Southern Historical Society Papers
Volume XI. Richmond. Va., November, 1883. No. 11.
Reminiscences of the Siege of Vicksburg.
By Major J.T. Hogane, of the Engineer Corps.
PAPER NO. 3 (CONCLUSION).
Nearly every evening about dusk there would be a cessation of firing by the sharp shooters. Then the banter of the men on both sides would commence, and perhaps truces were made to meet outside of the works. One moonlight night I asked who the officer was in front, and after telling me his name, he invited me to a conference. We met in a ravine about one hundred feet from our line and talked faster in a given time than four men could have talked under less exciting conditions. This officer whose kindness I acknowledge, tendered me his notebook to write a letter to my wife, who over two years before, I had left in St. Louis. She answered it by way of a "flag of truce" and I got her letter in Richmond afterwards. Johnny Reb and Jonathan Fed had many a set to, to see who could say the funniest things, or who could outwit the other in a trade, which generally ended by a warning cry, "going to shoot, Johnny."
There never was an instance during the whole siege that advantage was taken by either side during these short truces, made extra official by the men themselves. From day to day the privates on the outside excited our curiosity by hints that in a short time they would blow the very foundations of the city into the air. They made it an open secret that when they got ready, two hundred cannon, opened on us, all at the same time, would make "Rome howl," at which the insides sneered.
The night before the guns opened -- for it was no idle boast our opponents had been making -- I was engaged raising the epaulement of a twenty four pound smooth bore, with a detail worn out to the last stage of usefulness. One boy laid down on the ground, telling his sergeant that he could not lift his spade, much less dirt. The sergeant reported him to me as insubordinate, so I went to see what was the matter. The boy frankly said he was starving, and his pale face, seen in the light of the moon, told the truth more emphatically than his voice. I thought of that boy's mother, away off in the hills of Alabama, that perhaps at that moment was praying for the life of her child, whose right foot edged the grave, and that was awaiting the order to forward march from the King of the shadowland. I had a hard biscuit in my pocket that had lain there for the coming hour, when we were to cut our way out. I placed it in his hand. He looked at it, and at me, then burst into a flood of tears, and whispered faintly, "Is this for me?" I never saw him more, but I hope that fair faced boy reached home to give the warm gratituted of his heart to the mother he spoke so lovingly about. Before we got through raising the battery a round of shots from artillery drove us to the protection of the fortification we had been strengthening, and then for hours the connonanding was terrific in its energy. Over the work we were in,shell burst in rapid succession, with a horrid din and concussion of the air that seemed to tear the breath our of the hearers.
It did not prevent some of the men, who had been working, from going to sleep. They lay back, on the hard plank floor, on which the gun carriage traversed, and, with a great look of "ennui," closed their eyes, heedless of danger, glory, or any other sentiment other than that of repose. The fusilade of the heavy guns could be traced all around the fire environed force of the south, and by an odd association of ideas in the rise and fall of sound, brought to mind the regular chimes of the church bells of a city. Old Bones, a steed that I had tied to a six pound enfilading field piece, shook his tail at the splintering of the shells as Tam O'Shanter's mare did at the Wharlocks. After an hour's waiting for the fire to cease, I cut his cogitations short by mounting him and defying sharp shooters and shell, making for camp, to save my share of mule soup and peabread. My camp was in the grounds of a castellated building on the south side of the city, a real place of security from all the cannonading going on. Under the shelter of a raised earth terrace my tent was an ark of refuge. A pallet and blanket, a piece of mulesteak, a drink of molasses beer, sour as vinegar, some pea meal, flour bread that could easily have been palmed off as first class bird lime, and five or six hours of dreamless sleep, "tired nature's sweet restorer;" a report in person made to engineer headquarters in the afternoon, a report to Major General Smith, commanding the line at 5 o'clock P.M., an active duty laying out and rebuilding earthworks destroyed during the day by the enemy, and it will be a fair representation of the daily routine of the engineer's work, to whose judgment and skill the efficiency of the earthworks of Vicksburg were entrusted. The narrow escapes they made, the stratagems of war they invented to meet existing difficulties, the strong spell that the word duty wrought in them to replace weariness, sickness, and a desire for death, rather than the life of the moment, does not strike the enthusiasm of the masses like the brilliant charge into the vortex of death that a Federal officer made when he leaped, standard in hand, on to the walls of the battery in which so many Missourians were blown up. Yet the 15,000 men who lay secure behind the dirt lines, and the still greater number who lay outside, felt the result of the eternal vigilance of the few scientific men who, in season and out of season gave unity and design to the labors of the noble soldiers whose rest was little in that unfortunate city. A few days before the termination of the attack upon Vicksburg the vanity of a Major of artillery who because of seniority was the chief of artillery on the line, caused me a narrow escape from the "sudden death" that the church reminds us every Sunday to pray against. He had sent a dispatch to Major General Smith that the enemy was making a breach in the works, and asking that the engineer officer report to the works at once. It was sent to me by General Smith, with a request to go. As I had been on duty sixteen hours I refused, but Colonel Lockett persuaded me to go. Just above the courthouse on the river road I was shot in the thigh, but fortunately having the means at hand and the minnie ball having touched no bone or artery I had the wound dressed and rode on, reporting to Brigadier General Vaughn at Fort Hill. There was nothing the matter with the works, so having plenty of time both General Vaughn and I expended an incalculable number of hard words on that soft artillery officer. He got the rheumatism, dug him a cave, and went to studying McMahon's fortification for the rest of the siege. The night preceding the surrender was the darkest I ever saw. I had just reported for duty in the rear of the works near the river; depressed in feelings, miserable and weak, an orderly handed me a dispatch and at the same time informed me that the Union soldiers were running mines under the stockade. He also told me that the Lieutenant of engineers placed there had been badly wounded. The post of danger being there, I literally felt my way over the sleeping soldiers, giving and taking impatient exclamations, until I reached the stockade. Silently I went over the breastworks to find out the direction and extent of the work the enemy was engaged in prosecuting. On my knees, and with ear to the ground I listened for the sappers and miners as they, mole like were running passages under the breastworks.
