Yeger discovered the Federal troops had destroyed the state arsenal and foundry, burned down a gun carriage factory and associated shops, including a tent maker, and – most importantly - burned the trestles of the long Vicksburg and Alabama railroad bridge over the Pearl River. It was Yankee General Sherman's opinion that as a military asset the city of Jackson would be out of business for 6 months.

General Joseph (“Old Joe”) Johnston (above), the Confederate commander for Tennessee and Mississippi, knew the Pearl River bridge must be his top priority, more important than even support of Pemberton's army in Vicksburg.   Without that bridge, he could not even comfortably supply his reoccupation of Jackson.

One hundred miles north of Jackson (above), beyond Yankee reach for the moment, in the town of Grenada, Johnston had ordered 400 locomotives and rail cars to be safely parked.  All that rolling stock was now trapped west of the Pearl River. The longer those locomotives sat in Grenada the greater the chance Yankee cavalry would destroy them all. It was the core of Jefferson Davis' fallacy that Vicksburg was a nail, a point to be defended. Or to put it another way, Vicksburg may have been Lincoln's key, but the Pearl River bridge was the lock. With the lock smashed, the key was meaningless.

So while in the Mississippi capital Governor John Jones Pettus fretted over stolen draperies, Johnston huddled with his Chief Quartermaster, 30 year old Major Livingston Mims, on how to replace the Pearl River bridge. While that was happening, Johnston struggled to assemble an army. He had less than 4,000 men, mostly Gregg's brigade. But within 48 hours, as expected, more troops arrived. First came the South Carolina brigade of General State's Rights Gist. 

With them came General William Henry Talbot Walker's (above) Georgia brigade. Johnston quickly recognized Walker's experience in the “old army” made him “the only officer in my command competent to lead a division” and on 23 May he promoted Walker to Major General and folded his and Gregg's and Gists brigades into a division.

Evander McNair's brigade of Tennessee regiments arrived soon after, along with 4 Texas regiments under 41 year old lawyer, General Mathew Duncan Ector. On 19 May, Brigadier General Samuel B. Maxey marched into Jackson with his troops, the last of the Port Hudson defenders to escape before the Yankees surrounded that place. None of these men had wagons, and they brought little artillery with them, but they were present and accounted for.  

These 6, 498 men formed a division under 44 year old Mississippi planter, Major General Samuel Gibbs French (above).   Johnston's newly named Army of Relief now numbered about 11,000 men.  And that afternoon the division of Major General William Wing Loring came stumbling in as well.

Separated - intentionally or not - from Pemberton's main force during the battle of Champion Hill on 16 May - - Loring (above)'s  men had 'force marched' 40 miles in 24 hours to escape.  His artillerymen spiked 12 of their own cannon and freed their horses. Many of the infantry dropped their muskets and ammunition to lighten their load while crossing rivers.  At 3:00 am on 17 May they had reached Dillon, where both Loring and Pemberton had expected to find Grant's supply trains. 

There were no Yankees in Dillon, but scouts soon found 500 Federal troops at Utica. Not looking for a fight, Loring forced marched his exhausted 6,000 men around the town. That evening they reached Crystal Springs, where they finally felt safe enough to collapse and sleep.

Taking a day to recover, Loring's division reached Jackson on the evening of 19 May. He had lost “...our artillery, wagons, knapsacks, blankets, and everything we had.” They had also lost 3,000 stragglers. Most of those men would stumble in over the next week. But Loring's division of 6,049 men would not be an offensive force for weeks to come. 

Three days later a brigade from North Carolina arrived in Jackson, having been on the move since early May. It's commander was the brilliant tactician, foul mouthed and argumentative and often drunk General Nathan George “Shanks” Evens. This brigade was folded into French's division. Johnston's Army of relief now numbered about 23,000 men.

Adam's troopers gave Johnston a good idea of what he faced in trying to relieve Vicksburg. As early as 10 June, Grant had assigned General John Parke's IX Corps to defend his supply base at Snyder's Bluff. And he had pushed a division from Sherman's Corps eastward to defend the crossing at the Big Black River Bridge, and pushed a second division toward Sataritia, about half way to Yazoo City. As reinforcements continued to arrive in Jackson, Johnston countered by sending General Walker's division to Yazoo City, and Loring's division 6 miles behind at Benton, along the Southern Railroad to Vicksburg.

