CHAPTER X.
The duels between the sharpshooters of the two armies were fierce and deadly. All of us like heroes. There were many heroes beside the great Generals. Here is one from the ranks. John Battle Harrison was wounded at Shiloh and again at Champion Hills. When told by the surgeon to go to the hospital, he refused and remained fighting in the ranks with a wound that would have taken hundreds of others to the hospital. This brave soldier was killed in one of the sharpshooter duels. Our company was on duty on the skirmish line all day, and we could not bury him until night; then during the dark hours of the night we dug a grave on the hillside, and wrapping his blanket around him, we left him to sleep until the great reveille is sounded. I thought that night of thelines I used to speak in school when a boy:
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral noteAs his corpse to the rampart we hurried;Not a soldier discharged his farewell shotO’er the grave where our hero we buried.”
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral noteAs his corpse to the rampart we hurried;Not a soldier discharged his farewell shotO’er the grave where our hero we buried.”
“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.”
But we must not falter if our comrades do fall, but take up our duty of the soldier on the morrow and battle for the right. Now we are digging trenches and making breastworks, as well as running a sap toward the enemy’s lines by using the sap-roller. My young friends may ask what a sap-roller is. We boys used to call it a “bullet-stopper.” Suppose we take two empty barrels and lash them together, one on top of the other, then wrap them ’round and ’round with willow saplings, fill them with earth, put a cover on, lay them down, and you have a sap-roller. By keeping this in front of a couple of men, they could dig a trench directly toward the enemy’s lines, and still be protected from the deadly minie-balls. We dug trenches and moved towards the enemy until the twopicket lines were within hail of each other. One of the “Johnnies” made an agreement with one of our boys that they should lay down their guns and have a talk, which they did. The Confederate said our guns had killed many in the trenches. Sometimes there was a richness in the repartee between the Union and Confederate pickets that is worth repeating. One day a “Johnnie” calls out: “What are you men doing over there?” and quick comes the answer: “Guarding 30,000 Johnnies in Vicksburg, and making them board themselves.” Another picket asks the question: “Why don’t you come and take Vicksburg?” and the Union replied: “Oh, we’re in no particular hurry; Gen. Grant is not yet ready to transfer you North.” The pickets of both armies were good natured and used to brag of their ability to whip each other. The gunboats and mortars from the river side make things lively for the people inside the city. Day after day the sharpshootersare at work; the cannonading is kept up; the saps are approaching the enemy’s stronghold still nearer and nearer. The bursting of shells over our heads, while resting in our camps, tended to make things lively, in many instances causing wounds and death. One day the boys of my regiment were cooking a mess of beans for dinner (beans were on the bill of fare every day). The beans were being cooked in one of those large camp kettles that were hung from a pole resting on two upright sticks driven into the ground. The beans were supposed to be done. The dinner hour was near at hand; two of the boys took hold of the pole and lifted the kettle from its resting place to put it to one side. Just then the sharp whirr of a piece of shell from overhead was heard and the next instant it went crashing through the bottom of that kettle, carrying beans and all with it, burying it in the earth. The two soldiers, still holding the pole in their hands, looked at each otherin disgust for a moment, and then one of them, turning around, called out to the waiting hungry soldiers: “Boys, your beans have gone to h—l.”
The boys in the ranks had no use for a “dude” officer. Gen. McPherson, who commanded our corps (a braver or finer gentleman never breathed), had on his staff a fine officer, but who was very fond of dress, and when he would ride along the line of march, in his velvet suit, the boys would guy him unmercifully. One day this Colonel came into the trenches, and, stopping opposite where I stood on the embankment behind the gabions, addressed one of our boys thus: “Sergeant, do you see the enemy from this point?” The Sergeant replied: “Yes, sir, by looking through this hole in the log, down that ravine you will occasionally see the enemy crossing.” The Colonel got up, looked through the hole, and saw some Confederates crossing the ravine, andthen he was moved to take a hand in the game, and turning ’round, said: “Sergeant, load your rifle and let me have a pop at those fellows.” “All right, Colonel,” and while he was still looking, the Sergeant at his rear, loaded the musket. The gun had been in use most of the day, and was pretty foul and if not held just right, would kick fearfully. Well, wicked sinner that the soldier was, he took two cartridges, using two charges of powder and one bullet, and loaded the Enfield rifle, put the percussion cap on and handed it to the Colonel and, stepping back into the trenches, awaited developments. The Colonel got ready, saw his man, pulled the trigger and—tumbled back into the trench. He handed the gun back, remarking: “Your gun, Sergeant, recoils considerable,” and the innocent (?) soldier said, “Does it?” The Colonel did not ask for a second shot. I’ll warrant he had a black and blue shoulder for a month. The poor Colonel has passed awayand the Sergeant never had the opportunity to apologize to him.
The sap-roller with the boys in blue behind it are gaining every day in digging trenches toward Fort Hill. The men of Gen. Logan’s division are employed in this work, and the plan is to undermine the enemy’s Fort Hill and blow it up. While we had to be under fire from the enemy constantly, we were better off than they; not only did they suffer from a continuous shelling by the cannons and mortars, and the incessant rattle of musketry, but they had to do it on pretty empty stomachs, for toward the last they were reduced to a very meager diet, while we were having plenty of bacon, hard tack, coffee, etc. The price of food inside the city at that time was a little higher than in Chicago. How do these prices please you: Flour, $1,000 a barrel; meal, $140 a bushel; beef, $2.50 per pound, and mule meat, $1 per pound.
