VICKSBURG Chapter Fifty - Three

 

The apparitions rose from the fen so coated with mud they appeared to be the earth itself. It was a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, 17 May, 1863. The night chill was just melding into the heat of the day. The demoralized rebels, crouching behind cotton bales, had endured a demoralizing hour of heavy cannon fire methodically dismantling their fortifications from almost point blank range. And then, abruptly, a host of shouting banshees materialized almost on top of them, rising from the clinging mire, teeth and steel blazing in the sunlight. Reason evaporated. Logic dissolved. The rebels ran for their lives.

The Big Black River should have made a strong defensive position. The west bank was 60 feet above the meandering river and the swampy eastern shore. The railroad was carried 150 feet above  the marshes and an oxbow lake on great stone supports, a bridge 1,250 feet long. Normally wagons and travelers on foot had to use a browbeaten ford, and then clamber up the steep slope. The 5 divisions of Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton's army of Mississippi could have easily held the west bank against Grant, at least for awhile. With a little stupidity on Grant's part, even the 3 divisions which had crossed Baker's Creek 2 days earlier might have resisted. But the broken parts of the army which had escaped the debacle at Champion Hill, stood no chance of stopping the victorious Yankee army less than 18 hours later on the eastern shore.

Instead of defending the west bank, Pemberton had posted a third of the battered remnants of his army with their backs to the river – just a day after the same sin had led to disaster at Champions Hill. Sent ahead late on the afternoon of Saturday,16 May the seemingly tireless Chief Engineer, Major Samuel Lockett, had conjured a defense across the boggy neck of the east bank of the Big Black river bend.

Cotton bales awaiting shipment at Bovina Station were brought by locomotive to the west bank and rolled down the shoulder of the railroad levee. Stacked several deep in a line across most the open face of the river bend they formed an instant fortification. With dirt thrown against them to dampen any sparks, it was the same defense which had worked so well at Fort Pemberton, in February. 

Then, in front of the main battle line, Lockett added a trick developed by the Roman Army 2,000 years earlier – abatis. These were tree branches driven into ground with their brittle arms facing the advancing Yankees. Like barbed wire a generation later, these abatis were intended to break up attacking formations.

Crossties were also brought forward from Bovina Station and dropped between the rails on the railroad bridge. Then dirt was scattered down,  making it usable for horse drawn wagons.  

But vividly aware of the disaster the day before, Lockett was determined to provide a second line of retreat. Close at hand was a small fleet of steamboats – the Dot, the Charm, the Paul Jones and the Bufort - which had plied the Big Black until the Yankees had captured Grand Gulf, at the river's mouth. Lockett had one of these, the Dot, brought south of the railroad bridge. Her engine was stripped and sent north on the river, and everything above her bottom deck was stripped off.  Anchored to both shores, she formed a second bridge, for the men, if not their equipment.

Major General John Bowen's battered division filed into the new “fortifications” after midnight.  Although they had suffered heavily at Champion Hill, they grew confident with the defenses they found awaiting them. 

Brigadier General Francis Marion Cockrell's brigade was south of the road, and 47 year old Brigadier General Martin Edwin Green's brigade at the northern end of the line. Sandwiched between them were the 3 regiments of impressed draftees from east Tennessee, under General John Crawford Vaughn. Most of the rebels to the southern rebellion had already drifted away from their units by this time. But Pemberton had little faith in those who remained. And the weary Tennesseans who collapsed behind the cotton walls in the dark morning hours of Sunday, 17 May, knew their bodies were being offered as a sacrifice in the forlorn hope that Major General Loring's wayward division would soon arrive to rejoin the army.

As usual, Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant was prepared for this next step. His army was just as tired as the rebels. The only difference was that his men had won the day before. The Saturday night of 16 May, Grant let his men sleep where they were, atop the bloody hill.  Alvin Hovey's 12^th division was too damaged by the day's butchery to move the next morning. Better to allow them a day of rest, to recover those separated in the chaos, those confused or wounded or frightened, to find their way back to their units. Better to let them bury their own dead. They would follow the next day. But the rest of the army would not wait a moment longer than was necessary.

