It is quite pleasant
today. The Mississippi river is slowly rising. Produce is very high here at
Vicksburg and fruit and vegetables are scarce this fall because of the large
armies in and around this section for more than a year. What little stuff has
been grown by the farmers was confiscated by the soldiers before it was
matured, so what we get is shipped down from the North, and we have to pay
about four prices for it. Potatoes and onions are $4.00 a bushel, cheese (with
worms) is fifty cents per pound, and butter — true, it's only forty cents a
pound, but you can tell the article in camp twenty rods away. Vicksburg being
under military rule makes it difficult for the few citizens to get supplies,
which they can obtain only from the small traders who continued in business
after the surrender, or from the army sutlers. No farmers are allowed to come
in through the lines without passes, and even then no farmer, unless he lives a
long distance from Vicksburg, has anything to bring in.
Source: Alexander G.
Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary,
p. 149-50
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