morale and material as to be of future service to the Confederacy; and this, although there were eight thousand fresh troops in Vicksburg. Pemberton replied: "I have decided to hold Vicksburg as long as possible, with the firm hope that the Government may yet be able to assist me in keeping this obstruction to the enemy's free navigation of the Mississippi river. I still conceive it to be the most important point in the Confederacy." While the council of war was assembled, the guns of the enemy opened on the works.

CHAPTER III.

The Defences of Vicksburg.-Pemberton's Force.-His Troops Reinspirited.-A Memorable Appeal.-Grant's Assault on the Works.-Confidence of the Yankees.Their Repulse and Losses.-Commencement of Siege Operations.-Confidence in Richmond.-Johnston's Secret Anticipation of the Fall of Vicksburg.-His Alleged Inability to Avert it.-Critical Condition of the Confederate Armies in Numbers.Secret Correspondence of Richmond Officials.-Mr. Seddon's Bait of Flattery.-Sufferings of the Garrison of Vicksburg.-Johnston's Attempt to Extricate them.-Proposed Diversion in the Trans-Mississippi.-Its Failure.-A Message from Pemberton. A Gleam of Hope.-An Important Dispatch Miscarries.-The Garrison Unable to Fight Their Way Out.-But Their Condition not Extreme.-Pemberton's Surrender on the Fourth of July.-Surprise in Richmond-Mendacity of the Telegraph.-The Story of the Rats and Mules.-Pemberton's Statement as to his Supplies.-His Explanation as to the Day of Surrender. The last Incident of Humiliation.-Behavior of the Vicksburg Population.—A Rival of "The Beast."-Appearance and Manners of the City under Yankee Rule.-Consequences of the Fall of Vicksburg.-THE YanKEE REOCCUPATION OF JACKSON.-Johnston's Second Evacuation.-The Enemy's Ravages in Mississippi.-How they Compared with Lee's Civilities in Pennsylvania.— THE FALL OF PORT HUDSON, &c.-Enemy's Capture of Yazoo City.-THE BATTLE OF HELENA.--THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI.-Repulse of the Confederates.-Abandonment of Little Rock.--The Trials and Sufferings of the Trans-Mississippi Department.-Hindman's Memorable Rule.--Military Autocracy.-The Generous and Heroic Spirit of the Trans-Mississippi.

THE line of defence around the city of Vicksburg consisted of a system of detached works (redans, lunettes, and redoubts) on the prominent and commanding points, with the usual profile of raised field works, connected, in most cases, by rifle-pits. The strength of the city towards the land was equally as strong as on the river side. The country was broken, to a degree affording excellent defensive positions. In addition to this, the ravines intervening the ridges and knolls, which the Confederates had fortified, were covered with a tangled growth of cane, wild grape, &c., making it impossible for the enemy to move his troops in well-dressed lines.

To man the entire line of fortifications, General Pemberton was able to bring into the trenches about eighteen thousand five hundred muskets; but it was absolutely necessary to keep a reserve always ready to reinforce any point heavily threatened. It became indispensable, therefore, to reduce the number in the trenches to the minimum capable of holding them

until a reserve could come to their aid. It was also necessary that the reserve should be composed of troops among the best and most reliable. Accordingly, Bowen's division (about twenty-four hundred) and some other forces were designated for that purpose, reducing the forces in the trenches to little over fifteen thousand five hundred men.

Fortunately, the army of Vicksburg had speedily recovered from its demoralization, reassured, as the troops were, of a prospect of Johnston's co-operation, and inspired by a remarkable appeal from Pemberton. This unfortunate commander appeased the clamor against himself by an apparently noble candor and memorable words of heroism. He said that it had been declared that he would sell Vicksburg, and exhorted his soldiers to witness the price at which he would sell it, for it would not be less than his own life, and that of every man in his command. Those words deserve to be commemorated in relation to the sequel.

The stirring words of Pemberton were circulated through the Confederacy, and satisfied the public that either Vicksburg was safe, or that the catastrophe would be glorious. They called to mind Leyden and Genoa, Londonderry and Saragossa, and the people of the Confederacy expected that a name not less glorious would be added to the list of cities made immortal by heroism, endurance, suffering, and, as they hoped, triumph. Much of this elation, it is true, was from ignorance of the true situation; but even the intelligent refused to entertain a sequel so humiliating and disastrous to the South as that which was

to ensue.