In the pitch black of 3:30 A.M., Major General Alexander McClernand  (above) pushed his XIII corps west out of Edward's Depot.  Brigadier General Eugene Carr's 14^th division lead the way, with a skirmish line of Colonel Charles Lippicot's 33^rd Illinois regiment sweeping both sides of the road ahead, collecting rebels who had collapsed and fallen asleep. Brigadier General Peter Joseph Osterhaus' 9^th division was next in line, with Andrew Jackson Smith's 10th division bringing up the rear. James McPherson's entire XVII Corps would follow up the same road, but would not be required to form up until well after dawn.

William Tecumseh Sherman's (above) XV Corps – consisting of Frederick Steele's 1^st division and James Tuttle's 3^rd division - was just catching up with the army after ravaging Jackson. 

They had turned north at the town of Bolton, crossed Baker's Creek and were already marching west to reach the Big Black River 11 miles upstream at Bridgeport.  Here Sherman expected to be rejoined by General Francis Blair's 2^nd division, before crossing the river on a pontoon bridge he had been dragging along since Raymond. This crossing would outflank the entire Big Black River line, should Pemberton have decided to defend the west bank. Luckily for Grant, Pemberton had made it easy for him.

The Yankees were confident and careful. Examining the cotton bale defenses, General Carr spread his men out south of the Bovina Road. The Prussian immigrant Osterhause formed his division into a battle line north of the road and into the woods on his right. And like a carpenter choosing his his tools, Peter reached out the perfect weapon for the situation – the 10 pound Parrott rifle.

They were the largest field artillery piece used in the war. Being formed from brittle cast iron they were relatively inexpensive. Once drilled and rifled, water was poured down the barrel while a red hot cast iron band was clamped around the breech (above, rear). This reinforcement increased the muzzle velocity to over 1,100 feet per second, giving them an effective range of 3,500 yards – over a mile.

But the 20 pound Parrott had 2 disadvantages. First the gun and carriage weighed over 2 and ½ tons, requiring 8 horses to pull and 10 crew members to manhandle. And secondly, 22 of the big Parrotts were engaged during the Battle of Antietam the previous September, and 3 of them had blown out their breeches, killing many of their crews. This tendency of the brittle metal to fail caused more than a little unease among the crew of the 1^st Battery of the Wisconsin Light Artillery, who had 6 of the behemoths in their care. But it was these guns that General Osterhause reached for on that Sunday morning, telling their commander, 25 year old Lieutenant Oscar F. Nutting, in his broken English, “I shows you a place where you gets a good chance at 'em”.

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VICKSBURG Chapter Fifty - Two

 

It was two regiments from Indiana, the 11^th and the 48^th along with the Wisconsin 28^th , which did the final damage to the Rebel center.   General Hovey's 12^th division, 1^st brigade, commanded by 37 year old Brigadier General George Francis McGinness, went once again up the bloodied face of Champion Hill, to re-capture the cross roads. 

But this time, after brushing aside the rebel infantry, the Hoosiers and Badgers found the line held only by a single battery of 4 bronze six pound cannon. In the face of withering blasts of grape shot, the mid-westerners let loose killing volley after volley of musket fire, that butchered the gunners and their horses.

The story is told that when the white smoke cleared, only the 6 foot 3 inch dark haired, 41 year old Captain Samuel Jones Ridley (above) was still standing by a gun of Company A, of the 1^st Mississippi Light Artillery. The horses were all down, dead or screaming in agony, so the cannon were not going anywhere. And the human gunners had either been killed or wounded, or run to escape the same fate. But Captain Ridley continued to service the last gun by himself.

The Yankees saw him load double canister into the barrel and pull the lanyard. A century later a devotee of the Lost Cause would imagine the Yankee reaction. “For a moment perhaps, their eyes filled with admiration, but then the cannon roared its defiance ... they answered with a storm of lead. And in the next instant the lone figure vanished in the smoke.” Under that smoke the Captain had been hit by 6 musket balls. The batteries' second in command, Lieutenant Frank Johnston had a more prosaic vision. He wrote, “We went in there with 82 men and came out with 8”.

