Diary of Private Louis Leon: October 1864

We have got the smallpox in prison, and from six to twelve are taken out dead daily. We can buy from prisoners rats, 25 cents each, killed and dressed. Quite a number of our boys have gone into the rat business. On the 11th of this month there were 800 sick prisoners sent South on parole.

SOURCE: Louis Leon, Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, p. 68

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant George G. Smith: November 18, 1864

Col. Fisk seized the freight house at the depot. It was about 200 feet long and was stowed just as full of hard bread as it could be packed; so he had a good large force of men detailed to clear the house and myself to take charge of it. Our occupation was changed from killing men to killing rats. We soon discovered that some of the boxes had rat holes gnawed in them and the bread most all eaten out. By and by we began to see rats. There were two or three little rat terriers running around and they began to see them too. Then they caught two or three. That nearly set them wild, so that every box that was moved they stood ready for the rats. Other dogs came, so that we had ten or a dozen dogs before we got through: but as we proceeded the rats would retreat, so that by the time we got half way through they began to be pretty plentiful. The dogs would not eat them, but as fast as they would kill one they would snatch up another; then the boys would pile them up, and at the final wind up it became a circus. The dogs had all they could do. Of course we did not count them, but the number ran into the hundreds. As the men had slept the night before in wet clothes, I went to the quartermaster and told him I wanted some whiskey for the men; he told me to get what I wanted, and said there was a pail. I got a pail full, and had the men fall in, in one rank, and carried the pail along and told them to drink all they wanted. Some of them would fill their cup pretty full, but they were equal to the occasion. Then I marched them back to their quarters, and broke ranks before the medicine began to take effect. However, I did not see any one any the worse for it. Sheetiron ranges were put in for each company, and they had good comfortable quarters. Most of the officers found accommodations at the hotel.

SOURCE: Abstracted from George G. Smith, Leaves from a Soldier's Diary, p. 137-8

A Woman's Diary Of The Siege Of Vicksburg: July 3, 1863

H—— was going to headquarters for the requisite pass, and he saw General Pemberton crawling out of a cave, for the shelling has been as hot as ever. He got the pass, but did not act with his usual caution, for the boat he secured was a miserable, leaky one — a mere trough. Leaving Martha in charge, we went to the river, had our trunks put in the boat, and embarked; but the boat became utterly unmanageable, and began to fill with water rapidly. H saw that we could not cross in it and turned to come back; yet in spite of that the pickets at the battery fired on us. H—— raised the white flag he had, yet they fired again, and I gave a cry of horror that none of these dreadful things had wrung from me. I thought H—— was struck. When we landed H—— showed the pass, and said that the officer had told him the battery would be notified we were to cross. The officer apologized and said they were not notified. He furnished a cart to get home, and to-day we are down in the cellar again, shells flying as thick as ever. Provisions so nearly gone, except the hogshead of sugar, that a few more days will bring us to starvation indeed. Martha says rats are hanging dressed in the market for sale with mule meat, — there is nothing else. The officer at the battery told me he had eaten one yesterday. We have tried to leave this Tophet and failed, and if the siege continues I must summon that higher kind of courage — moral bravery — to subdue my fears of possible mutilation.

SOURCE: George W. Cable, “A Woman's Diary Of The Siege Of Vicksburg”, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 5, September 1885, p. 773-4