Part 4

Rations were generally prepared by details of soldiers behind the lines and carried to the troops at the breastworks. Coffee, the soldier's staple, was soon unobtainable and an ersatz beverage introduced, the somewhat questionable ingredients of which included sweet potatoes, blackberry leaves, and sassafras. To replace the exhausted flour supply, a substitute was devised from ground peas and cornmeal. When this was baked over a fire, one soldier complained, "it made a nauseous composition, as the corn-meal cooked in half the time the peas-meal did, so this stuff was half raw.... It had the properties of india-rubber and was worse than leather to digest." Its effect on the digestive systems of the Confederate soldiers was possibly the equivalent of a secret Yankee weapon. A more famous, although not necessarily a more palatable, item of the besieged soldiers' diet was the mule meat introduced late in the siege. General Pemberton heartily approved of its appearance, observing that mule proved "not only nutritious, but very palatable, in every way preferable to poor beef."

For protection against artillery fire, the Confederate troops dug bombproofs in the reverse slope of their fortified ridge. From these dugouts, bulwarked by heavy timbers, trenches connected with the fortifications, affording the besieged some degree of relaxation in reading or playing cards a few yards from the front line. To defend against surprise night attacks, they were forced to sleep on their arms in the trenches.

At night the unending bombardment from Porter's fleet provided the troops of both armies with an awesome pyrotechnic display. Especially popular with the pickets were the giant 13-inch mortar shells whose sputtering fuses described a tremendously high arc in the blackness before disappearing into the city. It was a "wonderful spectacle," one soldier remembered, "to see the fuse from the shells--and you could see them plainly--the comet or star-like streams of fire and then hear them coming down into the doomed city. We used to watch them while on picket at night."

Only when the Union trenches approached close to the defensive works were determined efforts made to halt the Union threat. Then the Union sap rollers (woven cane cylinders filled with earth or cotton rolled in front of the open end of the trench to protect the work party) became targets for destruction. Fuses were set on artillery shells which were then rolled down against the sap rollers, or they were ignited by Minié balls dipped in turpentine. Occasional night sallies succeeded temporarily in driving off Union work parties and filling up trenches, but no daylight forays were attempted by the Confederates.

CIVILIAN LIFE IN VICKSBURG DURING THE SIEGE.

For the civilian population of Vicksburg, the siege was a grim and harrowing experience. Ordered to evacuate the city or prepare to face siege, many of the townspeople preferred to remain and share the fate of the army. They were joined by refugees accompanying the Confederate retreat into the city. Vicksburg had been subjected to periodic naval bombardment during the year of preliminary action and continuously during the siege. For relief and protection against shellfire, many of the townspeople occupied caves dug into the city's plentiful hillsides.

To the civilians, as to the Confederate soldiers, there seemed only three intervals during the day when the shelling ceased--8 a. m., noon, and 8 p. m.--when the Union artillerymen ate their meals. However, much of the accustomed social life of the town continued. Men and women passed along the streets despite frequent shell explosions, and the town's newspaper continued to appear--finally printed on wallpaper. Despite the artillery fire, few civilians were killed, although many dwellings were destroyed or badly damaged. Over more and more buildings, as the siege progressed, the yellow hospital flags floated. Thousands of Confederate sick and wounded were brought into the city, many being cared for by the women of Vicksburg. In the latter stages of the siege the food stores of the city were badly depleted, placing the people of Vicksburg on extremely short rations.

FRATERNIZATION.

A unique feature of the American Civil War was the inclination of the private soldier--Union and Confederate--to fight with unrelenting ferocity during the engagements of the war and yet to engage in friendly intercourse with each other once the battle had ended, or even during lulls in the fighting. Swapping of Northern coffee for Southern tobacco was a commonplace picket activity in all theaters of the war. In the long, weary siege of Vicksburg, the monotony was often lightened by jeers and pleasantries exchanged between lines. Many examples of soldier humor were recorded. The Confederates, taking grim delight in their ability to withstand the onslaughts of a steadily increasing Federal Army, would shout "When are you coming in Vicksburg for a visit?" To which a grimy, sweating Federal private would yell, "Not till you show better manners to strangers."

To prevent surprise attacks, both armies posted pickets in advance of their lines at night. With the lines so close in the latter stages of the siege, pickets would often stand within a few feet of one another, or even side by side. Discussions of good shots and bad officers, or vice versa, helped to pass the long night watches. By common agreement, out of respect for the exposed and unprotected position of the sentinels, there was no firing at men on picket duty.

