Saturday, September 5, 2026

Diary of Private Seth J. Wells, March 17, 1863

Hot and sultry. I got up at reveille and went down to see how the cut prospered, and found the water rushing through, a perfect torrent. The channel had washed out about one hundred feet and is still washing. If it does not succeed, it will not be for want of water. Captain Bush went through in a yawl this morning. It was a dangerous experiment, but he came out all right. In the course of the day some of Co. A went through with the same result. Some of the boys disturbed the bricks in one of the vaults in the cemetery and exposed a cast iron coffin, hermetically sealed. The lid was moved and the head and shoulders of a man who had been dead for eighteen years were visible through the glass. It is a shame the way this cemetery has been used. The Nigs are at work putting up a temporary levee between camp and the ditch, as some of the town is being overflowed. The 11th Ill. and 14th Wis. of our division went up the river a few miles and we hear they had a fight. Logan's division started up this morning.

SOURCE: Seth James Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells, Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, pp. 45-6

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