CHAPTER IX.
On May 16, 1863, at Champion Hill, the enemy was encountered, strongly stationed, on a series of ridges or hills, naturally well adapted for defensive purposes. Here we met Gen. Pemberton’s army of over 40,000 men coming out of the entrenched position in the city to make mince meat of Grant’s army. The battle opened early in the forenoon and raged for half a day, in which only 15,000 soldiers, or a portion of Grant’s army, was engaged. It was one of the hard-fought battles of the war and one of the most bloody. The battle was mainly fought by McPherson’s 17th Army Corps and Hovey’s division of the 13th Corps.
Gen. Logan’s charge on the extreme right, about three o’clock in the afternoon, was one of the finest charges of troops that I witnessed during the war, and I was in nine different battles. It has been said that at the battle ofChampion Hill for a time there was as fierce fighting as any seen in the west. The colors of my regiment were riddled with bullets and our color guards were all killed or wounded. About three o’clock the enemy gave way and commenced a retreat towards Vicksburg.
After driving the enemy from the field those engaged all day were tired out and halted for a time on the battle field. I would like to portray the scene that we gazed upon. It was a horrible picture and one that I carry with me to this day. All around us lay the dead and dying, amid the groans and cries of the wounded. Our surgeons came up quickly and, taking possession of a farm house, converted it into a hospital, and we began to carry ours and the enemy’s wounded to the surgeons. There they lay, the blue and the gray intermingled; the same rich, young American blood flowing out in little rivulets of crimson; each thinking he was in the right; the one conscious of it today,the other admitting now it were best the Union should be maintained one and inseparable. The surgeons made no preference as to which should be first treated; the blue and the gray took their turn before the surgeon’s knife. What heroes some of those fellows were; with not a murmur or word; with no anaesthetic to sooth the agony, but gritting their teeth, they bore the pain of the knife and saw, while arms and legs were being severed from their bodies. There was just one case that was an exception to the rule. He was a fine-looking officer and Colonel of some Louisiana regiment of the Confederate army. He had been shot through the leg and was making a great ado about it. Dr. Kittoe, of our regiment, examined it and said it must be amputated; the poor fellow cried and howled: “Oh, I never can go home to my wife on one leg. Oh, oh, it must not be.” “Well,” said the gruff old surgeon, “that, or not go home at all.” The Colonel finally said yes, and in afew minutes he was in a condition (if he got well) to wear a wooden leg when he went home to his wife.
The enemy are retreating to the city to get behind the breastworks, and Grant’s army is pushing them right along every day. It is twenty days now since the campaign began. In that time the army has marched nearly 200 miles, beaten two armies in five different battles, captured 27 heavy cannon and 61 pieces of field artillery; taken 6,500 prisoners and killed and wounded at least 6,000 of the enemy. Starting without teams and with an average of three days’ rations in the haversacks, we subsisted principally on forage found in the country. Only five days’ rations had been issued in twenty days. Still, neither suffering nor complaint was witnessed in the command. The army was in fine condition, so Gen. Grant said. Since it had left Milliken’s Bend it had marched by day and night, through mud and rain, withouttents and on irregular rations. Gen. Grant said then: “My force is composed of hardy and disciplined men, who know no defeat and are not willing to learn what it is.” Well, if marching day and night in the mud and rain, on short rations, made us hardy, I reckon he told the truth. I tell you today, after 50 years have passed, I can remember the gnawing of hunger on that memorable march, and I recollect one day spying a piece of bacon rind at the road side, which some more fortunate soldier had thrown away, and grabbing it as a great treasure I removed the dirt and ate it with a ravenous appetite. Before we get to Vicksburg we must have another battle at the Big Black River. The enemy were discovered in force, strongly posted near the bridge. The day was hot and Gen. Lawler, who was rushing around in his shirt sleeves, discovered that by moving one portion of his brigade through the brush under cover of the river bank, the remainderto push directly against the left flank of the enemy, he could reach a position where he would be able to carry the works by storm. As soon as his troops were properly placed, Gen. Lawler led his boys in blue in a magnificent charge, capturing one entire brigade of the enemy, and forcing the remainder to beat a hasty retreat to Vicksburg.
On May 18, 1863, Gen. Grant’s army invested the enemy’s defenses of Vicksburg and then commenced a siege that lasted for 47 days, an account of which it is my purpose to give as concisely as possible. The enemy’s breastworks encircled the city somewhat in the shape of a horseshoe, being about eight miles in length. The ground around the city is very rough; steep hills, deep gullies, underbrush, cane and willows and everything to impede the army. Gen. Grant, with about 30,000 men, had cooped up Gen. Pemberton and his army of over 35,000 men. (Seven weeks later P. surrendered 30,000men.) Soon after Gen. Grant had assigned his several Corps Commanders to their places (Gen. Sherman being on the right, Gen. McPherson in the center and Gen. McClernand on the left), several charges were made at different points on the line, but owing to the strong forts and entrenchments, the enemy repulsed us with heavy loss. The union lines, however, are advanced, positions for artillery are selected, and the daily duel of the sharpshooters is opened up in the immediate front.
