J. J. Kellogg

“ Once during the day, when some of our forces made an advance demonstration off to our right, we saw the slender blue line advance for a distance and then, repulsed, retire, leaving the field thickly strewn with the blue sheaves Old Death had gathered so quickly. Then a rebel battery was run up behind the enemy's work in our front and enfiladed our lines. Then how gloriously our little squad did pepper that battery when they would run it up in sight. We silenced the battery, but by our carelessness we lost one of our number killed, shot in the center of the forehead, and five others wounded. ”

“ One day we captured a Johnnie skulking down in the ravine with a dozen canteens over his shoulder after water for himself and comrades.
The prices of foodstuffs in Vicksburg before the end of that siege were awful; flour was $1,000 a barrel; meal, $140 a bushel; beef, $250 a pound, and everything else in proportion. It is a wonder that poor people managed to eat at all. All the while the beleaguered garrison was sustained in their hardships and privations by the belief that Johnson would surely come to their relief, which belief was doomed to disappointment and sadly misplaced. ”

“ When I again stood up, I could see a fragment of our line only, to my left, with which I recognized our colonel and regimental colors. I started towards our flag, but had gone only a few steps when one of the enemy's shells exploded in front of me, and when the smoke had lifted a little I saw that our regimental flag and the colonel had gone down. From under the end of a log beneath where the shell had exploded rose up a comrade, Darrow by name, his red shock of hair powdered and plastered with the dust and dirt of the explosion and his eyes flashing with indignation. "Ain't it awful?" ”

“ Dame Nature had gotten Ike up without especial regard to good looks, but had braced, propped and generally supported his irregular features with wonderful bones and sinews, all contained in a close knit wrapper of inflexible cord and muscle. Like other unusually powerful men, Ike was usually the very soul of good nature; but when fully aroused and forced on the aggressive he was known and acknowledged to be a holy terror. He had long powerful arms and hands, broad shoulders, thick neck, surmounted by a bullet-shaped head with small ears. ”

“ Some reader of these lines may ask, "Why didn't General Grant detail men for the storming party?" Because, when soldiers enter upon a service that gives them only one chance in a hundred to survive it, the commander doesn't like to bear the responsibility of their deaths, and tenders them the precious privilege of voluntarily dying for their country. ”

“ Through some bungling, when the other regiments were ordered to retire during the night to the rear of the Walnut hills, my regiment was omitted from the list, and when we received our order to fall back in the morning we had to go out under the fire of the 25,000 enemies. That blunder cost us some brave men; for the rebels availed themselves of the splendid opportunity to fire upon our retiring lines. We had failed to take Vicksburg by assault, notwithstanding the bravery of our men; notwithstanding that many stands of colors were planted on the enemy's works ”

“ Haywood had passed into the house, Tom turned and watched the window anxiously until he saw again the dear old face with its straggling gray locks framed there, and then with our modest bundles under our arms and hats drawn down over our flushed, sad faces, we went slowly down to the depot. And when almost to the depot, Tom could still see that window with its precious living picture. With streaming eyes she had watched him drifting out of her life. Tom was her only child. He was all she had on earth to cling to and love. ”

“ When we were formed in the line of assault and my company, B, 113th Illinois Volunteer infantry, was at rest in place, an officer of Grant's staff came to us with the proposition that any three men who would volunteer to go in the storming party, then forming to be sent in advance against the enemy's works, should have sixty days furlough home. We looked into each others faces for some seconds. We were speechless and felt a dread of what might develop. We knew that as a general thing the man who volunteers and goes into the storming party "leaves all hope behind." It means nearly sure death. ”

“ I was one who with others thus volunteered, and amid the thunder of artillery firing and the click of minie bullets over our heads we sang that song with Mrs. Hoge, as she held the flag in her arms.
One day when we had our men out in the rifle pits at the extreme front we saw a union flag lying in a slight ravine a little ways in front of our rifle pits, which had been abandoned by some regiment in one of the charges, and at the risk of his life one of our boys crawled out and brought in the flag. ”

“ Sergeant Griffith with eleven men of the 22nd Iowa regiment entered a fort of the enemy, and his men all fell in the fort except the sergeant, who captured and brought off thirteen confederate prisoners, and Captain White of the Chicago Mercantile battery immortalized himself by carrying forward one of his guns by hand to the ditch, and double shotting it, fired into an embrasure of the work, disabling an enemy's gun in it and cutting down the gunners.
The rebels had more than 25,000 men behind their works, and why they didn't kill every soul of us I cannot imagine. ”

“ We supplied large detail each night for digging rifle pits for the first few days, and then on alternate nights. Each tier of rifle pits brought the contending forces closer together, so they could easily converse with each other, and until prohibited by a general order, the soldiers of the blue often met the gray between the lines and swapped knives, buttons, papers and tobacco in a most cordial and friendly way. One day by mutual verbal agreement the rebel company and union company opposite each other in the rifle pits stacked arms and met in a good social way. ”

“ June 11, heavy picket firing, men continually getting wounded in camp by stray bullets; June 13, a man of Company A shot in rifle pits, died while bringing him into camp; June 14, three men wounded in camp; June 15, today walking with my comrade, John Gubtail, over the crest of a hill, suddenly fell prostrate at my feet. I thought he was trying to act funny, but he got up in a few minutes and showed me a bullet hole through his cap and a shallow furrow across his scalp where the bullet had ploughed. The rebel sharpshooter had just missed his target partially. ”

