The statement that the garrison of Vicksburg was surrendered on account of an inexorable distress, in which the soldiers had to feed on mules, with the occasional luxury of rats, is either to be taken as a designing falsehood, or as the crudities of that foolish newspaper romance so common in the war. In neither case does it merit refutation. A citizen of Vicksburg declares that the only foundation for the rat story is that a pie spiced with this vermin was served up in some of the officers' messes as a practical joke, and that for days after the surrender he himself had dined on excellent bacon from Pemberton's stores. In his official report Pemberton declares that he had at the time of the surrender of Vicksburg about 40,000 pounds of pork and bacon, which had been reserved for the subsistance of his troops in the event of attempting to cut his way out of the city. Also 51,241 pounds of rice, 5,000 bushels of peas, 112,234 pounds of sugar, 3,240 pounds of soap, 527 pounds of tallow candles, 27 pounds of star candles, and 428,000 pounds of salt.*

There appears, then, to have been no immediate general occasion for the surrender of Vicksburg other than Pemberton's desire "to save the further effusion of blood." The explanation of his motives for selecting the Fourth of July as the day of surrender implies a singular humiliation of the Confederacy; as he was willing to give this dramatic gratification to the vanity of the enemy in the hope of thus conciliating the ambition of Grant, and soliciting the generosity of the Yankees. He says: "If it should be asked why the Fourth of July was

* But it must be stated that Pemberton's supplies of Vicksburg, which he had a year to provide, were criminally scant; and that as the failure of supplies would in all probability have decided the fate of Vicksburg, had he not anticipated it by a surrender, he cannot be acquitted of blame in this particular. He declined to provision Vicksburg in prospect of a siege. When one of the Confederate generals, from Mississippi, pointed out to him vast supplies in certain counties of the State accessible to his garrison, he dismissed the advice with a haughtiness that almost amounted to personal insult.

As proof of the abundance of the country around Vicksburg, we have Grant's official report of his Mississippi campaign, in which he states that, with a view of rapid movement and surprise, having calculated that twenty days would place him before Vicksburg, he permitted his troops to take only four days' provisions, trusting to the country for the other sixteen days' supply, and, in fact, supplied his army (50,000 men), from the country lying about the line of his march.

selected as the day for the surrender, the answer is obvious; I believed that, upon that day, I should obtain better terms. Well aware of the vanity of our foes, I knew they would attach vast importance to the entrance, on the Fourth of July, into the stronghold of the great river, and that, to gratify their national vanity, they would yield then what could not be extorted from them at any other time." Such an incident of humiliation was alone wanting to complete the disaster and shame of Vicksburg.

What the Confederacy had proudly entitled its "heroic city," was now destined to the experience of Yankee despotism, and, what was worse, to the shame of those exhibitions of cowardly submission which suited the interests of those who were left to herd with their country's destroyers. The citizens of Vicksburg had suffered little more than mere inconvenience from the siege. There had been but little loss of life among them in the bombardment. The city was filled with groups of caves on 'every hill-side. In these caves the women and children were sheltered during the nights, and occasionally in the daytime when the firing was very severe. The excava tions branched out in various directions after passing the entrance. They were not very desirable bed-chambers, but they seemed to have answered a very good purpose. In one or two instances shells entered them, and two women and a number of children were thus killed during the siege.

On the same day the Yankees entered Vicksburg, several places of business were opened. Signs were hoisted on express offices, book and fruit stores, informing the new customers that the proprietors were in and ready to serve them. A wellknown citizen of Vicksburg took the oath of allegiance and accommodated General Grant with headquarters at his residence. The Jewish portion of the population, composed principally of Germans, with but one honorable exception, went forward and took the oath of allegiance to the United States.

These tokens of submission were rewarded in the enemy's usual way. At first the citizens were placed under very little restraint. They were permitted to come in and go out of the lines almost at pleasure. In a few days, however, the reins were tightened. Vicksburg found a second edition of Beast Butler in General Osterhaus, a tawny Dutchman, who peremp

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torily stopped the ingress and egress of the people; forbid citizens from purchasing provisions without first registering their names; re-enacted much of the ingenious despotism of New Orleans; and declared that the height of his ambition was to get our people to hate and abhor him.

A Mississippi paper declared that it had no word of excuse or charity for the men who had remained in Vicksburg under the enemy's flag. To quote from their own slang dialect, "the Confederacy was about gone up, and there was no use in following its fortunes any further." But it repeated the characteristic story of the conquered cities of the South. The spirit of the women of Vicksburg was unbroken; and amid all its shameful spectacles of subserviency, female courage alone redeemed the sad story of a conquered and emasculated city. There was but a single exception to the compliment; and she a Northern school-teacher who was first to sing "the Bonnie Blue Flag" in Vicksburg, at the commencement of the war, to raise the means to clothe our soldiers. She forgot the "hopecrowned past," and attended a social gathering at MacPherson's headquarters, where during the evening a sword was presented "in honor of the surrender of Vicksburg."

