_ The story of the capture of Vicksburg is the old, old story of failure
turned into success, by which man is made immortal. It involves the
history of a general who never retraced his steps, who cared neither for
mugwump murmurs nor political cabals, who took both blame and praise with
equanimity. Through month after month of discouragement, and work gone
for naught, and fever and death, his eyes never left his goal. And by
grace of the wisdom of that President who himself knew sorrow and
suffering and defeat and unjust censure, General Grant won.
Boldness did it. The canal abandoned, one red night fleet and transports
swept around the bend and passed the city's heights, on a red river. The
Parrotts and the Dahlgrens roared, and the high bluffs flung out the
sound over the empty swamp land.
Then there came the landing below, and the cutting loose from a base--
unheard of. Corps behind cursed corps ahead for sweeping the country
clear of forage. Battles were fought. Confederate generals in
Mississippi were bewildered.
One night, while crossing with his regiment a pontoon bridge, Stephen
Brice heard a shout raised on the farther shore. Sitting together on a
log under a torch, two men in slouch hats were silhouetted. That one
talking with rapid gestures was General Sherman. The impassive profile
of the other, the close-cropped beard and the firmly held cigar that
seemed to go with it,--Stephen recognized as that of the strange Captain
Grant who had stood beside him in the street by the Arsenal He had not
changed a whit. Motionless, he watched corps after corps splash by,
artillery, cavalry, and infantry, nor gave any sign that he heard their
plaudits.
At length the army came up behind the city to a place primeval, where the
face of the earth was sore and tortured, worn into deep gorges by the
rains, and flung up in great mounds. Stripped of the green magnolias and
the cane, the banks of clay stood forth in hideous yellow nakedness, save
for a lonely stunted growth, or a bare trunk that still stood tottering
on the edge of a banks its pitiful withered roots reaching out below.
The May weather was already sickly hot.
First of all there was a murderous assault, and a still more murderous
repulse. Three times the besiegers charged, sank their color staffs into
the redoubts, and three times were driven back. Then the blue army
settled into the earth and folded into the ravines. Three days in that
narrow space between the lines lay the dead and wounded suffering untold
agonies in the moist heat. Then came a truce to bury the dead, to bring
back what was left of the living.
The doomed city had no rest. Like clockwork from the Mississippi's banks
beyond came the boom and shriek of the coehorns on the barges. The big
shells hung for an instant in the air like birds of prey, and then could
be seen swooping down here and there, while now and anon a shaft of smoke
rose straight to the sky, the black monument of a home.
Here was work in the trenches, digging the flying sap by night and
deepening it by day, for officers and men alike. From heaven a host of
blue ants could be seen toiling in zigzags forward, ever forward, along
the rude water-cuts and through the hills. A waiting carrion from her
vantage point on high marked one spot then another where the blue ants
disappeared, and again one by one came out of the burrow to hurry down
the trench,--each with his ball of clay.
In due time the ring of metal and sepulchred voices rumbled in the ground
beneath the besieged. Counter mines were started, and through the narrow
walls of earth commands and curses came. Above ground the saps were so
near that a strange converse became the rule. It was "Hello, Reb!"
"Howdy, Yank!" Both sides were starving, the one for tobacco and the
other for hardtack and bacon. These necessities were tossed across,
sometimes wrapped in the Vicksburg news-sheet printed on the white side
of a homely green wall paper. At other times other amenities were
indulged in. Hand-grenades were thrown and shells with lighted fuses
rolled down on the heads of acquaintances of the night before, who
replied from wooden coehorns hooped with iron.
The Union generals learned (common item in a siege) that the citizens of
Vicksburg were eating mule meat. Not an officer or private in the
Vicksburg armies who does not remember the 25th of June, and the hour of
three in an afternoon of pitiless heat. Silently the long blue files
wound into position behind the earth barriers which hid them from the
enemy, coiled and ready to strike when the towering redoubt on the
Jackson road should rise heavenwards. By common consent the rifle crack
of day and night was hushed, and even the Parrotts were silent.
Stillness closed around the white house of Shirley once more, but not the
stillness it had known in its peaceful homestead days. This was the
stillness of the death prayer. Eyes staring at the big redoubt were
dimmed. At last, to those near, a little wisp of blue smoke crept out.
Then the earth opened with a quake. The sun was darkened, and a hot
blast fanned the upturned faces. In the sky, through the film of
shattered clay, little black dots scurried, poised, and fell again as
arms and legs and head less trunks and shapeless bits of wood and iron.
