“At three
points on the Jackson road, in front of Ransom's brigade, a sap was run up to
the enemy's parapet, and by the 25th of June we had it undermined and the mine
charged. The enemy had countermined, but did not succeed in reaching our mine.
At this particular point the hill, on which the rebel work stands rises
abruptly. Our sap ran close up to the outside of the enemy's parapet. In fact
this parapet was also our protection. The soldiers of the two sides
occasionally conversed pleasantly across this barrier; sometimes they exchanged
the hard bread of the Union soldiers for the tobacco of the Confederates; at
other times the enemy threw over hand-grenades, and often our men, catching
them in their hands, returned them.”
A “sap” is a
covered trench permitting attackers to approach a besieged position while under
fire. Union troops packed the mine with 2,200 pounds of gunpowder. On July 25,
the explosion blew apart the Confederate lines and was followed by a Union infantry
assault. The 45th Illinois Regiment charged into the 40-by-12-foot crater but
were stopped by Confederate infantry. The Union soldiers were pinned down while
the Confederate forces rolled artillery shells with short fuses into the pit.
Union engineers built a casement, permitting the troops to escape. Union miners
dug a second mine from the crater and packed it with powder. On July 1, it too
was detonated. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4.
The passage
quoted above is notable for Grant’s “human touch” in the final sentence. He reminds
us that the American Civil War was personal and often intimate. There’s also a
touch of grim humor in the grenade anecdote. In Chap. XXX, describing the start
of the Vicksburg Campaign, Grant describes an event with renewed pertinence:
“It was at
this point, probably, where the first idea of a ‘Freedman’s Bureau’ took its
origin. Orders of the government prohibited the expulsion of the negroes from
the protection of the army, when they came in voluntarily. Humanity forbade
allowing them to starve. With such an army of them, of all ages and both sexes,
as had congregated about Grand Junction, amounting to many thousands, it was
impossible to advance. There was no special authority for feeding them unless
they were employed as teamsters, cooks and pioneers with the army; but only
able-bodied young men were suitable for such work. This labor would support but
a very limited percentage of them.”
Grant describes
how a solution was reached:
“The
plantations were all deserted; the cotton and corn were ripe: men, women and
children above ten years of age could be employed in saving these crops. To do
this work with contrabands, or to have it done, organization under a competent
chief was necessary. On inquiring for such a man Chaplain Eaton, now and for
many years the very able United States Commissioner of Education, was
suggested. He proved as efficient in that field as he has since done in his
present one. I gave him all the assistants and guards he called for. We
together fixed the prices to be paid for the negro labor, whether rendered to
the government or to individuals. The cotton was to be picked from abandoned
plantations, the laborers to receive the stipulated price (my recollection is
twelve and a half cents per pound for picking and ginning) from the
quartermaster, he shipping the cotton north to be sold for the benefit of the
government. Citizens remaining on their plantations were allowed the privilege
of having their crops saved by freedmen on the same terms.
“At once the
freedmen became self-sustaining.”
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