One Union veteran best remembered the siege of Vicksburg for the nightly verbal exchanges with the "Rebs" when "we used to talk to each other after fighting all day."

In the evening when everything had stopped for the day, some of our men or some of the Johnnies would yell, "hello Johnnie" or "hello Yank" "how did you enjoy the day?" The other would say "Fine;" then some one would say, "Johnnie, how do you like mule meat?" and they answer "Fine;" then "How do you like beef dried on the bone?" to which they would reply "Not so well; it is too close to the bone to be good." Then some one would say, "Come over and we will give you some 'sow belly' to fry it in." They would reply, "We can't eat meat alone;" then the reply was, "We will give you some hardtack." Then they would reply, "The tack you sent over today was so hard we could not chew it." So you see how soon those on both sides forgot their troubles when night came, but in the morning about daylight, when the business of the day was about to open, we would say, "Watch out Johnnie, and hunt your hole," and things were on in earnest for the day.

JOHNSTON'S DILEMMA.

Pemberton's foremost objective in prolonging the siege had been to afford Johnston and the Confederate government time to collect sufficient troops to raise the siege. But shortly after Grant had invested the city, Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia began its invasion of the North, which ended on the field of Gettysburg. No troops could be spared from that point. To have removed troops from Lt. Gen. Braxton Bragg's army in Tennessee would have dangerously weakened that place in a desperate attempt to save the Mississippi. Johnston wired Secretary of War James A. Seddon "We cannot hold both."

During June, General Johnston had succeeded in increasing his force to about 30,000, many of whom were green troops, but efforts to secure adequate weapons, ammunition and wagons to equip the regiments had been only partly successful. Preparing to encounter an expected move by Johnston against his rear, Grant used reinforcements arriving from Memphis to construct and man a strong outer defense line facing Johnston's line of advance. Grant then had two lines of works, one to hold Pemberton in, the other to hold Johnston out. While Seddon notified Johnston "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," Johnston notified his government on June 15 "I consider saving Vicksburg hopeless."

On July 1, Johnston moved his army of 4 infantry and 1 cavalry divisions to the east bank of the Big Black River, seeking a vulnerable place to attack Grant's outer defenses. His reconnaissance during the next 3 days convinced him that no move against the Federal position was practicable. Receiving word of the surrender on July 4, he withdrew to Jackson.

THE SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.

By July, the Army of Vicksburg had held the line for 6 weeks, but its unyielding defense had been a costly one. Pemberton reported 10,000 of his men so debilitated by wounds and sickness as to be no longer able to man the works, and the list of ineffectives swelled daily from the twin afflictions of insufficient rations and the searching fire of Union sharpshooters. Each day the constricting Union line pushed closer against the Vicksburg defenses, and there were indications that Grant might soon launch another great assault which, even if repulsed, must certainly result in a severe toll of the garrison. (Grant had actually ordered a general assault for July 6, 2 days after the surrender.)

General Pemberton, faced with dwindling stores and no help from the outside, saw only two eventualities, "either to evacuate the city and cut my way out or to capitulate upon the best attainable terms." Contemplating the former possibility, he asked his division commanders on July 1 to report whether the physical condition of the troops would favor such a hazardous stroke. His lieutenants were unanimous in their replies that siege conditions had physically distressed so large a number of the defending army that an attempt to cut through the Union line would be disastrous. Pemberton's only alternative, then, was surrender.

_David and Goliath of the Union fleet, photographed at Vicksburg after the surrender:_

Although not requested, Pemberton also received the verdict of his army in a message from an unknown private, signed "Many Soldiers." Taking pride in the gallant conduct of his fellow soldiers "in repulsing the enemy at every assault, and bearing with patient endurance all the privations and hardships," the writer requested his commanding general if he would "Just think of one small biscuit and one or two mouthfuls of bacon per day," concluding with the irrefutable logic of an enlisted man, "If you can't feed us, you had better surrender us, horrible as the idea is."

On July 3, white truce flags appeared along the center of the Confederate works. A few hours later, Grant and Pemberton met beneath an oak tree, on a slope between the lines, to arrange for the capitulation of Vicksburg and its army of 29,500. It had been 14 months since Farragut's warships had first engaged the Vicksburg batteries, 7 months since Grant's first expedition against the city, and 47 days since the beginning of the siege. On the morning of July 4, 1863, while Northern cities celebrated Independence Day, Vicksburg was formally surrendered. The Confederate troops marched out from their defenses and stacked their rifles, cartridge boxes, and flags before a hushed Union Army which witnessed the historic event without cheering--a testimonial of their respect for the courageous defenders of Vicksburg, whose line was never broken.