After so much marching and fighting, the boys in blue are weary and hungry, and a few days’ rest is granted the men, that they may attend to some washing and cleaning up. Very few of us had a second shirt to wear. Toward the close of the war but few carried knapsacks; it wasn’t necessary. It is related of an Irishman that, upon being asked why he didn’t go to the Quartermaster and draw a knapsack, replied: “An’ what do I want a knapsackfor?” “Why, to put your clothes in, Pat.” “Sure, an’ if I should go on dress parade wid me clothes in me knapsack the Colonel would be after puttin’ me in the guard house.” May 21st we are furnished with a good square meal by Uncle Sam—if hard tack, sow bacon, beans and coffee can be called a square meal. We so considered it after the hardships of the last month. And having been strengthened in the inner man with plenty of food, Gen. Grant proposes to carry Vicksburg by storm on the morrow, May 22, 1863. Shall we ever forget that desperate charge? No, and I believe had Gen. Grant known at the time how strongly the enemy were entrenched and how valiantly they would fight, he would never have ordered that charge. He thought, no doubt, as we soldiers believed, that having been so successful in meeting the enemy recently, we could whip any armed force that opposed us. May 22, 1863, the order was given to commence the attack at10 o’clock. At that hour the battle opened; every piece of artillery was brought to bear on the works; sharpshooters at the same time began their part; nothing could be heard but the continual shrieking of shells, the booming of cannon and the sharp whiz of the minie-ball. At the time the assault was attempted our bivouac was in a ravine just east of the “White House,” or “Shirley House.” Running in front of the house was the main Jackson wagon road leading into the city. For about five hundred yards the road had been cut down in the ridge to a depth of a man’s head, then the ridge sloped a little and the road opened out in plain view of the forts of the enemy not 200 yards distant. We marched in columns of four through this cut in the road until we reached the point where we would be exposed to the enemy’s guns, then we were to deploy to the left along the slope of the hill, until the entire regiment was out of the road, when at the wordof the commanding officer—“By the right flank, charge”—we were to go over the enemy’s works. As we came out of that road Major Cowan gave the command, “double quick,” and we started across that open space. Major Cowan, commanding the regiment, fell at the first volley from the enemy, having only taken a step or two.
The enemy was watching and the instant we appeared in sight they opened into us an awful volley of shot and shell. There was no one to give the command to halt, or right face and charge; the Major was killed and the ranking Captain didn’t know it. We went as far in that hail of death as we thought would be sufficient for the regiment to form in line of battle, and then we dropped flat on the ground. Being First Sergeant of Company A of my regiment, I was at the head of the regiment with Major Cowan when we started across that deadly piece of open ground, the Major falling by my side,but I kept right on at the head of the regiment until space enough was given the regiment to form in line under the brow of the hill. The ground sloped down hill from the enemy’s parapet, and by flattening one’s self about as flat as a hard tack, he was comparatively safe from the musketry fire of the enemy. The regiment came through, but the dead and wounded lay thick over that stretch of 200 yards. The order to charge the works was, after a short time, given by the ranking Captain, and we started up the hill, to be met by a sweeping volley of musketry at short range, which mowed the men down in bunches. We could not return the fire, for the enemy were safe behind their breastworks. Some of our men reached the top of the parapet, but fell as fast as they climbed up. No troops could face such a destructive fire from a protected enemy. Presently the order is given to fall back, and we retire under the brow of the hill and remain there until afterdark, when we took our usual place in the rear of the “White House.” The charge of my regiment is but a picture of all other regiments that took part on that day. The assault was no more successful at other points of the line, and the Union army suffered great loss. The works were strongly constructed and well arranged to sweep the approaches in every direction; their position was too strong, both naturally and artificially, to be taken by storm. Wherever the assault was attempted, the hillsides were covered with the slain and wounded, many of them lying in the hot sun during the day crying for water, which could not be taken to them. Three thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded in this disastrous charge; more men in this one charge were lost than were lost during the late Spanish War. The army was now made sadly sure that over ground so rough and with such strong forts and entrenchments it could not hope to carry Vicksburg by storm. It clearlyproved the great advantage an army has in having breastworks and entrenchments to cope with the enemy. Gen. Grant had had such wonderful success so far that he really thought his troops could walk right up to and inside those fortifications. But the fact has been demonstrated that the loss of precious lives would be too great, and preparations for a siege were begun and the pick and shovel were brought into requisition. Saps and rifle trenches were constructed and in these our sharpshooters were continually on the lookout for the hidden enemy. Before we had constructed outer rifle pits so as to make them comparatively safe, our boys with their bayonets and a tin plate, dug little holes in the ground and on top of the earth placed a few fence rails. Between these rails our men could pick off the sharpshooters of the enemy and many a duel was had here between the pickets of the two armies.