Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
Wilkinson, when an elderly lady answered that she was the person.
I asked her if she were from Plaquemine Parish, Louisiana, and she
said she was. I then inquired if she had a son who had been a
cadet at Alexandria when General Sherman was superintendent, and
she answered yes. I then announced myself, inquired after the boy,
and she said he was inside of Vicksburg, an artillery lieutenant.
I then asked about her husband, whom I had known, when she burst
into tears, and cried out in agony, "You killed him at Bull Run,
where he was fighting for his country!" I disclaimed killing
anybody at Bull Run; but all the women present (nearly a dozen)
burst into loud lamentations, which made it most uncomfortable for
me, and I rode away. On the 3d of July, as I sat at my bivouac by
the road-side near Trible's, I saw a poor, miserable horse,
carrying a lady, and led by a little negro boy, coming across a
cotton-field toward me; as they approached I recognized poor Mrs.
Wilkinson, and helped her to dismount. I inquired what had brought
her to me in that style, and she answered that she knew Vicksburg
was going to surrender, and she wanted to go right away to see her
boy. I had a telegraph-wire to General Grant's headquarters, and
had heard that there were symptoms of surrender, but as yet nothing
definite. I tried to console and dissuade her, but she was
resolved, and I could not help giving her a letter to General
Grant, explaining to him who she was, and asking him to give her
the earliest opportunity to see her son. The distance was fully
twenty miles, but off she started, and I afterward learned that my
letter had enabled her to see her son, who had escaped unharmed.
Later in the day I got by telegraph General Grant's notice of the
negotiations for surrender; and, by his directions, gave general
orders to my troops to be ready at a moment's notice to cross the
Big Black, and go for Joe Johnston.
The next day (July 4, 1863) Vicksburg surrendered, and orders were
given for at once attacking General Johnston. The Thirteenth Corps
(General Ord) was ordered to march rapidly, and cross the Big Black
at the railroad-bridge; the Fifteenth by Mesainger's, and the Ninth
(General Parker) by Birdsong's Ferry-all to converge on Bolton. My
corps crossed the Big Black during the 5th and 6th of July, and
marched for Bolton, where we came in with General Ord's troops; but
the Ninth Corps was delayed in crossing at Birdsong's. Johnston
had received timely notice of Pemberton's surrender, and was in
full retreat for Jackson. On the 8th all our troops reached the
neighborhood of Clinton, the weather fearfully hot, and water
scarce. Johnston had marched rapidly, and in retreating had caused
cattle, hogs, and sheep, to be driven into the ponds of water, and
there shot down; so that we had to haul their dead and stinking
carcasses out to use the water. On the 10th of July we had driven
the rebel army into Jackson, where it turned at bay behind the
intrenchments, which had been enlarged and strengthened since our
former visit in May. We closed our lines about Jackson; my corps
(Fifteenth) held the centre, extending from the Clinton to the
Raymond road; Ord's (Thirteenth) on the right, reaching Pearl River
below the town; and Parker's (Ninth) the left, above the town.
On the 11th we pressed close in, and shelled the town from every
direction. One of Ord's brigades (Lauman's) got too close, and was
very roughly handled and driven back in disorder. General Ord
accused the commander (General Lauman) of having disregarded his
orders, and attributed to him personally the disaster and heavy
loss of men. He requested his relief, which I granted, and General
Lauman went to the rear, and never regained his division. He died
after the war, in Iowa, much respected, as before that time he had
been universally esteemed a most gallant and excellent officer.
The weather was fearfully hot, but we continued to press the siege
day and night, using our artillery pretty freely; and on the
morning of July 17th the place was found evacuated. General
Steele's division was sent in pursuit as far as Brandon (fourteen
miles), but General Johnston had carried his army safely off, and
pursuit in that hot weather would have been fatal to my command.
Reporting the fact to General Grant, he ordered me to return, to
send General Parkes's corps to Haines's Bluff, General Ord's back
to Vicksburg, and he consented that I should encamp my whole corps
near the Big Black, pretty much on the same ground we had occupied
before the movement, and with the prospect of a period of rest for
the remainder of the summer. We reached our camps on the 27th of
July.
Meantime, a division of troops, commanded by Brigadier-General W.
Sooy Smith, had been added to my corps. General Smith applied for
and received a sick-leave on the 20th of July; Brigadier-General
Hugh Ewing was assigned to its command; and from that time it
constituted the Fourth Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps.
Port Hudson had surrendered to General Banks on the 8th of July (a
necessary consequence of the fall of Vicksburg), and thus
terminated probably the most important enterprise of the civil
war--the recovery of the complete control of the Mississippi River,
from its source to its mouth--or, in the language of Mr. Lincoln,
the Mississippi went "unvexed to the sea."
I put my four divisions into handsome, clean camps, looking to
health and comfort alone, and had my headquarters in a beautiful
grove near the house of that same Parson Fox where I had found the
crowd of weeping rebel women waiting for the fate of their friends
in Vicksburg.