By 31 May, Major Mims had gathered “large numbers” of slaves and enough iron rails and cross ties, to begin replacing the tracks and short bridges immediately around Jackson. But the Pearl River bridge was a greater challenge. 

The river itself was only about 50 feet wide. But the the approach from Jackson first dropped 5 to 8 feet off the lip of of an escarpment – part of the Jackson Hills. Wooden trestles were the obvious solution there. However, a hundred yards or so on, the roadbed abruptly dropped over a 20 foot cliff, to the river itself. A pair of surviving stone towers could again carry rails across that muddy stream.

But on the eastern shore, the construction engineers had to deal with a quarter mile wide flood plain, with a water table inches below the surface. Trestles here had been mounted on broad stone bases until higher and firmer ground was reached (above, right center). But the Yankees had burned all those trestles. The charred wood and bent rails had to be cleared and the heat cracked stones replaced. It would not be until mid June before Major Mims could even begin rebuilding the long bridge.

On Friday, 29 May, Johnston (above) sent a dispatch rider to Lieutenant General Pemberton, 50 miles to the west. As usual it was a less than cheerful note. It began, “I am too weak to save Vicksburg. Can do no more than attempt to save you and your garrison. It will be impossible to extricate you, unless you co-operate, and we make mutually supporting movements. Communicate your plans and suggestions, if possible.”

That same day, 50 miles away in Vicksburg, Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton (above) sent his own message to Johnston. “I have 18,000 men to man the lines and river front; no reserves. I do not think you should move with less than 30,000 or 35,000, and then, if possible, toward Snyder's Mill, (Chickasaw Bayou, after) giving me notice...My men are in good spirits, awaiting your arrival...You may depend on my holding the place as long as possible...”.

On Monday, 1 June, 43 year old Kentucky politician, General John Cabell Breckinridge (above)  arrived in Jackson from Chattanooga, with his 5,200 man division. Breckenridge was a friend of Johnston's, who  had suffered in Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg. And, finally, on Wednesday, 3 June, the 3,000 man cavalry division of 27 year old William Hicks “Red” Jackson rode in from Tennessee. All told, Johnston now had about 27,000 men. It was unlikely he would ever be stronger, as Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon (below), continually reminded Johnston.

Seddon (above)  offered to send him even more of Bragg's army, if Johnston would just attack. But Johnston cautioned, “To take from Bragg what is required to deal effectively with Grant will involve yielding Tennessee.” Johnston could almost hear Confederate President Jefferson Davis screaming in the background when Sedden replied on Tuesday, 16 June. “I rely on you” said Seddon/Davis, “to avert the loss. If better resources do not offer, you must attack.”

Davis (above) was arguing that it would be better to lose Tennessee, so the south could concentrate its full strength to save Vicksburg,  after which Tennessee  could be retaken. But he never said that explicitly.  As a politician, he couldn't. But Johnston never understood that subtly. The two men had argued this point for 3 years now, without either one understanding the other. They had now been reduced to using Seddon as a cut out, to avoid Johnston resigning or Davis firing him.

Still, Johnston tried one more time on Tuesday, 19 June. “You do not appreciate the difficulties in the course you direct,” - “that” being an all out attack on Grant - “nor the probability and consequence of failure. Grant's position, naturally strong, is entrenched...His reinforcements have been at least equal to my whole force. The Big Black covers him from attack, and would cut off our retreat if defeated. We cannot combine operations with Pemberton, from uncertain and slow communication. The defeat of this little army would at once open Mississippi and Alabama to Grant.”

Seddon/Davis' reply showed clearly that Davis was again on the verge of firing Johnston. And that would have done no one any good.  “Consequences realized,” Seddon/Davis bluntly responded.  “I take the responsibility, and leave you free to follow the most desperate course the occasion may demand. Rely upon it, the eyes and hopes of the whole Confederacy are upon you, with the full confidence that you will act, and with the sentiment that it is better to fail nobly daring, than, through prudence even, to be inactive. I rely upon you to save Vicksburg.'"

To Save Vicksburg. This was Johnston's new mission. How he was to achieve this Davis offered no advice.  Maybe there was no way to do what Davis insisted upon.  But Davis insisted it be tried. Whatever the cost.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Eight - Three

On the Wednesday afternoon of 24 June, 1863, Captain Ferdinand Osmin (Fred) Claiborne, commander of the Maryland 3^rd Light Artillery, received word that the Yankees appeared to be moving to attack  the rebel trench line, a quarter mile north of the Hall's Ferry road. 

