The gunboat "Tyler" came up last night and is lying here this morning. I helped make out muster-rolls today.
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, p. 43
We had a heavy rain storm last night. I finished making out the muster rolls for January and February.
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, p. 43
We had a warm and sultry day which ended in a thunder and hail storm. We had dress parade at 4 o'clock.
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, p. 43
Helped get out the morning report book in the forenoon. At noon the company formed and we marched up town and received our pay. Mine was nineteen dollars. Cold and windy today. At about 2 o'clock heavy cannonading was heard on the other side of the river in the direction of Yazoo City. It was continued until after dark, and in the night it started again and continued for some time.
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, p. 43
Cold, rainy and disagreeable. We paid old Sampson off and let him go. We still have our house and cook in it, and are living very well at present. We draw crackers two-fifths of the time, and flour the remainder. We use cistern water altogether. The spirits of the troops are higher than they have been in six months. If old Abe would only call back a portion of the first volunteers they could soon annihilate the enemy.
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. 43-4
Bright and pleasant. About one hundred and twenty-five Nigs were set to work this morning to open the old levee and let the water in. We were ordered out of our house this morning. Had dress parade at 4 o'clock. The sentences of F, Co. A and W, Co. C, were read. The charges were attempted desertion. The sentence was the forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and to be confined in the military prison at Alton, Ill., with a ball attached to the leg by a chain four feet long, to serve out the remainder of the time of their enlistment, and at the end of the three years to have "D" branded on their right hips, their heads shaved, and to be drummed out of service. Some letters were read from the parents of the boys, counselling them to desert.
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, p. 44
Clear and pleasant. I made out the quarterly returns. For some reason they have suspended work on the cut.
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, p. 44
Bright and clear. Drill forenoon and afternoon. Dress parade in the evening, the same as yesterday. We had a game of baseball in the evening. I worked all day on the pay rolls.
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, p. 44
Warm and rainy. I arose before roll call and took a walk down to the levee. Vegetation is starting rapidly. Peach trees are just in bloom, and some are leaved out. Logan's division came down and embarked on transports during the day.
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. 44-5
The long expected opening in the levee was made this evening, amid the shouts and cheers of the two divisions. The water was let through in two places, each about two feet wide. The heavy clay banks melted away rapidly. Along in the night we heard heavy cannonading.
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, p. 45
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
The cut has washed about one hundred feet since yesterday. The water in the ditch is rising fast.
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, p. 46
Cloudy, looks like rain. Cleaning up and ditching our camp was the order of the day. I was on the detail to dig a ditch on each side of the camp. The banks of the ditch are slowly washing back. It is now about one hundred and fifty feet at the first levee, and two hundred at the second. Water is slowly rising in both the ditch and the lake. The President has given deserters until April to report at a certain depot. Co. K expects about four back.
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, p. 46
I was up at reveille as usual and went down to the ditch. To my surprise I saw a big oak just outside the channel washed up by the roots. The tree was about three feet in diameter. Another of nearly the same size washed out before noon. I went fishing this morning. We can see fish weighing from forty to one hundred pounds, working up against the current. I threw my spear at them, but they were too far off. I saw a laughable incident this evening in front of McPherson's headquarters. Some of the boys were trying to fasten a yawl to a tree and float down to where the fish were showing themselves in an eddy. The first time they missed the tree and went whirlnig into the center of the channel and came very near upsetting. They finally brought it to, and after a good deal of hard work, got it into position for another trial. This time they were successful, caught a projecting limb and pulled themselves into the eddy formed by rushing around the tree. After they had made themselves fast by a long rope, they undertook to get out of the eddy, which proved no easy job, for as soon as one end was pushed into the current the boat would whirl around and back up into its former position. While on the whirl it threw off one man's hat. McPherson and officers and nearly the whole regiment were out watching them, and the cheering was loud enough to raise the dead. It was nearly dark when they got out of their predicament. I worked nearly all day on the company's papers.
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. 46-7
The water rose in the canal so that it ran up into our camp in the night. It washed away the trees that were rooted up yesterday. The channel is smooth and a good boat could go through it. One year ago today we left Winchester, Virginia, on our march for Manasses Junction. Part of Providence was burned this afternoon. The few citizens and Negroes whom the raise of the water had overtaken, were wading in the streets, waist deep, trying to save what things they had left.
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, p. 47
We had orders to draw and cook one day's rations early this morning. The water rose a good deal last night, and nothing but a small temporary levee keeps the camp from being inundated, and that is being washed away. The cattle and mules are all being driven higher up.
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. 47-8
It rained all night. Our tent leaked like a seive. We still remain in camp but it has rained nearly all day.
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, p. 48
We had a hard storm last night, with heavy thunder. This afternoon some miserable fellows set fire to some buildings, among them a church. Such men should be sent to Alton. The channel is deepening and widening, and the water is rising. It is now about two feet above our camp. I expect some dark night to be wading out to our transports, and that right suddenly. The news came last night that a number of Farragut's fleet were at the mouth of the ditch, below Vicksburg, and that he had taken Warrentown with all its ordinance. Gen. Carr's division went down on transports today.
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, p. 48
* Blog Editor’s Note: Fanny (also reported as Annie) Wilson, a woman from New Jersey who enlisted disguised as a man and served approximately eighteen months in the Union army before being discovered during the Vicksburg campaign in March 1863.
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, p. 48
Two large gunboats, both ironclads, went up early this morning. Troops are passing down.
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. 48-9
