This day beholds a cordon of steel, with rivets of brave
hearts, surrounding Vicksburg. The enemy left their fortifications on the
first, twelfth, fourteenth, sixteenth and eighteenth of this month, and dealt
their best blows to prevent the occurrence of what we have just
accomplished—the surrounding of their well fortified city. We have now come
here to compel them to surrender, and we are prepared to do it either by charge
or by siege, and they cannot say to us nay. They have fought well to keep their
homes free from invasion, and surely deserve praise for their brave return to
battle after so many defeats. Our army encircles the city from the river above
to the river below, a distance of seven and a half miles.
The three corps have taken respective positions as follows:
Sherman's Fifteenth occupies the right of the line, resting on the river above;
General McClernand's Thirteenth touches the river below, while McPherson's
Seventeenth stands in the center. Our own division, commanded by Logan,
occupies the road leading to Jackson.
In taking our position we did a great deal of skirmishing,
and I suppose the same difficulty was probably experienced by the rest of the
line. We have been nineteen days on the march around Vicksburg, and the time
has been full of excitement— quite too varied for a comprehensive view just
now, but those who have borne a part in it will store it all away in memory, to
be gone over between comrades by piece-meal, when they meet after the war is
over.
The personal experience of even the humblest soldier will
get a hearing in years to come, for it is the little things in an unusual life
that are most entertaining, and personal observations from the rank and file,
narrated by those who saw what they describe, will make some of the most instructive
paragraphs of the war's history.
This has been a day to try the nerves of the boys, while
taking position in front to invest the doomed city. It has been a day to try
men's souls, and hearts, too. The long lines of rebel earthworks following the zig-zag
courses of the hills, and black field guns still menacing from their
port-holes, bristle with defiance to the invaders.
Our regiment, the 20th Ohio, being ordered in position on
the Jackson road, immediately passed to the left in front of Fort Hill, where
it stood ready to charge at a moment's notice. Meanwhile Colonel Force
cautiously made his way in front of the different companies and spoke
familiarly to his men words of encouragement. Said he, "boys, I expect we
shall be ordered to charge the fort. I shall run right at it, and I hope every
man will follow me." At that instant a soldier of one of the companies on
the left was found snugly hid in a ravine under the roots of a tree, and his
lieutenant's attention being called to the fact, he was ordered out, when he
replied, "lieutenant, I do not believe I am able to make such a
charge."
SOURCE: Osborn Hamiline Oldroyd, A Soldier's Story
of the Siege of Vicksburg, p. 27-9
No comments:
Post a Comment