Scarcely had the dust settled when the sun caught the light of fifty
thousand bayonets, and a hundred shells were shrieking across the
crater's edge. Earth to earth, alas, and dust to dust! Men who ran
across that rim of a summer's after-noon died in torture under tier upon
tier of their comrades,--and so the hole was filled.
An upright cannon marks the spot where a scrawny oak once stood on a
scarred and baked hillside, outside of the Confederate lines at
Vicksburg. Under the scanty shade of that tree, on the eve of the
Nation's birthday, stood two men who typified the future and the past.
As at Donelson, a trick of Fortune's had delivered one comrade of old
into the hands of another. Now she chose to kiss the one upon whom she
had heaped obscurity and poverty and contumely. He had ceased to think
or care about Fortune. And hence, being born a woman, she favored him.
The two armies watched and were still. They noted the friendly greeting
of old comrades, and after that they saw the self-contained Northerner
biting his cigar, as one to whom the pleasantries of life were past and
gone. The South saw her General turn on his heel. The bitterness of his
life was come. Both sides honored him for the fight he had made. But
war does not reward a man according to his deserts.
The next day--the day our sundered nation was born Vicksburg surrendered:
the obstinate man with the mighty force had conquered. See the gray
regiments marching silently in the tropic heat into the folds of that
blue army whose grip has choked them at last. Silently, too, the blue
coats stand, pity and admiration on the brick-red faces. The arms are
stacked and surrendered, officers and men are to be parolled when the
counting is finished. The formations melt away, and those who for months
have sought each other's lives are grouped in friendly talk. The coarse
army bread is drawn eagerly from the knapsacks of the blue, smoke quivers
above a hundred fires, and the smell of frying bacon brings a wistful
look into the gaunt faces. Tears stand in the eyes of many a man as he
eats the food his Yankee brothers have given him on the birthday of their
country.
Within the city it is the same. Stephen Brice, now a captain in General
Lauman's brigade, sees with thanksgiving the stars and stripes flutter
from the dome of that court-house which he had so long watched from afar,
Later on, down a side street, he pauses before a house with its face
blown away. On the verge of one of its jagged floors is an old four-
posted bed, and beside it a child's cot is standing pitifully,--the tiny
pillow still at the head and the little sheets thrown across the foot.
So much for one of the navy's shells.
While he was thinking of the sadness of it all, a little scene was acted:
the side door of the house opened, a weeping woman came out, and with her
was a tall Confederate Colonel of cavalry. Gallantly giving her his arm,
he escorted her as far as the little gate, where she bade him good by
with much feeling. With an impulsive movement he drew some money from
his pocket, thrust it upon her, and started hurriedly away that he might
not listen to her thanks. Such was his preoccupation that he actually
brushed into Stephen, who was standing beside a tree. He stopped and
bowed.
"Excuse me, seh," he said contritely. "I beg your pardon, seh."
"Certainly," said Stephen, smiling; it was my fault for getting in your
way."
"Not at all, seh," said the cavalry Colonel; "my clumsiness, seh." He
did not pass on, but stood pulling with some violence a very long
mustache. "Damn you Yankees," he continued, in the same amiable tone,
"you've brought us a heap of misfortune. Why, seh, in another week we'd
been fo'ced to eat niggers."
The Colonel made such a wry face that Stephen laughed in spite of
himself. He had marked the man's charitable action, and admired his
attempt to cover it. The Colonel seemed to be all breadth, like a card.
His shoulders were incredible. The face was scant, perchance from lack
of food, the nose large, with a curved rim, and the eyes blue gray. He
wore clay-flecked cavalry boots, and was six feet five if an inch, so
that Stephen's six seemed insignificant beside him.
"Captain," he said, taking in Stephen's rank, "so we won't qua'l as to
who's host heah. One thing's suah," he added, with a twinkle, "I've been
heah longest. Seems like ten yeahs since I saw the wife and children
down in the Palmetto State. I can't offer you a dinner, seh. We've
eaten all the mules and rats and sugar cane in town." (His eye seemed to
interpolate that Stephen wouldn't be there otherwise.) "But I can offer
you something choicer than you have in the No'th."
Whereupon he drew from his hip a dented silver flask. The Colonel
remarked that Stephen's eyes fell on the coat of arms.
"Prope'ty of my grandfather, seh, of Washington's Army. My name is
Jennison,--Catesby Jennison, at your service, seh," he said. "You have
the advantage of me, Captain."
"My name is Brice," said Stephen.