Into the city which had defied him for so long, and which nearly proved the graveyard rather than the springboard of his military career, rode General Grant. At the courthouse, where the Stars and Bars had floated in sight of the Union Army and Navy throughout the siege, he watched the national colors raised on the flagstaff, and then proceeded to the waterfront. With every vessel of the Navy sounding its whistle in celebration, he went aboard Porter's flagship to express gratitude for the work of the fleet.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FALL OF VICKSBURG.

Vicksburg, and the simultaneous repulse of Lee's invasion at the battle of Gettysburg, marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Previously, there had been confidence that victory, although demanding desperate measures, could yet be achieved. Afterward, there was only the hope that the North might sicken of the frightful cost of continuing the war and terminate hostilities. The great objective of the war in the West--the opening of the Mississippi River and the severing of the Confederacy--had been realized with the fall of Vicksburg. While in the East the Union armies battled on in bloody stalemate before Richmond, the armies of the West would now launch their columns deep into the vitals of the Confederacy.

Grant emerged from the Vicksburg campaign with a hard-won reputation as a master strategist, which prompted President Lincoln to place him in supreme command of all the armies of the United States. From this position he was destined to direct the final campaigns of the Civil War and to receive Lee's surrender at Appomattox. As for Pemberton, the fall of Vicksburg subjected him to painful criticism from those who held that a more resourceful defense might have saved the city, or his army, or both. Essentially, both commanders had disobeyed orders in like manner--Grant in striking behind Vicksburg alone rather than waiting to combine forces with Banks; Pemberton in deciding to protect Vicksburg at all cost rather than joining Johnston and risking loss of the city. But Grant's gamble had succeeded and Pemberton's had failed; and in war, as a leading Confederate commander had soberly remarked, the people measure a general's merit by his success. "I thought and still think that you did right to risk an army for the purpose of keeping command of even a section of the Mississippi River," President Davis wrote to General Pemberton after the fall of Vicksburg. "Had you succeeded none would have blamed, had you not made the attempt few if any would have defended your course."

In the Confederate capital, Gen. Josiah Gorgas, one of the most able of Southern leaders, confided to his diary the implications of the calamitous change in fortune to the South attending the twin disasters of Gettysburg and Vicksburg:

Events have succeeded one another with disastrous rapidity. One brief month ago we were apparently at the point of success. Lee was in Pennsylvania threatening Harrisburgh, and even Philadelphia. Vicksburgh seemed to laugh all Grant's efforts to scorn.... All looked bright. Now the picture is just as somber as it was bright then. Lee failed at Gettysburgh.... Vicksburgh and Port Hudson capitulated, surrendering thirty-five thousand men and forty-five thousand arms. It seems incredible that human power could effect such a change in so brief a space. Yesterday we rode on the pinnacle of success--today absolute ruin seems to be our portion. The Confederacy totters to its destruction.

In Washington, a grateful President sat at his desk seeking words to express appreciation to Grant "for the almost inestimable service you have done the country." Explaining the fear he had entertained that the Union Army might be destroyed during its daring thrust in the rear of Vicksburg, which he believed at the time to be "a mistake," Lincoln wrote to Grant, "I wish now to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong."

On July 9, the Confederate commander at Port Hudson, upon learning of the fall of Vicksburg, surrendered his garrison of 6,000 men. One week later the merchant steamboat _Imperial_ tied up at the wharf at New Orleans, completing the 1,000-mile passage from St. Louis undisturbed by hostile guns. After 2 years of land and naval warfare, the Mississippi River was open, the grip of the South had been broken, and merchant and military traffic had now a safe avenue to the gulf. In the words of Lincoln, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

_Guide to the Area_

Vicksburg National Military Park is shaped like a great crescent, enclosing the city of Vicksburg within a 9-mile arc which curves from the old bed of the Mississippi River north of the city to the river south of Vicksburg (from U. S. 61 north of Vicksburg, across U. S. 80 east of the city, to U. S. 61 south of Vicksburg). The two main avenues in Vicksburg National Military Park, Union Avenue and Confederate Avenue--constructed along the siege lines established by the two armies--are parallel. The black markers, on iron standards, indicate the position of the fortified lines and the units which occupied that sector. The remains of artillery batteries, forts (and the ditches in front), and trenches are clearly visible, although, during the 36-year interval between the siege and the establishment of the park, the fortifications and trenches have suffered marked alteration from wind and weather. All the cannon barrels are originals, used during the Civil War; the carriages are replacements. This self-guiding tour begins at the museum, going north on Confederate Avenue. It provides a brief inspection of Union Avenue, proceeds to the national cemetery, a distance of 6 miles, and returns south by way of Union Avenue. The numbered stops of this tour correspond to the numbers on the tour map found on pages 28-29.