The shocked Yankees paid for the captured canon with their futures. There was little romance in such a grisly bargains. Before he had left Vicksburg, marching to his temporary grave on this hilltop, Sam Ridley, successful planter and slave owner, had predicted the Yankees would only capture Vicksburg through the “...bad management of the general in command.” 

Most of the Confederate soldiers knew who was responsible for the disaster on Champion Hill. Young surgeon John A. Leavy, of Missouri, wrote, “ "Today proved...General Pemberton is either a traitor or the most incompetent officer in the Confederacy. Indecision, indecision, indecision ... Our soldiers and officers are determined not to be sold (meaning sacrificed) if they can possibly help it." 

Referring to Pemberton's Pennsylvania birth, school teacher Sargent William Pitt Chambers was convinced, "...our Commanding General had been false to the flag under which he fought." Said one of Pemberton's officers, “He undoubtedly displayed bad generalship, and the day’s work may cost us Vicksburg.”

Pemberton had crossed Bakers Creek with some 17,000 men. Of the 38 guns which Pemberton had brought to the battle, some 11 cannon were captured.  He left 380 dead on the battlefield, and another 66 who would die within 48 hours. 

Over 1,000 were wounded, and almost 2,500 surrendered to the victorious Federals.  More importantly, the soul of the Army of Mississippi had been destroyed on that Hill of Death. Unit discipline, which had survived the day long slugging match, disintegrated while searching for an escape route.

What saved Pemberton's army from complete destruction was ingenuity, none of it from Pemberton. Arriving at Edward's Depot early on the morning of 16 May, 1863, 25 year old Major Samuel Henry Lockett, Chief Engineer for the army, was ordered by the Lieutenant General to concentrate on providing entrenchments for the battle line across Champion Hill. Almost as an after thought Lockett dispatched a Sergeant Vernon to use fifty men from Brigadier General Alfred Cumming's 3^rd Brigade, to replace the washed out Raymond Road bridge over Baker's Creek.

By 2:00 p.m. the water level had fallen enough that they had built a smaller replacement and were cutting away the 10 foot natural levees on either bank, to provide access. Without that bridge, inadequate as it was, the entire army would have been lost.  Excluding the 7,000 men who marched under General Lorring's division, Pemberton re-crossed Baker's Creek with perhaps 9,000 men.

But once across the creek the rebels discovered the Yankees had pushed Captain Samuel De Golyer's battery “H” of the 1^st Michigan Light Artillery across the Bolton Road bridge. After advancing as far as 2 miles west, the batteries' two 12 pound howitzers and three 6 pound rifles, began shelling the retreating Confederates, preventing them from reforming. 

Later General Pemberton (above) would share his self pity with Major Lockett. Watching the disaster he had engineered engulf the army, he said, “Just 30 years ago I began my military career...and today...that career ended in disaster and disgrace.”

By 5:00pm, the only division with any coherence belonged to the one armed firebrand. Major General William Wing Loring (above).  “Give Em Blizzards” had saved his men by stubbornly refusing to feed them into Pemberton's meat grinder at the cross roads. But ultimately, what saved Loring's division was that Grant did not pursue them. Ulysses Grant was focused on the Yazoo Heights. If he could have been assured that Pemberton would march his entire army to Raymond, Grant would have gladly let them go unmolested.

Grant had about 32,000 men in action at Champion Hill, of whom over 400 were left dead on the field, another 100 or so would die of their wounds within days. Almost 2,000 were wounded, and nearly 200 were missing. The battle had reduced Grant's effectives by about 3,000 men. But the reappearance of Sherman's 2 divisions the next day, would make the Army of the Tennessee 10,000 men stronger.

Even as he easily fending off a cautious single brigade attack up the Raymond Road by Yankee Major General Andrew Jackson Smith's division, Loring chose to slide his men south, to avoid the near panic at the temporary bridge. 