The loss sustained by the Fifteenth Corps in the assault of May
19th, at Vicksburg, was mostly confined to the battalion of the
Thirteenth Regulars, whose commanding officer, Captain Washington,
was mortally wounded, and afterward died in the hands of the enemy,
which battalion lost seventy-seven men out of the two hundred and
fifty engaged; the Eighty-third Indiana (Colonel Spooner), and the
One Hundred and Twenty seventh Illinois (Lieutenant-Colonel
Eldridge), the aggregate being about two hundred.
In the assaults of the 22d, the loss in the Fifteenth Corps was
about six hundred.
In the attack on Jackson, Mississippi, during the 11th-16th of
July, General Ord reported the loss in the Thirteenth Army Corps
seven hundred and sixty-two, of which five hundred and thirty-three
were confined to Lauman's division; General Parkes reported, in the
Ninth Corps, thirty-seven killed, two hundred and fifty-eight
wounded, and thirty-three missing: total, three hundred and
twenty-eight. In the Fifteenth Corps the loss was less; so that,
in the aggregate, the loss as reported by me at the time was less
than a thousand men, while we took that number alone of prisoners.
In General Grant's entire army before Vicksburg, composed of the
Ninth, part of the Sixteenth, and the whole of the Thirteenth;
Fifteenth, and Seventeenth Corps, the aggregate loss, as stated by
Badeau, was:
Killed: ....................... 1243
Wounded:....................... 7095
Missing: ...................... 535
Total: ........................ 8873
Whereas the Confederate loss, as stated by the same author,
Surrendered at Vicksburg .............. 32000
Captured at Champion Hills............. 3000
Captured at Big Black Bridge .......... 2000
Captured at Port Gibson................ 2000
Captured with Loring .................. 4000
Killed and wounded .................... 10000
Stragglers............................. 3000
Total.................................. 56000
Besides which, "a large amount of public property, consisting of
railroads, locomotives, cars, steamers, cotton, guns, muskets,
ammunition, etc., etc., was captured in Vicksburg."
The value of the capture of Vicksburg, however, was not measured by
the list of prisoners, guns, and small-arms, but by the fact that
its possession secured the navigation of the great central river of
the continent, bisected fatally the Southern Confederacy, and set
the armies which had been used in its conquest free for other
purposes; and it so happened that the event coincided as to time
with another great victory which crowned our arms far away, at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. That was a defensive battle, whereas
ours was offensive in the highest acceptation of the term, and the
two, occurring at the same moment of time, should have ended the
war; but the rebel leaders were mad, and seemed determined that
their people should drink of the very lowest dregs of the cup of
war, which they themselves had prepared.
The campaign of Vicksburg, in its conception and execution,
belonged exclusively to General Grant, not only in the great whole,
but in the thousands of its details. I still retain many of his
letters and notes, all in his own handwriting, prescribing the
routes of march for divisions and detachments, specifying even the
amount of food and tools to be carried along. Many persons gave
his adjutant general, Rawlins, the credit for these things, but
they were in error; for no commanding general of an army ever gave
more of his personal attention to details, or wrote so many of his
own orders, reports, and letters, as General Grant. His success at
Vicksburg justly gave him great fame at home and abroad. The
President conferred on him the rank of major-general in the regular
army, the highest grade then existing by law; and General McPherson
and I shared in his success by receiving similar commissions as
brigadier-generals in the regular army.
But our success at Vicksburg produced other results not so
favorable to our cause--a general relaxation of effort, and desire
to escape the hard drudgery of camp: officers sought leaves of
absence to visit their homes, and soldiers obtained furloughs and
discharges on the most slender pretexts; even the General
Government seemed to relax in its efforts to replenish our ranks
with new men, or to enforce the draft, and the politicians were
pressing their schemes to reorganize or patch up some form of civil
government, as fast as the armies gained partial possession of the
States.
In order to illustrate this peculiar phase of our civil war, I give
at this place copies of certain letters which have not heretofore
been published:
[Private.]
WASHINGTON, August 29, 1868.
Major-General W. T. SHERMAN, Vicksburg, Mississippi
My DEAR GENERAL: The question of reconstruction in Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Arkansas, will soon come up for decision of the
Government, and not only the length of the war, but our ultimate
and complete success, will depend upon its decision. It is a
difficult matter, but I believe it can be successfully solved, if
the President will consult opinions of cool and discreet men, who
are capable of looking at it in all its bearings and effects. I
think he is disposed to receive the advice of our generals who have
been in these States, and know much more of their condition than
gassy politicians in Congress. General Banks has written pretty
fully, on the subject. I wrote to General Grant, immediately,
after the fall of Vicksburg, for his views in regard to
Mississippi, but he has not yet answered.
I wish you would consult with Grant, McPherson, and others of cool,
good judgment, and write me your views fully, as I may wish to use
them with the President. You had better write me unofficially, and
then your letter will not be put on file, and cannot hereafter be
used against you. You have been in Washington enough to know how
every thing a man writes or says is picked up by his enemies and
misconstrued. With kind wishes for your further success,
I am yours truly,
H. W. HALLECK
[Private and Confidential.]