[extensive excerpt]
The whole siege was a farce so far as it meant a bloody and determined defense of the fortified position of Vicksburg. No large supplies of provisions had been accumulated inside of the works, munitions of war were scarce, and when Grant gave Pemberton Hobson's choice of surrendering on the 4th of July or a fight, he put on his little airs, but threw up the sponge on the natal day of the republic. Taking Colonel Scott's advice I did not fire the mine, but went down to the lower city. On my way I heard the rapid gallop of horses, and on looking behind me saw General Grant and staff, and at the tail end of the staff Fred. Grant in his shirt sleeves. General Grant's dark face, with its short, black stubby beard, gave me the impression at the time that it was the face of a just but determined man. The moment I saw it I felt that our men would be treated well, that the mean, petty spite of the non combatant leaders of the North would have no influence with him. Subsequent events proved the quality of the man, for he ordered a distribution of provisions without stint or measure. Sacks of Lincoln coffee were given to the boys -- a peace measure -- for it was a piece of pure good luck to get a quantity of the Arabian bean. As he had 22,000 pounds of Confederate bacon to draw on, he also gave us bacon to butter our flour bread with. So, for this and other reasons, Grant was praised among the Confederates in a quiet way. It took about a week to fix up our parole papers, when we bid farewell to Vicksburg, with Jackson as our objective point. Just beyond Pearl river, General Pemberton informed me that he had just got complete returns of the killed and wounded. Six hundred killed sunk into my mind but the number wounded I don't remember. How many died in the hospital under Yankee care he never knew. They had better have died on a field of victory, like Wolf on the plains of Abraham, with the ecstatic feeling, "They run" sounding to their dying senses.
It would be ill grace if, before finishing the story of Vicksburg's siege, warm praise was not given to the heroic brave men who endured the hardship of the fifty eight day and night fight; the desperate assaults made by the Federals on the slight entrenchment behind which they couched, half starved, yet full of the fire of battle. This hurling of iron balls from the throats of 200 cannon, and filling the air with minnie balls aimed with deadly effect against these men who occupied the sand rifle pits and lunettes of Vicksburg, attested both the power of the paternal government attacking and the solid bravery of the defensive force. The thunder of cannon, the sharp shriek of the rifle's leaden messenger, the threats of death that the thirteen inch bombs continually kept up as they coursed in curves through the air, the spattering of shrapnell, the quick explosion for shells tearing and crushing through the houses, the sudden death of a companion, the pale, hunger pinched faces around them, had no effect on the nerves of the men who talked openly, "No surrender." Hunger weakened them, sleepless nights and watchful days were their portion, rats, peameal, mulesteak, and old horse their food, yet they ever responded to the call of duty either to fight or for fatigue service. It was amusing to hear the trades proposed by the outside to the inside, or by the rebs to their fat brethren who were so jealously keeping them from going astray. The leading articles of barter were coffee for tobacco, newspaper for newspaper, but there was a great deal more talk than trade, and the chaffing generally ended in assertions on the hand that they were coming over soon, and an invitation on the other hand to come to dinner and they would have a fresh mule cooked. Declining with thanks, the boys in blue went to their camp to full meals, to camp stories of flood and field, to tender readings of letters from wife, family or sweetheart, and, owing to numbers, light fighting when put on duty.
[end of excerpt]
-------------------------------------
M. E. Wolf
Bringing the