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FACSIMILE OF PART OF A LETTER FROM GEN. GRANT TO GEN. MARCUS J. WRIGHT, C. S. A., DATED NEW YORK, NOY. 30, 1884.
to carry them all over. The rebel pickets also said that houses in the city had been pulled down to get material to build these boats with. Afterward this story was verified. On entering the city we found a large number of very rudely constructed boats.
All necessary steps were at once taken to render such an attempt abortive. Our pickets were doubled; Admiral Porter was notified so that the river might be more closely watched ; material was collected on the west bank of the river to be set on fire and light up the river if the attempt was made; and batteries were established along the levee crossing the peninsula on the Louisiana side. Had the attempt been made, the garrison of Vicksburg would have been drowned or made prisoners on the Louisiana side. General Richard Taylor was expected on the west bank to cooperate in this movement, I believe, but he did not come, nor could he have done so with a force sufficient to be of service. The Mississippi was now in our possession from its source to its mouth, except in the immediate front of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. We had nearly exhausted the country, along a line drawn from Lake Providence to opposite Bruinsburg. The roads west were not of a character to draw supplies over for any considerable force.
By the 1st of July our approaches had reached the enemy’s ditch at a number of places. At ten points we could move under cover to within from five to 100 yards of the enemy. Orders were given to make all preparations for assault on the 6th of July. The debouches were ordered widened, to afford easy egress, while the approaches were also to be widened to admit the troops to pass through four abreast. Plank and sand-bags, the latter filled with cotton packed in tightly, were ordered prepared, to enable the troops to cross the ditches.
On the night of the 1st of July Johnston was between Brownsville and the Big Black, and wrote Pemberton from there that about the 7th of the month an attempt would be made to create a diversion to enable him to cut his way out. Pemberton was a prisoner before this message reached him.
On July 1st Pemberton, seeing no hopes of outside relief, addressed the following letter to each of his four division commanders:
“ Unless the siege o£ Vicksburg is raised, or supplies are thrown in, it will become necessary very shortly to evacuate the place. I see no prospect of the former, and there are many great, if not insuperable, obstacles in the way of the latter. 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
points, one in front of each eorps, to where only the parapet of the enemy divided us.
At this time an intercepted despatch from Johnston to Pemberton informed me that Johnston intended to make a determined attack upon us, in order to relieve the garrison at Vicksburg. I knew the garrison would make no forcible effort to relieve itself. The picket lines were so close to each other — ־where there was space enough between the lines to post pickets—that themen couldconverse. On the 21st of June I was informed, through this means, that Pemberton was preparing to escape, by crossing to the Louisiana side under cover of night; that he had employed workmen in making boats for that purpose; that the men had been canvassed to ascertain if they would make an assault on the “ Yankees” to cut their way out; that they had refused, and almost mutinied, because their commander would not surrender and relieve their sufferings, and had only been pacified by the assurance that boats enough would be finished in a week
continued throwing their grenades, and brought boxes of field ammunition (shells), the fuses of which they would light with port-fires, and throw them by hand into our ranks. We found it impossible to continue this work. Another mine was consequently started, which was exploded on the 1st of July, destroying an entire rebel redan, killing and wounding a considerable number of its occupants, and leaving an immense chasm where it stood. No attempt to charge was made this time, the experience of the 25th admonishing us. Our loss in the first affair was about thirty killed and wounded. The enemy must have lost more in the two explosions than we did in the first. We lost none in the second.
Prom this time forward the work of mining and of pushing our position nearer to the enemy was prosecuted with vigor, and I determined to explode no more mines until we were ready to explode a number at different points and assault immediately after. We were up now at three different
emy’s parapet. In fact, this parapet was also our protection. The soldiers of the two sides occasionally conversed pleasantly across this barrier; sometimes they exchanged the hard bread of the Union soldiers for the tobacco of the Confederates ; at other times the enemy threw over hand-grenades, and often our men, catching them in their hands, returned them.
Our mine had been started some distance back down the hill, consequently when it had extended as far as the parapet it was many feet below it. This caused the failure of the enemy in his search to find and destroy it. On the 25th of June, at 3 o’clock, all being ready, the mine was exploded.
A heavy artillery fire all along the line had been ordered to open with the explosion. The effect was to blow the top of the hill off and make a crater where it stood. The breach was not sufficient to enable us to pass a column of attack through. In fact, the enemy, having failed to reach our mine, had thrown up a line farther back, where most of the men guarding that point were placed. There were a few men, however, left at the advance line, and others working in the counter-mine, which was still being pushed to find ours. All that were there were thrown into the air, some of them coming down on our side, still alive. I remember one colored» man, who had been underground at work, when the explosion took place, who was thrown to our side. He was not much hurt, but was terribly frightened. Some one asked him how high he had gone up. “Dunno, Massa, but t’ink ,bout t’ree mile,” was the reply. General Logan commanded at this point, and took this colored man to his quarters, where he did service to the end of the siege.
As soon as the explosion took place the crater was seized upon by two regiments of our troops who were near by, under cover, where they had been placed for the express purpose. The enemy made a desperate effort to expel them, but failed, and soon retired behind the new line. From here, however, they threw hand-grenades, which did some execution. The compliment was returned by our men, but not with so much effect. The enemy could lay their grenades on the parapet, which alone divided the contestants, and then roll them down upon us; while from our side they had to be thrown over the parapet, which was at considerable elevation. During the night we made efforts to secure our position in the crater against the missiles of the enemy, so as to run trenches along the outer base of their parapet, right and left; but the enemy
From a photograph.
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