“ On the 24th my company was detailed for picket duty, and we occupied the advance rifle pits already dug, and industriously dug others in advance of those, under cover of the night. That night myself and comrade went without orders onto the battle field, armed only with spades, and buried three of our dead comrades who were killed in the assault of the 19th. It was a dangerous business, and only the intense darkness protected us from the enemy. We could only bury them by throwing dirt upon the bodies just as they lay upon the ground. ”

“ We used to twit the Johnnies with eating mule meat in some of our games of blackguard [pg 54] with them in the rifle pits, but until the surrender we didn't know we had been twitting upon facts. We had the advantage of the rebel garrison in many ways because we were sheltered from the blistering heat of the sun by the forest shade, and had plenty to eat and the cool springs in the ravines furnished us an abundance of pure water, while the enemy was wholly unsheltered in their defensive works, reduced to almost starvation rations and a scarcity of good water. ”

“ On our immediate right was the 6th Missouri, and I being on the right of our regiment went in side by side with the men of their left. A lieutenant on the left of that regiment was in his shirt sleeves and wore a white shirt; he and I went side by side for several steps, when he lunged forward upon the ground, and in the quick glance I gave him I saw a circle of red forming on his shirt back. The leaden hail from the enemy was absolutely blinding. The very sticks and chips scattered over the ground were jumping under the hot shower of rebel bullets. ”

“ It will be remembered that Grant cut loose from his base of supplies when he left Grand Gulf. I heard men say that they partially subsisted by chewing newspaper advertisements of provisions. Such a delicious breakfast as that raw ham I never ate before nor since. I was never more thankful for a meal. I blessed the hog that furnished the ham and the swain who salted and smoked it.
My breakfast dispatched, I joined my company behind [pg 35] a slight breastwork on the crest of the hill, where we blazed away at the rebel stockade with little, if any, intermission all day long. ”

“ Our brave fellows, though, never uttered a shout of exultation during the whole ceremony of surrender. We marched into the city afterwards that day, raised the flag upon the court house and gave ourselves a general airing in Vicksburg. As our forces marched through the town the rebel women scowled, made faces and spit at us, but we survived it all and kept good natured. One fat old colored woman was just jumping up and down for joy, and she cried out as we marched by, "Heah day come. ”

“ Hardly had we get cleverly stretched out for a snoose when a rebel bullet struck the cold clammy earth just about three-fourths of an inch northeast of the lobe of my left ear. Some Mississippi soil was precipitated into my face thereby. I called the major's attention to the fact and proposed a change of base to the other slope of the hill about 10 rods away. ”

“ We ate our dinner, well sheltered from the rain, in another country church, and at night we got quarters in a deserted plantation house. There we got supper and made our coffee in an old fashioned fireplace. We also, at least two of us, slept on a bedstead like white folks that night, but the bed bugs perforated us numerously. We were then 30 miles from Jackson and 14 miles from the advance of Grant's army. During the night the enemy molested our pickets and we got out to the tune of the long roll, but no blood was shed. ”

“ Many of our men were injured by those shells, in picking them up and dropping them carelessly onto their percussion points, and so I improved the opportunity one day to give mine to a relic hunter. After the surrender my regiment was moved from the mouth of the Yazoo up onto the Vicksburg hill, but we failed to recover our health. Our men were dying daily, and finally we were ordered to Corinth, Mississippi July 29th, and embarked on transport "Silver Wave" for our new destination, the well men in the regiment not being sufficient and able to care for the sick. ”

“ One day Mrs. Hoge, of sanitary fame, and the mother of the colonel of my regiment, came into our camp and after getting all the soldiers of my regiment there not on duty, assembled for an audience, she made a stirring speech. Among other things she said, "Before you left Chicago we ladies presented your regiment with a flag, and your colonel when he received that flag pledged himself that it should ever be defended, and sustained with honor. What has become of that flag? ”

“ We well knew if we remained where we were until nightfall the enemy would sally out of their works and capture us, so we held a parley and agreed that at a given signal all of us who could would scatter and run for some near cover in the rear, where resting briefly we would run on to other covers still further to the rear, until the dusk of approaching night would finally shield us, and we carried out that program so faithfully that all who made the run escaped unscathed. ”

“ The 9th we pursued our march along Roundaway Bayou through a beautiful fertile country covered with vast fields of corn and other crops, and splendidly built up. We crossed some streams upon pontoon bridges, and saw our first alligators in that bayou. We also saw scattered along the roadside many dead horses and mules, and passed the smoking ruins of many plantation buildings. ”

“ Raymond, after which we pushed on 8 miles farther to Clinton and made our camp in the college grounds on the hill. At Clinton we found and paroled a large number of rebel sick in hospitals. Our boys visited the sick and wounded rebels in these hospitals and gave them crackers, tobacco and coffee or any little delicacies they happened to have, the same as they would have treated their own comrades, and many a poor sick Johnnie's eyes grew moist in those rebel hospitals because of the kindness of the Yanks to them that day. ”