The city had been accounted one of the most beautiful of the South, of commanding situation, and adorned with a profusion of shrubbery; but the rain of shot and shell had sadly marred its beauty. But few buildings were entirely demolished; yet there was scarcely a house in Vicksburg that remained unscathed; in all of them were frightful looking holes in the walls and floors. The streets had been ploughed up by shells. In walking along the pavement one had to exercise care not to tumble into a pit dug by a projectile from a thirteen-inch mortar, or from a Parrott gun. The yards, gardens, and open lots were cut up with shot holes. Nearly every gate in the city was crowned with unexploded thirteen-inch shells placed a-top of each post, and the porches and piazzas were adorned with curious collections of shot and shell that had fallen within the inclosures. Everywhere were to be found evidences of the fiery ordeal through which the city had passed.

It is impossible to recount with precision the various interests involved in the fate of Vicksburg. It compelled, as its necessary consequence, the surrender of other posts on the

Mississippi, and cut the Confederacy in twain. It neutralized successes in Lower Louisiana, to which we shall presently refer. Its defence had involved exposure and weakness in other quarters. It had about stripped Charleston of troops; it had taken many thousand men from Bragg's army; and it had made such requisitions on his force for the newly organized lines in Mississippi, that that general was compelled or induced, wisely or unwisely, to fall back from Tullahoma, to give up the country on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, and practically to abandon the defence of Middle Tennessee.

The fall of Vicksburg was followed by the enemy's re-occupa tion of Jackson, the capitulation of Port Hudson, the evacuation of Yazoo city, and important events in Arkansas, which resulted in the retreat of our army from Little Rock and the surrender to the enemy of the important valley in which it is situated. To these events we must now direct the attention of the reader.

THE YANKEE RE-OCCUPATION OF JACKSON.

General Grant advanced his forces on Jackson, to which point Johnston retreated so soon as he learned the Vicksburg disaster. His policy was to march rapidly to the capture or discomfiture of General Johnston's army. On the evening of the 9th of July, his advance drove in our outer line of pickets. The troops employed in this expedition were Sherman's army corps, the Fifteenth, commanded by General Steele; the Thir teenth army corps, General Ord, commanding, with Lauman's division of Sixteenth army corps attached, a portion of the Sixteenth and Ninth army corps, commanded by General Parker, and McArthur's division of General McPherson's corpsin all about four army corps.

The works thrown up for the defence of Jackson consisted of a line of rifle-pits, prepared at intervals for artillery. These extended from a point north of the town, a little east of the Canton road, to a point south of the town, within a short distance of Pearl river, and covered most of the approaches west of the river; but were badly located and constructed, presenting but a slight obstacle to a vigorous assault.

The troops promptly took their assigned positions in the

intrenchments on the appearance of the enemy, in expectation of immediate assault: Major-general Loring occupying the right; Major-general Walker the right of the centre; Majorgeneral French the left of the centre, and Major-general Breckinridge the left. The cavalry, under Brigadier-general Jackson, was ordered to observe and guard the fords of Pearl river, above and below the town.

But the enemy, instead of attacking, as soon as he arrived, commenced intrenching and constructing batteries. On the 10th, there was spirited skirmishing with slight cannonading, continuing throughout the day. This was kept up with varying intensity. Hills commanding and encircling the town, within easy cannon range, offered favorable sites for batteries. A cross-fire of shot and shell reached all parts of the town, showing the position to be entirely untenable against a powerful artillery.

On the 12th, besides the usual skirmishing, there was a heavy cannonade from the batteries near the Canton and sonth of the Clinton roads. The missiles reached all parts of the town. An assault, though not a vigorous one, was also made on Major-general Breckinridge's line. It was quickly repelled, however, principally by the direct fire of Cobb's and Slocumb's batteries, and a flank attack of the skirmishers of the First, Third and Fourth Florida and Forty-seventh Georgia regiments. The enemy's loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was at least five hundred.*

On the 16th, General Johnston obtained information that a large train from Vicksburg, loaded with ammunition, was near the enemy's camp. This, and the condition of the enemy's batteries, made it probable that Sherman would the next day concentrate upon Jackson the fire of near two hundred guns.

During the heavy bombardment Colonel Withers was killed by the explosion of a shell near his own residence. He had just returned from the front when he was killed. He was buried at night by his faithful slave, who was fired upon by the enemy during the interment. This boy's conduct to his deceased master was a rebuke to the enemy. In the face of the enemy's position, at night, within easy range of the enemy's sharpshooters, he, with the assistance of two Confederate officers, and by the flickering light of a lamp-which was shot out of his hand while he was performing his sacred duty-carried the body of his dead master and interred it with as much affection and tender care as if it were his own child.