WALNUT HILLS [above
Vicksburg], June 2, 1863.
Since our arrival here I have written you several short letters
and one telegraph despatch, simply telling you of our safety. I suppose by this
time you have heard enough of our march and safe arrival on the Yazoo whereby
we re-established our communications, supplying the great danger of this
roundabout movement. We were compelled to feel and assault Vicksburg, as it was
the only way to measure the amount of opposition to be apprehended. We now know
that it is strongly fortified on all sides and that the garrison is determined
to defend it to the last. We could simply invest the place and allow famine and
artillery to finish the work, but we know that desperate efforts will be made
to relieve the place. Joe Johnston, one of the most enterprising of all their
generals, is assembling from every quarter an army at Jackson and Canton, and
he will soon be coming down between the Yazoo and Black. Of course Grant is
doing all he can to provide against every contingency. He sent to Banks, but
Banks is investing Port Hudson and asks for reinforcements from us. All the men
that can be spared from West Tennessee will be called here, and I trust
Rosecrans will not allow any of Bragg's army to be detached against us, but we
hear he is planting gardens and it may be he will wait to gather a crop. The
weather is now very hot and we are digging roads and approaches so that it
tells on our men, but they work cheerfully and I have approaches and parallels
within eighty yards of the enemy's line. Daily we open a cannonade and make the
dirt fly, but the Rebels lay close in their pits and holes and we cannot tell
what execution is done. I pity the poor families in Vicksburg. Women and
children are living in caves and holes underground whilst our shot and shells
tear through their houses overhead. Daily and nightly conflagrations occur, but
still we cannot see the mischief done. We can see the Court House and steeples
of churches, also houses on the hills back of town, but the city lies on the
face of the hill towards the river, and that is hidden from view by the shape
of ground. The hills are covered with trees and are very precipitous, affording
us good camps. I have mine close up on a spur where we live very comfortably. I
go out every morning and supervise the progress of work, and direct the fire of
the guns. The enemy's sharpshooters have come very near hitting me several
times, but thus far I have escaped unhurt. Pitzman, my engineer, was shot in
the hip and is gone North. . . .
The Northern papers bring accounts of our late movements
very much exaggerated, but still approximating the truth. I did not go to
Haines' Bluff at all, because the moment I reached the ground in its rear I was
master of it, pushed on to the very gates of Vicksburg and sent cavalry back to
Haines to pick up the points of the strategic movement. Grant is now deservedly
the hero. He is entitled to all the credit of the movement which was risky and
hazardous in the extreme and succeeded because of its hazard. He is now
belabored with praise by those who a month ago accused him of all the sins in
the calendar, and who next week will turn against him if so blows the popular
breeze.
Vox populi, vox humbug. We are in good fighting trim, and I
expect still more hard knocks. The South will not give up Vicksburg without the
most desperate struggle. In about three days we ought to be able to make
another assault, carrying our men well up to the enemy's ditch under cover. . .
.
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 263-5. 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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