The big Colonel bowed decorously, held out a great, wide hand, and
thereupon unscrewed the flask. Now Stephen had never learned to like
straight whiskey, but he took down his share without a face. The exploit
seemed to please the Colonel, who, after he likewise had done the liquor
justice, screwed on the lid with ceremony, offered Stephen his arm with
still greater ceremony, and they walked off down the street together.
Stephen drew from his pocket several of Judge Whipple's cigars, to which
his new friend gave unqualified praise.
On every hand Vicksburg showed signs of hard usage. Houses with gaping
chasms in their sides, others mere heaps of black ruins; great trees
felled, cabins demolished, and here and there the sidewalk ploughed
across from curb to fence.
"Lordy," exclaimed the Colonel. "Lordy I how my ears ache since your
damned coehorns have stopped. The noise got to be silence with us, seh,
and yesterday I reckoned a hundred volcanoes had bust. Tell me," said he
"when the redoubt over the Jackson road was blown up, they said a nigger
came down in your lines alive. Is that so?"
"Yes," said Stephen, smiling; "he struck near the place where my company
was stationed. His head ached a mite. That seemed to be all."
"I reckon he fell on it," said Colonel Catesby Jennison, as if it were a
matter of no special note.
"And now tell me something," said Stephen. "How did you burn our sap-
rollers?"
This time the Colonel stopped, and gave himself up to hearty laughter.
"Why, that was a Yankee trick, sure enough," he cried. "Some ingenious
cuss soaked port fire in turpentine, and shot the wad in a large-bore
musket."
"We thought you used explosive bullets."
The Colonel laughed again, still more heartily. "Explosive bullets!--
Good Lord, it was all we could do to get percussion caps. Do you know
how we got percussion caps, seh? Three of our officers--dare-devils,
seh--floated down the Mississippi on logs. One fellow made his way back
with two hundred thousand. He's the pride of our Vicksburg army. Not
afraid of hell. A chivalrous man, a forlorn-hope man. The night you ran
the batteries he and some others went across to your side in skiffs--in
skiffs, seh, I say--and set fire to the houses in De Soto, that we might
see to shoot. And then he came back in the face of our own batteries and
your guns. That man was wounded by a trick of fate, by a cussed bit of
shell from your coehorns while eating his dinner in Vicksburg. He's
pretty low, now, poor fellow," added the Colonel, sadly.
"Where is he?" demanded Stephen, fired with a desire to see the man.
"Well, he ain't a great ways from here," said the Colonel. "Perhaps you
might be able to do something for him," he continued thoughtfully. I'd
hate to see him die. The doctor says he'll pull through if he can get
care and good air and good food." He seized Stephen's arm in a fierce
grip. "You ain't fooling?" he said. "Indeed I am not," said Stephen.
"No," said the Colonel, thoughtfully, as to himself, "you don't look like
the man to fool."
Whereupon he set out with great strides, in marked contrast to his former
languorous gait, and after a while they came to a sort of gorge, where
the street ran between high banks of clay. There Stephen saw the
magazines which the Confederates had dug out, and of which he had heard.
But he saw something, too, of which he had not heard, Colonel Catesby
Jennison stopped before an open doorway in the yellow bank and knocked.
A woman's voice called softly to him to enter.
They went into a room hewn out of the solid clay. Carpet was stretched
on the floor, paper was on the walls, and even a picture. There was a
little window cut like a port in a prison cell, and under it a bed,
beside which a middle-aged lady was seated. She had a kindly face which
seemed to Stephen a little pinched as she turned to them with a gesture
of restraint. She pointed to the bed, where a sheet lay limply over the
angles of a wasted frame. The face was to the wall.
"Hush!" said the lady,--"it is the first time in two days that he has
slept."
But the sleeper stirred wearily, and woke with a start. He turned over.
The face, so yellow and peaked, was of the type that grows even more
handsome in sickness, and in the great fever-stricken eyes a high spirit
burned. For an instant only the man stared at Stephen, and then he
dragged himself to the wall.
The eyes of the other two were both fixed on the young Union Captain.
"My God!" cried Jennison, seizing Stephen's rigid arm, "does he look as
bad as that? We've seen him every day."
"I--I know him," answered Stephen. He stepped quickly to the bedside,
and bent over it. "Colfax!" he said. "Colfax!"
"This is too much, Jennison," came from the bed a voice that was
pitifully weak; "why do you bring Yankees in here?"
"Captain Brice is a friend of yours, Colfax," said the Colonel, tugging
at his mustache.
