LOGAN’S DIVISION ENTERING VICKSBURG BY THE JACKSON ROAD, JULY i, 1863. From a sketch made at the time.
ARRIVAL OF GENERAL GRANT AT GENERAL PEMBERTON’S VICKSBURG HOUSE, JULY i, 1863.
From a sketch made at the time.
the 4th of July.” Some objection was made to the day, but General Pemberton said: “I am a Northern man; I know my people; I know their peculiar weaknesses and their national vanity; I know we can get better terms from them on the 4th of July than any other day of the year. We must sacrifice our pride to these considerations.” And thus the surrender was brought about.
During the negotiations we noticed that General Grant and Admiral Porter were communicating with each other by signals from a tall tower on land and a mast-head on Porter’s ship. Our signal-service men had long before worked out th e Federal code on the principle of Poe’s “Gold Bug,” and translated the messages as soon as sent. We knew that General Grant was anxious to take us all as prisoners to the Northern prison-pens. We also knew that Porter said that he did not have sufficient transport ation to carry us, and that in his judgment it would be far better to parole us and use the fleet in sending the Federal troops to Port Hudson and other points where they were needed. This helped to make General Pemberton more bold and persistent in his demands, and finally enabled him to obtain virtually the terms of his original proposition.
A few minutes after the Federal soldiers marched in, the soldiers of the two armies were fraternizing and swapping yarns over the incidents of the long siege. One Federal soldier seeing me on my little white pony, which I had ridden every day to and from and along the lines, sang out as he passed:
“ See here, Mister,— you man on the little white horse! Danged if you ain’t the hardest feller to hit I ever saw; I’ve shot at you more ’n a hundred times! ”
General Grant says there was no cheering by the Federal troops. My recollection is that on our right a hearty cheer was given by one Federal division “ for the gallant defenders of Vicksburg ! ”
his mind there were but two alternatives — either to surrender while we still had ammunition enough left to give us the right to demand terms, or to sell our lives as dearly as possible in what he knew must be a hopeless effort to cut our way through the Federal lines. He then asked each officer present to give his vote on the question ,surrender ov notf Beginning with the junior officer present, all voted to surrender but two,—Brigadier-General S. D. Lee and Brigadier-General Baldwin,—and these had no reasons to offer. After all had voted, General Pemberton said: “Well, gentlemen, I have heard your votes, and I agree with your almost unanimous decision, though my own preference would be to put myself at the head of my troops and make a desperate effort to cut our way through the enemy. That is my only hope of saving myself from shame and disgrace. Far better would it be for me to die at the head of my army, even in a vain effort to force the enemy’s lines, than to surrender it and live and meet the obloquy which I know will be heaped upon me. But my duty is to sacrifice myself to save the army which has so nobly done its duty to defend Vicksburg. I therefore concur with C. PEMBERTON, C. S. A. you, and shall offer to garrison oi Vicksburg.	surrender this army on
spite of tie daring exploits of Lamar Fontaine, Captain E. J. Sanders, and Courier Walker, who floated down the river on logs and brought, respectively, 18,000, 20,000, and 200,000 caps. We were short of provisions, so that our men had been on quarter rations for days before the close of the siege; had eaten mule meat, and rats, and young shoots of cane, with a relish of epicures dining on the finest delicacies of the table. We were so short-handed that no man within the lines had ever been off duty more than a small part of each day; and in response to inquiries of the lieutenant-general commanding, every general officer and colonel had reported his men as physically exhausted and unfit for any duty but simply standing in the trenches and firing.
Our lines were badly battered, many of our guns were dismounted, and the Federal forces were within less than a minute of our defenses, so that a single dash could have precipitated them upon us in overwhelming numbers. All of these facts were brought out in the council of war on the night of the 2d of July. After that General Pembei•-ton said he had lost all hopes of being relieved by General Johnston; ho had considered every possible plan of reliev- LIEUTENANT-GENERAL J.
siles faster than it could be placed in position. We then tried sand-bags, but they, too, were torn to shreds and scattered. Finally I sent for some tent flies and wagon covers, and with these great rolls of earth was prepared under cover and pushed into place, until at last we had something between us and the deadly hail of shot and shell and Minié balls. Playing into that narrow breach for nearly six hours were 2 9-inch Dahlgren guns, a battery of large Parrotts, one or more batteries of field-guns, a Coehorn mortar, and the deadliest fire of musk-, etry ever witnessed by any of us there present. We stopped the breach, but lost in killed and wounded nearly one hundred men by the explosion and the subsequent fusillade. This was really the last stirring incident of the siege. On the 2d of July we exploded one of our mines somewhat prematurely, and we had ready for explosion 11 others, containing from 100 to 125 pounds of powder, and extending at a depth of 6 to 9 feet for a distance of from 18 to 20 feet in front of our works. The fuses were set and everything was primed and ready for the approach of the Federal sappers, but on the 3d of July the flag of truce stopped all operations on both sides, and the efficiency of our preparations was not put to the test.
The Federal engineers had similar preparations made for our destruction at several points. Their men had gradually closed up to our lines, so that at some portions, for a hundred yards or more, the thickness of our parapet was all that separated us. Fighting by hand-grenades was all that was possible at such close quarters. As the Federáis had the hand-grenades and we had none, we obtained our supply by using such of theirs as failed to explode, or by catching them as they came over the parapet and hurling them back.
The causes that led to the capitulation are well known. We had been from the beginning short of ammunition, and continued so throughout in