What could you expect when there was acontinuous siege of 47 days; a city surrounded by an army that neither permits any one to go into or come out of it; an army that slowly but surely is creeping up by its sap-rollers and approaches, getting closer and closer each day? I said we did not let any one into the city and none to come out of it; still, notwithstanding all our watchfulness there were a few who succeeded in getting through the lines, and a few that made the attempt but failed. Permit me to give one instance. In front of the line of the 15th Illinois Regiment, near the picket line, was a low marshy sink, of about an acre in size, covered by brush and dense cane brakes. One night a boy of about 10 years of age came out of the brush towards the picket line, holding up his handkerchief as a sign that he wished to surrender. The sentinel told him to come in; he did, and the little fellow told a pitiful story; that he had been in Vicksburg visiting his aunt who was sick; that his mother lived in Jackson,and he wanted to go home. The story seemed plausible and he was allowed to go through the lines. Not long after, one night, the pickets in that same locality, heard a rustling in the bushes in the same swampy hole, and surmising that something was wrong, surrounded it, demanding the surrender of any one there on pain of being shot at once. To their surprise out came a half-dozen men, each with a bag over his shoulder containing 10,000 percussion caps. Gen. Johnston had sent the men and caps back, led by the same little boy, and they were trying to get into Vicksburg. They were marched to Gen. Grant’s headquarters, and while waiting to be ushered into the General’s presence, one of the prisoners said to the boy: “What do you suppose they will do with you, for you are the fellow that got us into this fix?” The little fellow, cocking one eye in a comical manner, replied: “Oh, I guess they won’t hurt me much, coz I’se so little.” Thelittle fellow was not hurt much, but kept a prisoner until the surrender and then with the soldiers sent home.
The siege continues day after day; the bombardment from land and water is incessant; the beleaguered army is reduced to quarter rations, living on mule meat and thinking it good fare; the inhabitants of the city hiding and living in caves, to escape the storm of shells from the Union army and navy, which are exploding day and night in their streets. The enemy are brave and fight valiantly for their city and cause; neither the scorching sun nor the drenching rain keep them from their posts. They suffer for water; they are pinched with hunger; still they fight and hold the fort. However, the end is near. That persistency and determination, so characteristic of our commander, Gen. Grant, will surely win. It is related of Gen. Grant that one day during the siege he was riding around the lines, and stopped at a house to get somewater. The only occupant was a woman who tauntingly asked him if he expected to get into Vicksburg. “Certainly,” he replied. “But when?” she said. “I cannot tell exactly when I shall take the town, but I mean to stay here till I do, if it takes me 30 years.” The reply was too much for the old lady, and her heart sank within her, as she rushed back into the house to hide her anger. That reminds me of an incident that passed between Gen. Grant and myself, the relating of which I may be pardoned inasmuch as I am relating reminiscences. One hot day in June I was in the trenches with my company, behind the gabions, on duty as sharpshooters, when Gen. Grant, attended by one of his staff, came along. He had climbed the hill and when he arrived opposite me was perspiring and puffing greatly. We turned and saluted the General as he walked along the trench. When he came opposite to me he said: “Sergeant, is there any water convenient?” I replied, “None,General, except what is in my canteen,” and taking my canteen from my shoulder, half filled with pretty warm water, I handed it to him. He took it, offered it to the officer, who declined, and then Gen. Grant took a hearty drink from my canteen. He then handed it back, thanking me for it, and passed on. So in the words of Miles O’Reilly’s poem—
“There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours,Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers,And true lovers’ knots, I ween;The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss,But there’s never a bond, old friend, like this—We have drank from the same canteen.”
“There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours,Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers,And true lovers’ knots, I ween;The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss,But there’s never a bond, old friend, like this—We have drank from the same canteen.”
“There are bonds of all sorts in this world of ours,
Fetters of friendship and ties of flowers,
And true lovers’ knots, I ween;
The girl and the boy are bound by a kiss,
But there’s never a bond, old friend, like this—
We have drank from the same canteen.”
Although we are relieved often in our daily duty of sharpshooters, and return to the ravines and hollows where we are bivouacked, still we are constantly threatened with death; the soldiers wrote songs, and the jest went around, fun actually being coined from the danger which some comrade escaped, or attempted to nimbly dodge. There was no shirking or quailing; danger had long since ceased to cause any fear.Exploding shells and whistling bullets attracted but little notice. Even death had become so familiar that the fall of a comrade was looked upon with almost stoical indifference; eliciting, perhaps, an expression of pity, and most generally the remark: “I wonder who will be the next one?” Men are not naturally unmindful of danger, nor do their hearts usually exhibit such indifference to human agony and suffering; yet the occurrence of daily scenes of horror and bloodshed, through which they passed, the shadow of the angel of death constantly hovering over them, made them undisturbed spectators of every occurrence, making the most of today, heedless of the morrow.