USA > Ohio > History of the Sixteenth battery of Ohio volunteer light artillery, U. S. A., from enlistment, August 20, 1861, to muster out, August 2, 1865 > Part 6
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"The whole line having advanced about 500 yards, the rebel battery opened upon us with volley after volley of grape and canister. The whole line moved forward, and with fixed bayonets, slowly, cautiously and in excellent order. and when within about -5 yards of the battery every gun was opened upon us. As soon as the volley of grape and canister had passed over us, the order was Given to charge, when the whole line moved forward as one man, and so suddenly and apparently so unexpectedly to the rebels was the movement
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that, after a desperate conflict of five minutes, in which bayonets and butts of muskets were freely used, the battery of four guns were in our possession, and a whole brigade in support was fleeing before us and a large number of them taken prisoners.
"The rebels were driven back about 600 yards, when, be- ing strongly re-inforced, they turned upon us and made a most determined stand. At this point occurred one of the most obstinate and murderous conflicts of the war. For half an hour each side took their turn in driving and being driven.
"Seeing that we were largely outnumbered, and having every confidence in the valor of the First Brigade. and yet fearing they would be overwhelmed, I informed General Hovey, and with his consent ordered up one section of the 16th Ohio Battery, under Captain J. A. Mitchell, who asked as a special favor that he might be permitted to out it into position. He advanced well to the front, and after pouring a iew effective shots into the enemy, he saw that his pieces were in danger of being captured should he remain longer in that position. He gave the command, "Limber to the rear." which was his last order, as at that moment he received a mortal wound from which he died in a few hours. He fell at his post noble and gallantly performing his duty .*
"In the meantime the contest went on, the rebel advance was momentarily checked, but they came upon us in such immense numbers that the whole line was compelled to give ground: soon, however, our artillery stationed on the right opened an enfilading fire upon the rebel masses which effectually checked their progress, and in a short time thev
*The errors in this part of the report are corrected on page 57 where the number of rounds fired is officially re- ported as 225, nearly all by these two guns.
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gave way and fled in much confusion, leaving our gallant troops in peaceable possession of the battlefield.
"Were I to attempt to do justice to the daring, endurance. and gallant conduct of the officers and men of the First Brigade, I should fail their actions speak for them. In proof of which. let the facts attest."
PEMBERTON'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS.
The following address of Pemberton will be of interest here. On our approach toward Vicksburg, General Pemberton had issued the following address to his troops, a copy of which was captured by Comrade F. D. Torrence on July 5. It is dated May 12, 1863.
SOLDIERS OF THE ARMY. IN AND AROUND VICKS- BURG:
The hour of trial has come! The enemy who has so long threatened Vicksburg in front, has at last effected a landing in this department, and his march into the interior of Mississippi has been marked by the devastation of one of the fairest portions of the state. He seeks to break the communication between the members of the Confederacy and to control the navigation of the Mississippi River. The issue involves everything endeared to a free people. The enemy fights for the privilege of plunder and oppression. You fight for your country, homes, wives, children, and the birthrights of .freemen. Your commanding general, believ- ing in the truth and sacredness of this cause, has cast his lot with you, and stands ready to peril his life. and all he holds dear, for the triumph of the right. God, who rules in the affairs of men and nations, loves justice and hates wicked- ness. He will not allow a cause so just to be trampled it: the dust. In the day of conflict, let each man, appealing to
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Him for strength, strike home for victory, and our triumph is at once assured. A grateful country will hail you as de- liverers and cherish the memory of those who may fall as martyrs in her defence.
Soldiers! Be vigilant, brave, and active; let there be no cowards nor laggards nor stragglers from the ranks-and the God of battles will certainly crown our efforts with suc- cess.
J. C. PEMBERTON, Licut. Gen., Commanding.
Pemberton, a Northern man, a Pennsylvanian, "cast in his lot" with the wrong side, his prophecy failed to come true. The enemy oppressed and plundered them by giving them hard tack after the surrender. With the loss of Vicks- burg, Pemberton drops out of sight both as a general and a phophet.
THE MARCH ON VICKSBURG.
On May ISth we started on our march to Vicksburg. When we got to the Big Black, ten miles from Champion's Hill we found that the troops who had immediately gone forward from the battle, at 3 o'clock a. m., of the 17th had found the enemy here. making a stand behind entrenchments on both sides of the river. The works were charged by Lawler's Brigade: the rebels on the west side of the river fled. burn- ing the bridge behind them and leaving those on the east side to fall into our hands. Here 18 guns were captured, and 1,751 prisoners taken, and all this by 9 o'clock. Three bridges were immediately built, and on the morning of the 18th, troops crossed over. on their way to Vicksburg. 18 miles distant. The army arrived in the neighborhood of that place by morning of the 9th, though we did not get there till the evening of the 21st. Sherman had been so far in the rear at Champion's Hill that he had no share in the battle, but
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he was now in the lead, and nearing Vicksburg struck toward the right, to the Yazoo River. where the rebels were soon driven out of their works.
Sherman now had possession of the very Walnut Hills where in December before he was baffled and defeated, and as Grant and he stood on the hill overlooking the Yazoo, which was now open to the Mississippi, and a free way for our supplies, they both exulted over the success of the cam- paign so far, Sherman saying that now for the first time he felt sure of success, no matter what it might still cost to take the city. Sherman's Corps, the 15th, now had the right or upper side, McPherson's 17th Corps the center, and the 13th Corps the left or south side of the city.
