WALNUT HILLS, June 11,
1863.
. . . I don't believe I can give you an idea of matters
here. You will read so much about Vicksburg and the people now gathered about
it that you will get bewildered, and I will wait till maps become more
abundant. I miss Pitzman very much. I feel his loss just as I did that of
Morgan L. Smith at Chickasaw, both wounded in the hip, reconnoitering. So far
as Vicksburg is concerned the same great features exist. The deep washes and
ravines with trees felled makes a network of entangled abattis all round the
city, and if we had a million of men we would be compelled to approach it by
the narrow heads of columns which approach the concealed trenches and casemates
of a concealed and brave and desperate enemy. We cannot carry our men across
this continuous parapet without incurring fearful loss. We have been working
making roads and paths around spurs, up hollows, until I now have on my front
of over two miles three distinct ways by which I can get close up to the ditch,
but still each has a narrow front and any man who puts his head above ground
has his head shot off. All day and night continues the sharp crack of the rifle
and deep sound of mortars and cannon hurling shot and shell at the doomed city.
I think we have shot twenty thousand cannon balls and many millions of musket
balls into Vicksburg, but of course the great mass of these bury into the earth
and do little harm. We fire one hundred shot to their one, but they being
scarce of ammunition take better care not to waste it. I rode away round to
McClernand's lines the day before yesterday, and found that he was digging his
ditches and parallels further back from the enemy than where I began the first
day. My works are further advanced than any other, but still it will take some
time to dig them out. The truth is we trust to the starvation. Accounts vary
widely. Some deserters say they have plenty to eat, and others say they are
down to pea bread and poor beef. I can see horses and mules gently grazing
within the lines and therefore do not count on starvation yet. All their
soldiers are in the trenches and none know anything but what occurs close to
them. Food is cooked by negroes back in the hollows in rooms cut out of the hills
and carried to them by night. The people, women and children, have also cut
houses underground out of the peculiar earth, where they live in comparative
safety from our shells and shot. Still I know great execution must have been
done, and Vicksburg at this moment must be a horrid place. Yet the people have
been wrought up to such a pitch of enthusiasm that I have not yet met one but
would prefer all to perish rather than give up. They feel doomed, but rely on
Joe Johnston. Of him we know but little save we hear of a force at Yazoo City,
at Canton, Jackson and Clinton. . . .
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 266-7. A full copy of this letter can
be found in the William
T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives
(UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 2/05.
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