Under Siege! (7 page)

That evening Mary and her husband took a carriage ride through the streets of Vicksburg. Later they sat on their friends’ veranda to enjoy the balmy night air. Mary found herself studying the river through her spyglass, watching the Union ships anchored north of the city. Finally she put the glass away and prepared for bed. But she could not stop thinking about the enemy fleet. “Resting in Vicksburg,” she noted, “seemed like resting near a volcano.”

When the shelling started, Mary awoke instantly. “I sprang from my bed, drew on my slippers and robe, and went out on the veranda … The river was illuminated by large fires on the bank, and we could discern plainly the huge, black masses floating down with the current, now and then belching forth fire from their sides … and we could hear the shells exploding in the upper part of town … We could hear the gallop, in the darkness, of couriers upon the paved streets; we could hear the voices of the soldiers on the riverside. The rapid firing from the boats, the roar of the Confederate batteries, and, above all, the screaming, booming sound of the shells, as they exploded in the air and around the city, made at once a new and fearful scene to me.”

Mary’s husband had to report immediately to his regiment. As he was leaving, he urged her to seek shelter in their hosts’ backyard cave. “While I hesitated,” Mary recalled, “… a shell exploded near the side of the house. Fear instantly decided me and I ran, guided by one of the ladies, who pointed down the steep slope of the hill … While I was considering the best way of descending the hill, another shell exploded … I flew down, half sliding and running. Before I had reached the mouth of the cave, two more exploded on the side of the hill near me. Breathless and terrified, I found the entrance and ran in, having left one of my slippers on the hill-side.

“Shell after shell fell in the valley below us, exploding with a loud, rumbling noise, perfectly deafening. The cave was an excavation in the earth the size of a large room, high enough for the tallest person to stand perfectly erect, provided with comfortable seats, and altogether quite a large and habitable abode … were it not for the dampness and the constant contact with the soft earthy walls.”

When the shelling stopped after two impossibly long hours, Mary and the others cautiously emerged, shaken but safe. They watched the river as the one Union boat that had been hit by Confederate fire slowly burned and sank. “We remained on the veranda an hour or more, the gentlemen speculating on the result of the successful run by the batteries,” Mary reported. “All were astonished and chagrined.”

The next day townspeople watched in disbelief as Union troops set up two large cannon on the Louisiana shore, directly across from the Vicksburg waterfront, and opened fire. A few shells reached land, and once again the earth rumbled and exploded.

Mary’s only thought was to get back to her little daughter in Jackson. At the station, where several shells had already fallen, she waited anxiously for the train to arrive. Finally “the glad sound of the whistle was heard, and, after our long suspense, we felt the motion of the cars again, and were glad to leave Vicksburg, with the sound of the cannon and noise of the shell still ringing in our ears.”

G
RANT
’
S SUCCESS
shook the little city to its very core. Townspeople had felt secure, even invincible. But with the Yankee fleet now below Vicksburg, they realized that Grant could easily transport his army across the river and would then be in a strong position to attack.

Knowing how risky it was to remain in Vicksburg, Willie’s parents faced a difficult decision. Dr. Lord was determined to stay to care for his congregation. But when word arrived from a friend who owned a large
plantation a few miles outside town that the family was welcome to come there, he and his wife decided that she and the children should go. The next day, according to Willie, “our entire household, excepting only my father … departed for Flowers’ plantation near the Big Black River, where shelter and entertainment had been offered us in anticipation of the shelling of the city. Our most valued household effects, including my father’s library … followed us in a canvas covered army wagon.” Margaret Lord was from a wealthy family, and the wagon also carried her beautiful clothes, along with valuable rugs, mirrors, paintings, and other household furnishings. Before leaving Vicksburg, she had the house slaves bury the heavy family silver in the churchyard.

At the Flowers plantation, the Lords received, in Willie’s words, “a planter’s cordial welcome … Here we were most pleasantly domiciled, to remain undisturbed, as my father hoped, as long as the siege should last.”