Loring's only unit engaged holding off Smith's attack was the 1,500 men of his 1^st brigade, under the popular, dashing Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman. And it seemed the one time Railroad Engineer viewed the engagement as a summer's outing.  

About 5:30 p.m., a relaxed Tilghman paused in a casual discussion with some of his non-commissioned officers, to adjust the aim of a nearby 12 pound Napoleon cannon. Stepping back to observe the fall of his shot, the 47 year old was cut in half by Federal artillery shell. Stung by this personal loss,  Loring led his men south, away from the Yankee artillery, and away from the Yankee infantry. 

After fighting all day, Major General Carter Stevenson's division trudged 12 miles into the night, crossing the Big Black River before finally resting about 1:00 a.m. on the high ground south of the village of Bovina.  Major General John Bowen's division staggered closely behind, leaving troops on the east side of the Big Black, in the hope of welcoming Major General Loring's men.

But Loring's men were not coming.

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BY ANY OTHER NAME

 

I can think of no more misbegotten group of failures, frauds and grief stricken dullards than the people who collectively are responsible for one of the most vital and fundamental inventions of the modern world. But I have to wonder, if we called it something else, would it have become so ubiquitous? A rose may be a rose by any other name but would it inspire poets?  But the subject of this essay...if it had been called anything else it might not have made it down this tortured path to fame and ubiquity. 

It all started with a Parisian tailor named Barthelmy Thimonnier (above), who invented the sewing machine in 1830. I know, you think it was invented by Elias Howe, but that is because Elias Howe was a “patent troll”, an opportunist and a liar.

And it took so long because in January of 1839 a mob of 150 or so French "Luddiet" tailors smashed 80 of Thimonnier’s machines, burned the factory making them down and almost lynched Barthelmy.  On 23 February five of the rioting tailors were sentenced to a month's imprisonment, 69 to eight days, and the 75th defendant was acquitted. 

Not that the trial mattered to Barthelmy. With his investment left smoldering, Thimonnier died flat broke and forgotten in 1857.  But first he had invented the sewing machine. 

The vacuum he left behind was filled by the American Walter Hunt, who was a mechanical genius and a business boob from upstate New York. 

Among other things, Walter invented the safety pin, U.S, patient #6281 (above), and a repeating rifle, and a bicycle and a road sweeper. 

And then, in 1834, he improved on Thimonnier’s sewing machine (above).

What Walter Hunt actually invented was a sewing machine needle (above) with the hole - aka, the eye - at the pointy end. 

As the needle pushed through the cloth the eye carried the thread with it. When the needle stopped it formed a loop in the thread behind it, and a second thread (from the bobbin) was pushed through the loop. The needle was then withdrawn, pulling the loop tight or “locking” it, around the bobbin thread. This “Lockstitch” was sheer genius and a brilliant insight.  But Hunt never did anything with it because he didn’t want to be lynched by American tailors and he was safely making plenty of money from his safety pin. And that opened the door for Elias Howe.

Elias Howe told at least two versions of how he "invented" the sewing machine. 

In the sympathetic version he spent hours watching his poor wife Elizabeth  (since dead, and unavailable to testify) support her family doing piecemeal sewing work . In the Freudian version, Howe dreamed about Indians shooting arrows through a blanket.  In fact, both stories were pure horse manure.

In fact Howe had been a mechanic repairing looms in a textile mill, before he started living off his wife's sewing abilities, and that is where he learned all about shuttles and bobbins, and probably saw a version of Hunts sewing machine needle. Like a loom, Howe’s sewing machine, patient #4750 (above)  granted in 1846, fed the cloth in vertically and the needle and bobbin worked horizontally. Because of this uncomfortable assembly, Howe’s sewing machine only worked sort of, and it was so clumsy that Howe couldn’t find anybody to buy it. He never made a dime selling his actual invention.  

Then in 1850 Howe saw a demonstration of a machine which did work, built by a mechanic and an actor and one of the most foul-tempered bigamists in antebellum America, Mr. Isaac Singer (above). 