"Brice?" repeated Clarence, "Brice? Does he come from St. Louis?"
"Do you come from St. Louis, sir?"
"Yes. I have met Captain Colfax--
"Colonel, sir."
"Colonel Colfax, before the war! And if he would like to go to St.Louis,
I think I can have it arranged at once.
In silence they waited for Clarence's answer Stephen well knew what was
passing in his mind, and guessed at his repugnance to accept a favor from
a Yankee. He wondered whether there was in this case a special
detestation. And so his mind was carried far to the northward to the
memory of that day in the summer-house on the Meramee heights. Virginia
had not loved her cousin then--of that Stephen was sure. But now,--now
that the Vicksburg army was ringing with his praise, now that he was
unfortunate--Stephen sighed. His comfort was that he would be the
instrument.
The lady in her uneasiness smoothed the single sheen that covered the
sick man. From afar came the sound of cheering, and it was this that
seemed to rouse him. He faced them again, impatiently.
"I have reason to remember Mr. Brice," he said steadily. And then, with
some vehemence, "What is he doing in Vicksburg?"
Stephen looked at Jennison, who winced,
"The city has surrendered," said that officer.
They counted on a burst of anger. Colfax only groaned.
"Then you can afford to be generous," he said, with a bitter laugh.
"But you haven't whipped us yet, by a good deal. Jennison," he cried,
"Jennison, why in hell did you give up?"
"Colfax," said Stephen, coming forward, "you're too sick a man to talk.
I'll look up the General. It may be that I can have you sent North
to-day."
"You can do as you please," said Clarence, coldly, "with a--prisoner."
The blood rushed to Stephen's face. Bowing to the lady, he strode out of
the room. Colonel Jennison, running after him, caught him in the street.
"You're not offended, Brice?" he said. "He's sick--and God Almighty,
he's proud--I reckon," he added with a touch of humility that went
straight to Stephen's heart. "I reckon that some of us are too derned
proud--But we ain't cold."
Stephen grasped his hand.
"Offended!" he said. "I admire the man. I'll go to the General
directly. But just let me thank you. And I hope, Colonel, that we may
meet again--as friends." "Hold on, seh," said Colonel Catesby Jennison;
"we may as well drink to that."
Fortunately, as Stephen drew near the Court House, he caught sight of
a group of officers seated on its steps, and among them he was quick to
recognize General Sherman.
"Brice," said the General, returning his salute, "been celebrating this
glorious Fourth with some of our Rebel friends?"
"Yes, sir," answered Stephen, "and I came to ask a favor for one of
them." Seeing that the General's genial, interested expression did not
change, he was emboldened to go on. "This is one of their colonels, sir.
You may have heard of him. He is the man who floated down the river on a
log and brought back two hundred thousand percussion caps--"
"Good Lord," interrupted the General, "I guess we all heard of him after
that. What else has he done to endear himself?" he asked, with a smile.
"Well, General, he rowed across the river in a skiff the night we ran
these batteries, and set fire to De Soto to make targets for their
gunners."
"I'd like to see that man," said the General, in his eager way. "Where
is he?"
"What I was going to tell you, sir. After he went through all this, he
was hit by a piece of mortar shell, while sitting at his dinner. He's
rather far gone now, General, and they say he can't live unless he can be
sent North. I--I know who he is in St. Louis. And I thought that as
long as the officers are to be paroled I might get your permission to
send him up to-day."
"What's his name?"
"Colfax, sir."
The General laughed. "I know the breed," said he, "I'll bet he didn't
thank you."
"No, sir, he didn't."
"I like his grit," said the General, emphatically, "These young
bloods are the backbone of this rebellion, Brice. They were made for
war. They never did anything except horse-racing and cock-fighting.
They ride like the devil, fight like the devil, but don't care a picayune
for anything. Walker had some of 'em. Crittenden had some. And, good
Lord, how they hate a Yankee! I know this Colfax, too. He's a cousin of
that fine-looking girl Brinsmade spoke of. They say he's engaged to her.
Be a pity to disappoint her--eh?"
"Yes, General."
"Why, Captain, I believe you would like to marry her yourself! Take my
advice, sir, and don't try to tame any wildcats."
"I'm glad to do a favor for that young man," said the General, when
Stephen had gone off with the slip of paper he had given him. "I like to
do that kind of a favor for any officer, when I can. Did you notice how
he flared up when I mentioned the girl?"
This is why Clarence Colfax found himself that evening on a hospital
steamer of the Sanitary Commission, bound north for St. Louis. _