L
UCY
’
S FAMILY
also sought refuge outside Vicksburg. The day after the Federal troops ran past the blockade, her parents decided that her father would stay behind so he could look after business interests, while her mother would take the children to the comfortable home they owned just outside the small town of Bolton’s Depot, thirty miles from Vicksburg. Like the Lords, they took along their most valuable household furniture and treasures for safekeeping. Their slaves, Rice and Mary Ann, went with them.

Whatever the task, Rice obediently did what he was told, but Lucy could see his growing reluctance. She didn’t believe for a moment that Yankees would
ever
set foot in Vicksburg, but they
were
nearby, and lots of slaves were running away from their masters to find refuge with the Union troops and claim their freedom.

How would her family ever get along if Rice left them? And what would he do if he were free?

AT THE BATTLE FRONT
Late Spring 1863

W
hen Fred woke up the morning of May 1, his father was not in the cabin the two of them shared belowdecks, nor could Fred find him anywhere on the ship. General Lorenzo Thomas, who was in charge, told him that Grant had gone to Port Gibson, eight miles away, and that “I was to remain where I was until he came back.” That was an order. Fred could get no more information from him.

The Union army was now on Mississippi soil, twenty miles south of Vicksburg. The first thing Grant wanted to do was to secure the river coast for the Federals by seizing control of Grand Gulf and Port Gibson, both Confederate strongholds. Two days earlier, on April 29, Admiral Porter’s ironclads had tried to take Grand Gulf but had failed. As Fred now knew, today his father was attacking Port Gibson.

Fred stood at the ship’s railing, watching all the activity around him. Onshore he saw troops preparing to march in the direction of the cannon fire he could hear in the distance.

He knew what he had to do. He respected his father, and he strived to be a good soldier and obey orders. But he could not wait out the battle here onboard ship. He
had
to go.

Porter’s ships, now successfully downstream from Vicksburg, transported Grants army across the Mississippi River at Bruinsburg on April 30. The following day Grant attacked the Confederates at Port Gibson.

He saw his chance when a rabbit onshore caught his eye. All innocence, “I asked General Thomas to let me go ashore and catch the rabbit.”

The unsuspecting Thomas gave permission, and moments later Fred was onshore and running. He caught up to a wagon train and was able to ride one of the mules for a while before marching with an artillery group and then a regiment. The whole time the sounds of battle were coming closer.

Fred didn’t describe what happened next, but soldiers often felt overwhelmed and confused by their first taste of battle. Fred may have been momentarily deafened by the roar of cannon, or even knocked to his knees when the ground shook from the thunderous blasts. It is hard to imagine what he must have felt as the air became hazy with smoke and he heard the sounds of gunfire and the shouts and cries of his comrades, some falling under fire.

He did report that he eventually spotted his father on his horse watching the unfolding scene. He wanted to go to him, he recalled, but “my guilty conscience so troubled me that I hid from his sight behind a tree.”

When he thought it was not possible for the battle to last another minute, the Union troops, who greatly outnumbered the Rebels, finally got the upper hand. As they rushed forward, the sun already beginning to set, Fred joined the shouts of “Hurrah!” for “the enemy had given way.”

He ran onto the battlefield among the exhausted, jubilant men, cheering, but as the celebration began to die down and he looked around, he was suddenly sobered. Fallen soldiers were everywhere, some dead, some dying, many begging for help. This would not have been his first time seeing casualties: two days earlier, after the battle for Grand Gulf, he had seen
sailors on the ironclads who had been killed or injured and it had sickened him. Now, at Port Gibson, “the horrors of a battlefield were brought vividly before me,” he said. “Night came on and I walked among our men in the moonlight.” Though dazed, he realized that all about him, soldiers who were uninjured were helping with the dead and wounded. “I followed four soldiers who were carrying a dead man in a blanket. They put the body down a slope of a little hill among a dozen other bodies. The sight made me faint… and I hurried on.”