GENERAL GRANT.	MASTER FRED. D. GRANT. CHARLES A. DANA,
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR.
UNION HEADQUARTERS, JULY 3. GENERAL GRANT RECEIVING GENERAL PEMBERTON’S MESSAGE.
From a sketch made at the time.
portion of the siege. He was in the same situation as Fred so far as transportation and mess arrangements were concerned. The first time I call to mind seeing either of them, after the battle, they were mounted on two enormous horses, grown white from age, equipped with dilapidated saddles and bridles. Our trains arrived a few days later, after which we were all perfectly equipped. My son accompanied me throughout the campaign and siege, and caused no anxiety either to me or to his mother, who was at home. He looked out for himself and was in every battle of the campaign. His age, then not quite thirteen, enabled him to take in all he saw, and to retain a recollection of it that would not be possible in more mature years.”
Note—In his “Personal Memoirs” (C. L. Webster & Co.) General Grant says: “On leaving Bruinsburg for the front I left my son Frederick, who had joined me a few weeks before, on board of one of the gun-boats asleep, and hoped to get away without him until after Grand Gulf should fall into our hands; but ou waking tip he learned that I had gone, and being guided by the sound of the battle raging at Thompson’s Hill — called the battle of Port Gibson — found his way to where I was. He had no horse to ride at the time, and I had no facilities for even preparing a meal. He therefore foraged around the best he could until he readied Grand Gulf. Mr. C. A. Dana, then an officer of the War Department, accompanied me on the Vicksburg campaign and through a
far enough to make a breach of nearly twenty feet width in the retrenchment across the gorge of the work. We expected an assault, but previous experience had made the enemy cautious. Instead, they opened upon the work a most terrific fire from everything that could be brought to bear upon it. Only a few minutes before the explosion I had been down in our counter-mine and had left seven men there, only one of whom was ever seen again; he, a negro, was blown over into the Federal lines, but not seriously hurt.
The next thing for us to do was to stop the breach in our retrenchment.
This we first tried to accomplish by heaving dirt into the breach with shovels from the two sides, but the earth was swept away by the storm of mis-
On the 29th of June the enemy had succeeded in getting close up to the parapet of the Third Louisiana redan. We rolled some of their unexploded 13-inch shells down upon them and annoyed them so much as to force them to stop operations. At night they protected themselves against this method of attack by erecting a screen in front of their sap.
This screen was made of heavy timbers, which even the shells could not move. I finally determined to try the effect of a barrel of powder. One containing 125 pounds was obtained, a timefuse set to fifteen seconds was placed in the bung-hole, was touched off by myself with a live coal, and the barrel was rolled over the parapet by two of our sappers. The barrel went true to its destination and exploded with terrific force. Timbers, gabions, and facines were hurled into the air in all directions, and the sappers once more were compelled to retire. They renewed their operations, however, at night, and in a few days succeeded in establishing their mine under the redan, which they exploded at 1:30 o’clock p. M. on the 1st of July. The charge was enormous — one and a quarter tons, as I subsequently learned from the Federal engineer. The crater made was about twenty feet deep and fifty feet in diameter. The redan was virtually destroyed, and the explosive effect extended back 218
WOODEN COEHORN ON GRANT’S LINES.
From a sketch.
pieces by the enemy’s artillery. A new line was therefore made to take its place when it should be no longer tenable. So, too, retrenchments, or inner lines, were ordered at all points where breaches seemed imminent or the enemy more than ordinarily near. These retrenchments served us excellently before the siege was terminated.
By the 8th of June, in spite of all efforts to prevent them, the enemy’s sap-rollers had approached within sixty feet or two of our works. A private soldier suggested a novel expedient by which we succeeded in destroying the rollers. He took a piece of port-fire, stuffed it with cotton saturated with turpentine, and fired it from an old-fashioned large-bore musket into the roller, and thus set it on fire. Thus the enemy’s sappers were exposed and forced to leave their sap and begin a new one some distance back. After this they kept their sap-rollers wet, forcing us to other expedients.* Our next effort was counter-mining. From the ditches of all the threatened works counter-mines were started on the night of the 13th of June. The Third Louisiana redan was located on a very narrow ridge and had no ditch. The countermines for it were therefore started from within by first sinking a vertical shaft, with the intention of working out by an inclined gallery under the enemy’s sap. Before this work was completed the Federal sappers succeeded in getting under the salient of the redan, and on the 25th they exploded a small mine, but the charge was too small to do much damage. Nevertheless it tore off the vortex of the redan, and made what the Federals thought was a practicable breach. Into it they poured in strong force as soon as the explosion had expended itself. But they were met by a deadly volley from our men posted behind the retrenchment prepared for this emergency, and after heavy loss were compelled to retire. Six of our counter-miners were buried by this explosion.
On the same day we exploded two of our countermines and completely destroyed the enemy’s sap-rollers, filled up their saps, and forced them to abandon a parallel very close to our line. Two days later we exploded another mine prematurely, without injury to the enemy, as they had not approached as near our works as we supposed. It was very difficult to determine distances underground, where we could hear the enemy’s sappers picking, picking, picking, so very distinctly that it hardly seemed possible for them to be more than a few feet distant, when in reality they were many yards away.
*I tliink this may ho the origin of General Grant’s notion that we had explosive bullets. I certainly never heard of anything of the sort, and most surely would have made some use of them if we had had them in circumventing the Federal engineers.— S. H. L. [See statement of General Grant, p. 213.)
FIRST CONFERENCE BETWEEN GRANT AND PEMBERTON, JULY 3, 1863.
From a sketch made at the time.
Note.— Grant and Pemberton met near tile tree and went aside to the earthwork, where they sat in conference. To tlieir right is a group of four, including General John S. Bowen, C. S. A., General A. J. Smith, General James B. McPherson, and Colonel L. M. Montgomery. Under the tree are Chief-of-Staif John A. Rawlins, Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana, and Theo-dore R. Davis, special artist, who made the above and many other sketches of the Vicksburg siege, in this work.
five friends, and retired without putting iu the obstruction. At other parts of the line the work of making traverses, changing guns to more available points, making covered ways along the line and to the rear, and repairing damages, went on as vigorously as our means would allow.
The events of the 27th of May were varied by an attack on our river batteries by the fleet. The Cincinnati was badly crippled, and before reaching her former moorings she sank in water not deep enough to cover her deck. She was still within range of our guns, so that the efforts made by the Federals to dismantle her and remove her armament were effectually prevented.
By this time the Federal commander was evidently convinced that Vicksburg had to be taken by regular siege operations. By the 4th of June the Federals had advanced their parallels within 150 yards of our line. From them they commenced several double saps against our most salient works—the Jackson road redan, the Graveyard road redan, the Third Louisiana redan, on the left of the Jackson road, and the lunette on the right of the Baldwin’s Ferry road. In each of these the engineer in charge was ordered to place thundering barrels and loaded shells with short-time fuses, as preparations for meeting assaults. The stockade redan and the stockade on its left, which had been constructed across a low place in our line, had by this time been nearly knocked to