1. MUSEUM AND PARK HEADQUARTERS.

Located at the center of Confederate Avenue, at its junction with U. S. 80. Here are exhibits illustrating and explaining the campaign and siege of Vicksburg and the outstanding features of Vicksburg National Military Park. A recorded lecture synchronized with lights on a large relief map explains fully the story of the Vicksburg operations.

2. JEFFERSON DAVIS STATUE.

(in front of museum) Davis was a West Point graduate, Mexican War colonel, Mississippi cotton planter, United States Senator, Secretary of War, and, finally, President of the Confederacy.

As you begin the tour, notice the natural strength of the Confederate position on the crest of the ridge. The ground drops away to your right and, several hundred yards across the ravine, rises to a similar and parallel ridge. From this, the Union Army launched its siege operations against the Confederate line. Before the siege began, all the trees between the lines had been cut down by the Confederate engineers to insure a clear field of fire.

3. PEMBERTON STATUE.

Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, a native Pennsylvanian, elected to fight for the South and commanded the Confederate Army of Vicksburg. When a command in keeping with his rank of three-star general was unavailable after Vicksburg, he voluntarily resigned his commission and served as a lieutenant colonel of artillery for the remainder of the war--a testimonial of his loyalty to the South.

4. MISSISSIPPI MONUMENT.

A State memorial to her 4,600 soldiers in the siege, the bas-relief and sculptures around the base of the shaft depict battle scenes. The 9-inch Dahlgren gun at the rear of the monument was one of the largest used at Vicksburg.

5. TILGHMAN STATUE.

This is a monument to Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman who was killed at the battle of Champion's Hill, 18 miles east of Vicksburg, as he manned an artillery piece in an attempt to hold off a Union charge. A broken gun carriage lies under his horse's forefeet.

6. LOUISIANA MONUMENT AND GREAT REDOUBT.

The largest fort on the Confederate line, its well-preserved walls extend on both sides of the Louisiana memorial. On top is the Eternal Torch. The low marble markers on the slope, below the avenue in front of the fort, mark the farthest advance of Union regiments in the unsuccessful assault of May 22. On the ridge, 200 yards away, is the Union line.

7. SURRENDER SITE.

Grant and Pemberton met under an oak tree, midway between the lines, for surrender negotiations. The tree immediately vanished to provide souvenirs of the historic event; notches on this monument erected by Union soldiers after the surrender are the work of latter-day souvenir hunters.

The tour now follows Union Avenue, which parallels Confederate Avenue, for a short distance before returning to the Confederate line.

8. MICHIGAN MONUMENT.

Symbolic figure of Michigan bringing laurels to her soldiers of the siege. Beyond the monument, left of the avenue, notice the wall which protected the Union artillery.

9. SHIRLEY HOUSE.

A siege landmark, and termed the "White House" by the soldiers, it is the lone surviving wartime structure in the park.

10. ILLINOIS MONUMENT.

Modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, this Memorial Temple, the largest monument on the field, is dedicated to the 36,312 Illinois men whose names are inscribed on the bronze plaques within. The Illinois Commission specified that no device indicative of war should appear on the memorial.

11. THIRD LOUISIANA REDAN.

This Confederate fort, marked by the three artillery pieces at right of the avenue, was reached by "Logan's Approach," a Union advance trench. Federal engineers constructed a mine underneath the redan and exploded 2,200 pounds of powder, which blasted a tremendous crater into which Union infantry raced, only to be driven back after severe fighting.

12. GLASS BAYOU BRIDGE.

The precipitous slopes of the ridges and deeply cut ravines protected the city, making Vicksburg a natural fortress. The 75-foot drop from the bridge well illustrates the difficult terrain over which the Union Army moved.

13. ARKANSAS MONUMENT.

Site of the Arkansas memorial. The twin pylons are representative of North and South, which were split by the sword of war and reunited by the cross of faith in a restored Union. Depicted on the left are Arkansas soldiers repelling a Union assault; on the right, the Confederate ram _Arkansas_.

14. MISSOURI MONUMENT.