Singer’s sewing machine put the needle vertical and fed the cloth in horizontally, which made the whole thing functional. But Howe noticed that Singer had 'borrowed' "his" lockstitch, which you may remember Hunt had actually invented but never patented. But Howe did.  Anyway,  Howe immediately demanded $25,000 in “royalties” (i.e. blackmail).  

One of Singer’s long suffering business partners observed that, “Howe is a perfect humbug. He knows quite well he never invented anything of value.” Singer was typically more direct, offering to “kick (Howe) down the steps of the machine shop.” 

But what eventually made Howe (above) a wealthy humbug was his patent for Mr. Hunt's lockstitch. As a magazine at the time noted, Howe had “litigated himself into fortune and fame.” But then this story is not about the sewing machine.

This story is about another patent Elias Howe trolled for, this one granted him in 1851. And just like his sewing machine, Howe’s patent for an “Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure” (above) did not work. And just like his sewing machine, rather than improve it, he just filed it away and waited to see if anybody else ever fixed it. But, since nobody else made his ugly and clumsy device work during his lifetime, Howe had nobody to sue and the device remained an obscure little footnote. And people continued to live with the original “Clothing Closure” device, the button. 

Until civil war veteran, and traveling salesman Whitcomb Judson, desperate to support his wife and three daughters, missed his street car.

See, originally Whitcomb was not interested in replacing the button. This rather odd man liked to eat bananas and mushrooms because he thought the mushrooms gave him psychic powers. Judson’s “mushroom visions” told him was going to get rich designing pneumatic street cars. He was  granted 14 patents for them, 

They were a mode of transport powered by, as described rather unhelpfully in his advertising “…a screw, but without a thread; and this screw though always revolving in one direction, will send the (trolley) cars in either direction, and do this by a pure and simple rolling and not a sliding friction..” 

It sounded mysterious and magical and vastly overly complicated, and was actually used for a few weeks briefly in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1890 before it broke down completley. 

So, in 1893, as a back up invention, he marketed his patent #’s 504038 and 504037 as a “claps lock” for ladies high button shoes, and “…wherever it is desired to detachable-ly connect a pair of adjacent flexible parts.”  Judson was clearly no technical writer.

Mr. Judson explained that “...each link of each chain (4 links per inch) is provided both with a male and a female coupling part…”. But sadly this coupling had a tendency to pop open, leaving the lady in question barefoot on the public way. 

So, in 1896, Judson added “….a cam-action slider…” to his invention, now calling it his “C-curity Fastener”. The company he formed to exploit the C-curity (The Universal Fastener Company) did well, and the fungi lover was making money, but he never got as rich as he had expected. It was a shame the mushrooms never warned Whitcomb Judson about the dangers of eating too many mushrooms because he died of liver failure in 1909.

And that brings us to the dull Mr. Otto Frederick Gideon Sundback (above), a Swiss emigrant to Canada, working as an electrical engineer for the Universal Fastener  Company, and married to the plant manager’s daughter, Elvira.   In 1911 Elvira died, and to distract himself from his grief Gideon started fiddling with Judson's “C-curity Fastener”. 

He added more teeth (the male coupler), ten to an inch, and widened the slider, and then he realized he could do away with the couplers entirely. All he needed was the teeth and the slider. Gideon called his invention the “'Separable Fastener”. It was granted  Patent # 1219881, in 1917. Gideon even designed a machine to mass produce his fastener. But it remained a curious thing, attracting very little attention except on what were once ladies hi-button shoes, which were soon out of fashion And that was the death of the Separable Fastener...  Until!

In 1923, Mr. B.F. Goodrich saw the new fasteners used on a pair of rubber galoshes his company was trying to sell the U.S. Army.   B.F. was delighted, and in demonstrating the new rubber boots he told an employee to “Zip ‘er up.”  And thus was born the onomatopoeia of the new invention, the name that sounds like the sound the Separable Fastener makes when it is used; the zipper. And the world has been a better place ever since.

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