Mississippians refused to learn how to surrender

Published 12:00 am Sunday, July 17, 2011

Gettysburg undoubtedly is the most famous battle of the American Civil War.

Lincoln’s speech on Nov. 19, 1863, helped solidify this fact. However, Vicksburg, Miss., was the key to all of Mississippi, if not the entire Civil War. If the United States could conquer it, the “Father of Waters” would be in Union hands, but if Vicksburg continued to defy Union armies and navies, the War would continue even longer.

President Lincoln felt strongly about conquering the “Gibraltar of the West.” He stated: “We may take all the northern ports of the Confederacy and they can still defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the States of the far South, and a cotton country where they can raise the staple without interference.”

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This fortress stood on high bluffs (200 feet high) on the eastern bank of the Mississippi commanding the great bend of the river. The city had great natural defenses consisting of high bluffs, swamps, canebrakes, and rivers. Everyone recognized it as the prime prize on America’s greatest river.

Vicksburg bragged of a city orchestra, a Shakespeare repertory company, and a striking courthouse in the Greek Revival style. The city’s residents considered it a center of “culture, education, and luxury.”

The 200-foot bluffs were crowned with batteries of big guns that swept the river. Many thought the city could never be conquered by frontal attack from the river or from across a plain to the east.

To the north lay the Yazoo River delta, a maze of bayou, river, and swamp no attacking army could wade through. Vicksburg would experience bombardments by the federal navy from the river and later, became the target of a powerful Union army led by a man named “Grant.”

After Vicksburg did fall to the Union army, it had witnessed six battles and a siege that left the proud city in ruins. Vicksburg’s residents overestimated the comforts of Mississippi geography and criticisms of a Major General named “Grant.”

The United States underestimated the abilities of Vicksburg’s residents to sacrifice and suffer on the individual, family, and community levels.

The campaign to win Vicksburg began on May 18, 1862, and it surrendered at 10:00 a.m. on July 4, 1863. Many efforts occurred within that timespan, but Vicksburg would finally fall due to siege and intense bombardment.

The siege began on May 18, 1863. Within this siege, residents of Vicksburg showed an incomparable dedication to the “Cause” and unbelievable adjustments to civilian privation perhaps not yet witnessed in the annals of American military history.

Union forces encircled Vicksburg, a town of approximately 5,000 residents, of whom 1,400 were slaves. A Confederate officer stated that “a cat could not have crept out of Vicksburg without being discovered.” This siege would last 47 days.

Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had lost 12,000 men during the battles outside of the town. He had to hold his boundaries with just over 22,000 Southerners. Cave digging had become big business. A small, one-room cave would be dug for $20.00. A cave of multiple rooms, braced by timbers, could be bought for $50.00.

There were some “communal caves” that held 100 persons during heavy shelling. It is estimated that the citizens of Vicksburg lived in nearly 500 caves of differing sizes after their private homes had been repeatedly shelled. There was no glass left intact in the town.

During lapses between bombardments, people left to look for food, nurse the newly-wounded, and check on their homes for more recent damage. Their children, slaves, and pets would play outside the caves when the shelling ceased. Bombshells from mortar-guns on the river lobbed 300 pound artillery pieces which in exploding created holes big as a cellar. Families brought furniture, lamps, carpets, milk cows, slaves, and pets to their caves.

These domestic necessities became “homes” for mosquitoes and snakes. Before the siege was lifted, hospitals housed 6,000. Only 12 town residents would die during the 47 day bombardment.

Women of Vicksburg used all flannel available and then turned to tablecloths, curtains, and petticoats for material to roll cartridges in.

Newspapers were printed on the reverse sides of wallpaper stripped from homes and businesses. Shoes were made from fashioning old coat sleeves and sewing them to usable soles. Smokers used dried sumac leaves for tobacco. Coffee was made from sweet potatoes.

“General Starvation” was as great an enemy as Grant’s Union forces. All beef was long gone and mules were butchered to provide a substitute at $1.00 per pound. At Vicksburg markets, freshly dressed rats were sold.

If you ate rat meat, you told yourself it was “squirrel stew,” although the squirrels had been gone for a long time. The Southern army had killed all dogs to survive. Bread was made of pea meal with some corn meal. The corn meal cooked faster than the pea meal and burned before the bread was even half done.

Mary Ann Loughborough’s young daughter grew very weak and there was no food for her. A Southern soldier brought the little girl a jaybird to play with. As the little girl grew worse, Mary Ann’s slave, “Cinth,” brought the girl a bowl of soup with a small plate of tiny, white meat.

The jaybird saved the girl’s life. Cane shoots, tree roots, and tree buds kept many alive in Vicksburg, but even those sources disappeared. Residents of the town pressed on because they knew their boys in Pemberton’s trenches were worse off than they. The siege finally ended on the morning of July 4, 1863.

Crying civilians met crying soldiers after the cease-fire. As Union soldiers entered Vicksburg, they took their haversacks filled with provisions and approached the famished Southern soldiers.

More than once was heard this remark: “Here Reb, I know you are starved nearly to death. . . .”

The residents of Vicksburg did not forget that surrender on July 4, 1863, nor the sacrifices in the 47 day siege.

They remembered so well that they would not recognize “July 4th” or “Independence Day” in their town until 1945.