The Maryland cannon were supporting Colonel Alexander Reynold's Tennessee brigade, which had seen little action so far, in part because the ground here was more broken, and in part because it was five miles from the Yankee supply base at Chickasaw Bayou, and a Yankee Supply road was still under construction. So it seemed unlikely the Yankees were serious in their movements. Still, anxious to be involved in the great siege, Fred borrowed a handheld telescope from his cousin, Colonel William Howard Claiborne, and hurried forward to see for himself.

Neither Captain Claiborne, nor most of the crewmen in his battery, were from Maryland. Fred himself had been born in Vicksburg, but had joined the Confederate army in New Orleans. He had been transferred to the 3^rd Maryland while in Richmond, Virginia, at the behest of one of his many cousins.  Because of the continual "wastage" of war, most of the 100 men in the unit had been drafted from East Tennessee or Georgia. So far, they had done most of their fighting in Tennessee and Mississippi. Like an increasing number of Confederate units, after 3 years of war, the 3^rd Maryland Artillery, were orphans.

Since the core ideology of the Confederacy was state's rights,  state regiments were supplied by state governments,   And with no state politicians to protect them, the 6 guns of the 3^rd Maryland were repeatedly split up, the parts sent on distant duties.  Back in April, 3 guns had been assigned to the captured boat “Queen of the West”.  And when it had been sunk at Grand Lake, Louisiana,  all of those guns were lost, and 9 gunners drowned.

Just days earlier, Fred had noted the sad condition of his men. “Our rations are growing more scarce every day...We have a quantity of bacon yet on hand, but...the men receive only one-quarter rations... such as rice, pea meal and rice flour. The corn has given out long since. Rations of sugar, lard, molasses and tobacco are issued, but this does not make amends for the want of bread, and the men are growing weaker every day.” 

Today, seeing that the Yankees had pushed a battery forward, and were opening fire, Fred Claiborne gave the signal for his 3 remaining cannon to open fire as well. And as he did so, a Yankee shell burst nearby and a chunk of spinning shrapnel sliced off much of the Captain's face, killing him instantly. Just another young man sacrificed to defend Vicksburg.

Doctor Colonel Ashbel Smith (above), a Texan by choice and a reluctant rebel, watched the decline of his men in the Texas Lunette as only a doctor could.  He noted the rations issued to his men had been, “...reduced to little more than sufficient to sustain life. Five ounces of musty corn-meal and pea flour were nominally issued daily. In point of fact, this allowance did not exceed three ounces.” Educated at Yale and in Paris, the 57 year old Doctor Smith had intimately witnessed epidemics of cholera and Yellow Fever. Despite his own iron constitution, the doctor recognized the inevitable prognosis for Vicksburg. “...The health of the men did not seem to suffer immediately from want of rations, but all gradually emaciated and became weak...many were found with swollen ankles and symptoms of incipient scurvy.”

Weeks earlier, a “wag” within the city – unknown if they were civilian or military – had written out a bill of fare for an imagined “Hotel de Vicksburg”. The fantasy meal included “Mule Tail Soup, followed by Mule Rump Roast Stuffed with Rice. Or perhaps the discerning customers might prefer Mule Spare Ribs Plain with Mule Liver Hashed” But those hard times had given way when all but a hand full of the mules had been killed by federal artillery or slaughtered. The current bitter joke among Pemberton's hungry army was “Whatever became of Fido?” But in its turn, even that desperate jibe was losing it's humor.

Across the lines, Grant could smell victory. A regular occupant of his headquarters, Charles Dana (above)  - the man sent by Secretary of War Stanton to keep an eye on Grant – caught the general's optimism. On Monday, 29 June, 1863, Dana notified Stanton that “Two separate parties of deserters from Vicksburg agree... rations have now been reduced lower than ever; that extreme dissatisfaction exists among the garrison, and that it is agreed on all hands that the city will be surrendered on Saturday, July 4, if, indeed, it can hold on so long as that.”

One week more. Inside the trench lines, the rebels had been hoping and praying for salvation, a salvation with a name – the persnickety and talented 56 year old Joseph Eggleston Johnston.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Eighty - Two

 

Henry Foster apprenticed as a bricklayer in the Ohio River town of Jeffersonville, Indiana. The city of 4,000 was a prosperous place, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky the two towns separated by the Falls of the Ohio River (above).  