The troops of Grant were flushed with victory, and had proposed to finish their work by a single assault. The events of the 19th, 20th, and 21st of May, wearied those who imagined that they saw in their grasp the palm of the Mississippi. So fully assured were they of victory, that they postponed it from day to day. To storm the works was to take Vicksburg, in their opinion, and when it was known on the morning of the 21st, that at ten o'clock next morning the whole line of Confederate works would be assaulted, the credulous and vain enemy accounted success so certain, that it was already given to the wings of the telegraph.

On the 22d, the fire from the enemy's artillery and sharp

shooters in the rear was heavy and incessant until noon, when his gunboats opened upon the city, while a determined assault. was made along Moore's, Hebert's, and Lee's lines. At about one o'clock P. M., a heavy force moved out to the assault on the lines of General Lee, making a gallant charge. They were allowed to approach unmolested to within good musket range, when every available gun was opened upon them with grape and canister, and the men, rising in the trenches, poured into their ranks volley after volley, with so deadly an effect that, leaving the ground literally covered in some places with their dead and wounded, they precipitately retreated. The angle of one of our redoubts having been breached by their artillery previous to the assault, when the repulse occurred, a party of about sixty of the enemy, under the command of a Lieutenantcolonel, made a rush, succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the ditch at the foot of the redoubt, and planted two colors on the parapet. It was of vital importance to drive them out, and, upon a call for volunteers for that purpose, two companies of Waul's Texas legion, commanded respectively by Captain Bradley and Lieutenant Hogue, accompanied by the gallant and chivalrous Colonel E. W. Pettus, of the Twentieth Alabama regiment, musket in hand, promptly presented themselves for the hazardous service. The preparations were quietly and quickly made, but the enemy seemed at once to divine the purpose, and opened upon the angle a terrific fire of shot, shell, and musketry. Undaunted, this little band, its chivalrous commander at its head, rushed upon the work, and, in less time than it requires to describe it, it and the flags were in our possession. Preparations were then quickly made for the use of our hand-grenades, when the enemy in the ditch, being informed of the purpose, immediately surrendered.

On other parts of our lines the enemy was repulsed, although he succeeded in getting a few men into our exterior ditches at each point of attack, from which they were, however, driven before night. Our entire loss in this successful day was comparatively very small, and might be counted in a few hundreds. So accustomed had the population of Vicksburg become to the fire and rage of battle, that the circumstance is no less true than curious that throughout the day stores in the city were open, and women and children walked the streets, as if no missiles

of death were filling the air and bursting and scattering the fragments around. There is no reliable account of the enemy's loss this day; but, in killed and wounded, it was several thousands. Two thousand had fallen in front of General Forney's lines alone, according to the report of that commander. The dead lay before our works, while thousands of wounded men were carried off as soon as they fell.

The result of this engagement was a lesson to the temerity of the enemy. After this decided repulse, the enemy seemed to have abandoned the idea of taking Vicksburg by assault, and went vigorously at work to thoroughly invest and attack by regular approaches. The weakness of our garrison prevented anything like a system of sallies, but, from time to time, as opportunities offered, and the enemy effected lodgments too close to our works, they were made with spirit and success. But these were unimportant incidents. The patience of Southern soldiers-a virtue for which they are not remarkable-was now to be tried by the experiences of a siege: exhausting labors, scant rations, a melancholy isolation, and the distress of being entirely cut off from their homes and friends.

The siege was established by the enemy under circumstances of peculiar and extraordinary advantage. Although Grant's attack was made from Grand Gulf, that place was not long his base; and, when he gained Haines' Bluff and the Yazoo, all communication with it was abandoned. He was enabled to rely on Memphis and the river above Vicksburg for food and reinforcements; his communications were open with the entire West; and the Northern newspapers urgently demanded that the utmost support should be given to a favorite general, and that the Trans-Mississippi should be stripped of troops to supply him with reinforcements.

But the South still entertained hopes of the safety of Vicksburg. It was stated in Richmond, by those who should have been well informed, that the garrison numbered considerably more than twenty thousand men, and was provisioned for a siege of six months. Nearly every day the telegraph had some extravagance to tell concerning the supreme safety of Vicksburg and the confidence of the garrison. The heroic promise of Pemberton, that the city should not fall until the last man