They had been been building and launching steamboats at Jeffersonville since 1819. By 1860 there were 6 ship building firms along an 11 mile stretch downriver from Jeffersonville to New Albany, Such prosperity meant steady work for a bricklayer. 

Still, on 1 July, 1861, 23 year old Henry Foster signed up to defend the Union of the States for 3 years. Two weeks later in New Albany he was mustered in as a sergeant in Company “B”, of the 23^rd Indiana Volunteer infantry.  Approximately 15% of the 1,300,000 Hoosiers actually fought for the federal cause, most coming from the southern half of the state, which had been settled the longest. Henry remained a sergeant during drilling in Indianapolis and St. Louis. In 1862, after fighting at the battles of Forts Henry and Donaldson, he was promoted to Lieutenant.

Before the 1863 Vicksburg campaign the 23^rd Indiana was transferred to the 1^st Brigade of General Logan's division, of the XVII Corps under of Major General James Birdseye McPherson. They had their first major engagement of that campaign on Tuesday, 12 May at Raymond, Mississippi. At the very outset of the battle the 23^rd stumbled into a trap and suffered 127 causalities in the space of a few minutes – twice their losses at Shiloh.  As the Official Record put it, “The only thing that saved the 23^rd...(was) that the Confederates had never been issued bayonets.” 

Four days later the 23^rd was on the right flank at Champion Hill, where the regiment lost another 19 officers and men. The Hoosiers were also heavily involved in the attack on the Louisiana redan of 22 May, and suffered another 40 dead and wounded in the mine operation of 25 June. The surviving members of the regiment had become what could be termed “hardened veterans”.

As evidence of their hardness, Lieutenant Henry Foster had begun his own private war on the 3^rd Louisiana regiment. The bricklayer had earned a reputation as a marksman, and had taken to wearing a coonskin cap, like a later day Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket. Except instead of killing animals for food, Henry Foster was killing human beings and doing it with a swagger. During the first month of the siege of Vicksburg, Henry would gather provisions and, at night, crawl closer to the rebel lines and secret himself in a shell hole or “holler”. During the day, he would snipe at any rebels who raised their heads above the redan's wall. It seems likely that Confederate William McGuinness lost his eye to 25 year old Lieutenant Foster's aim.

After the new forward position was constructed on 26^th June, Lieutenant Foster spent nights, assembling cross ties from the Vicksburg and Jackson railroad into what he called the “Coonskin Tower” (above).  His elevated spy post allowed Henry to look down upon the the Louisiana redan. The cross ties were thick enough to absorb most musket shots, and the rebel artillery could no longer spare the ammunition to obliterate the tower. Foster spent hours during daylight in its narrow confines, gunning down confederate soldiers.

The tower became infamous, and Henry and his mates from company “B” began selling 15 minute “tours” of the tower for 25 cents apiece. Legend has it that even General Grant paid a visit. And that while he was watching the rebels, one yelled for the “damn old man” to keep his head down. Where upon a Confederate officer chastised the rebel soldier's use of foul language. Then realizing who the “damn old man” was, shouted that the soldier should quickly shoot him. But by then, Grant had climbed back down. Or so the story went.

In another version, a private in the 4^th Minnesota infantry saw an older soldier in a rumbled uniform standing on an unnamed observation tower near the front lines. He shouted at the old man, “Say! You old bastard, you better keep down from there or you will be shot!” The old man paid no attention. When the north star boy started to shout again, an officer grabbed him and explained, “That's General Grant.” It was the kind of story soldiers often told at the expense of commanders who held the power of life and death over them. The tales were related with a kind of cold affection. But as far as I can tell, they never told those kind of stories about Confederate Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton.

Two Irish born brothers named Christie, Thomas and William, were servicing guns of the First Minnesota Light Artillery behind the 23^rd Indiana.  On 23 June William Gilchrist Christie had written home to his father that, “Spades are trumps here, and are likely to be for a long time yet.....There are a few deaths from 'secesh' bullets every week, and occasionally one from the premature bursting of a shell from our own guns...one of the 11^th Illinois infantry was, I fear, mortally wounded yesterday by a...shell from the first Missouri's Battery...his bowels were torn and both of his lungs visible.”  It should not be surprising that William then immediately added, “We have been amusing ourselves for the two past evenings in throwing shells over into the enemies' lines...” The boys from Minnesota had not been ordered to play this game. But idle hands had become the devil's plaything.

On 28 June, William's older brother, Thomas Davidson Christie, wrote a more circumspect note to their sister. “I do not very well know what to write you,” Thomas began, “for although there is plenty of what you might consider interesting (events) occurring around me, of the blood and gunpowder style, yet I see so much of it that I do not care to write about it....You will probably see some account of the blowing up of the fort...We are within 400 yards...and saw the whole performance, and opened on the rear of the work to cut up the rebel reinforcements as they hurried them up. Some other time I may give you a description of the assault.” This from the same man who was throwing random bombs into the enemy's trenches every night.

On the “enemy” side of the trench line was 32 year old civilian Henry Ginder. When the war broke out Henry had been an engineer working for the firm of Thomas, Griswold and Company, a weapons manufacturer, at the corner of Canal and Royal Streets in New Orleans. When that city had been captured, he had fled east with his family.  He left his wife in Alabama, and then continued to Mississippi, where Henry had joined the Confederate army as a private. Eventually his unit was assigned to Port Hudson, where his skills as an engineer made him valuable. In the summer of 1863 he had been ordered to Vicksburg, to prepare the fortifications there. During the siege Henry was constantly moving along the line, looking to repair the damage done by the Federal artillery.

In a letter to his wife he told a harrowing story. “Last night I was on foot returning from the scene of my labors, and I heard a 13 inch shell coming but couldn’t see it; it came nearer and nearer until I thought it would light on my head, when SPLOSH! It went into the earth a few feet to my left, throwing the dirt into my face with such force as to sting me for some time afterwards. The Lord kept it from exploding … Otherwise it would have singed the hair off my head and blown me to pieces into the bargain.”

The federal army was not aiming to injure civilians, not because of a moral aversion to doing so, but because their weapons simply did not have the excess power to waste on non-military targets. But to the civilians sheltering in the 500 of so caves of Vicksburg whether they were victims of the gunner's intent or incompetence made little difference. 

Lucy McRae was the daughter of wealthy merchant and Warren County Sheriff William McRae and his wife Virginia, who had been born Indiana.  Lucy was 11 years old in June of 1863.  Her family could afford the safety of a cave.  But the choice almost cost her, her life.  “A shell came down on the top of the hill, buried itself about six feet in the earth, and exploded. This caused a large mass of earth to slide...in a solid piece, catching me under it…As soon as the men could get to me they pulled me from under the mass of earth. The blood was gushing from my nose, eyes, ears, and mouth.” 

One of the men who helped dig Lucy out from under the loam was the Reverend William Lord, who had been wounded by the explosion.  He noted that same night a baby boy was born in another part of the shared cave.

Above ground, still sheltering in her home, Dora Miller continued to send her slave Martha out every day with 5 dollars, looking to buy food.  Martha told her that “...rats are hanging dressed in the market for sale with mule meat - there is nothing else...It was said that when the rats were properly fried, they tasted like squirrel.”

By Tuesday, 30 June 1863, half of the Confederate soldiers in the Vicksburg lines were on excused duties or even hospitalized because of illness or wounds. And the most common illness was dysentery.  In the Washington Hotel (above), the Reverend William Lovelace Foster was nursing to those men. He noted that the structure, which had already been  hit once, was still, “...comparatively secure from those troublesome mortar shells...All the rooms were soon crowded with the sick and dying – Some in bunks and some upon the floor.   Everything was conducted as well as possible. But, Oh the horrors of a hospital!”

Doctor Foster had recorded those horrors back in May. “There lay a man... his face blackened - burned to a crisp with powder. His mother could not recognize him - Every feature was distorted - his eyes were closed - water running from his scalded mouth. His groans are pitiful - low – plaintive...a youth, not more than seventeen, lying on his back-with (his) eye entering his jaw - lodging there in the bone, which could not be removed... Here are several with their arms cut - There is one with his whole under jaw torn off - his shoulder mutilated with a shell.  Here is one with his arms (and legs) both amputated...There is one who had a pair of screw drivers driven into his jaw (and) temple. He floods his bed with blood...The weather is excessively hot. The flies swarm around the wounded...” .

And now, after the first mine had wiped out 50 men in the 3^rd Louisiana redan, Dr. Foster wrote, “The sixth week (of the siege) had now closed...Our fate seems to stare us in the face. Still we hear rumors...Can't our government send us relief?...Will all the blood shed be spilled in vain? For the first time dark doubts would cross my mind.”

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