Toward evening of the 21st, we neared the city. The cais- sons were left in a camp a mile in the rear, and the guns were taken to a position which was about 450 yards from the rebel line of forts, and about 300 yards south of the Jackson Railroad. The horses were sent back to the cais- sons, the guns were pulled up the steep hill by hand, the in- fantry helping us. The left section was in front. and so be- came the right of the battery in position. During the night we made a fort by piling up cotton bales. In the hot firing of next day these were set on fire, and we had to roll them down the hill as soon as it was dark enough to work, and we worked like sixty all night, making a new fort of gunny sacks filled with dirt. this work we kept up every night for two weeks, fighting in daytime and working all night.
Key to Illustration on Opposite Page.
STANDING : Prof. William Merreness, Corp. A. Bartley Mitchell, Corp. Geo. H. Humphreys, Civilian Fredrick, son of Capt. Mitchell. Prof. Chas. N. Humphreys, Corp. D. Findley Torrence, Corp. William Foreman.
SITTING: Corp. Pomeroy Mitchell, Prof. J, Quincy Smith. Corp. Geo. W. Brier, Civilian Iowa Smith.
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Position of the Battery at Vicksburg as it appeared in 1905.
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THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG.
The troops that had reached the city and were in line May 19th had made an assault that day, hardly with the hope of taking it, but of gaining advanced positions. The great charge from which much was expected was on May 22nd. a day every soldier who helped to take Vicksburg will ever remember. Orders were received to be ready for a general charge at 10 o clock a. m. The batteries were to keep up a furious fire on the works till our men got too near to keep it up lest we hit our own men. It was an exciting time, so much depended on it. As our men approached the works, we fired at points where we would not hit them or hin ler their charge. At several points, men of the 13th Corps got up to and even into the rebel works, but could not hold them. McClernand claimed that if he had been r. iforced, and the rest had done as well as our Corps, the works would have been carried; May 30th he sent a congratulatory order to all his command, but failed to send a copy of it to General Grant, who later on saw it in a St. Louis paper. He held that McClernand's order was a reflection on the rest of the troops, and removed him, putting Major General E. O. C. Ord in his place, to command the 13th Corps.
On the day of this assault our army lost more men than during all the six weeks of the siege following. For after this we fought behind protection, and during the whole siege the Battery had only two men wounded, one of them so severely that he was reported to have died at the hospital. though he recovered and lived many years after the war. We had none wounded on May 22nd. as the rebel fire was aimed especially at the infantry in front of us.
The hill on which we were placed was the finest position on the line, as will appear later on. It was about a quarter of a mile south of the Jackson Railroad, and about 450 vards
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from the rebel works. Toward the left the hill declined so that the guns were crowded together much closer than the regular distance. During the first few days we used a gun (its position was on the right, Corporal Belmer, gunner ), which had veen borrowed after we buried our disabled gun at Port Gibson; but now the battery ownin~ it wanted it back, and we were given an iron 3-inch gun captured at Champion's Hill, or Big Black. But we could get no ammuni- tion to fit it, as it had peculiar rifles and needed special am- munition. Our 3-inch Parrot ammunition wouldn't work in it at all, the shot would fly anywhere. among our own men in front of us, over whose heads we were always firing. Then they gave us a 12-pounder Napoleon gun, captured by our brigade at Champion's Hill, and this we used till we could get our own replaced by a new one from the North. The center section then took the 12-pounder as one of their guns had given out.
As soon as the hights on the Yazoo were in our posses- sion, provision boats came up, and by the 20th the army had full rations again, and such rations of "desecrated"-dessi- cated-vegetables, potatoes. etc., as we never had before.
All hands now worked with all their might strengthening the forts, digging rifle-pits zig-zag down the hill in front of us, through the hollows and up the slopes of the hills on which the rebel forts were. We worked on our own fort till we had it eight feet high, and the port holes protected with poles or stakes. to keep the gunny sacks from tearing from the rush of air in firing. When we had this done we felt secure and took time to sleep and rest. Our infantry Were so watchful that the rebels could hardly work their guns, for as soon as any one was visible about the guns through the portholes he was picked off. Our men got nearer and nearer, till in places our rifle pits were only a
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few yards from their main works. Grant savs that if the assault of May 22nd. had not been made the men would not have settled down to this slow work of digging. mining. and making sap rollers. Many of those wounded after the works were well along, were wounded through their own care- lessness. We had several such casualties of men who sim- ply came to see from our fort.
The guns of our fort must have annoved the rebels es- pecially, for they had opposite to our fort a rifled gun we called "Whistling Dick," from the shrieking of the shells it threw. These had a copper flange or base, would weigh about 40 pounds. At several different times these shells were aimed at the right wing of the fort, one of them ex- ploded directly over the right gun in action, another dropped just in front of it outside, unexploded; another went just past the right of the fort and ricochetted past the Captain's tent.
When the army first invested Vicksburg we hadn't enough men to complete the line; a gap of about half a mile was left on the south side in the river bottom, but in a couple of weeks troops arrived to close this up. Had the rebels been anxious to get out and hopeful of getting away, they would have had a good chance here. Indeed, for some time we ex- pected they would attempt to break out and join Johnson, who had even crossed the Big Black to come to Pemberton's relief. But Sherman was sent back with nearly a Corps to attend to him, and there never was any serious danger of either Johnson in the rear, or the rebels breaking out of their stronghold. Yet several times we were roused up at night with the report that the rebels were coming. One night particularly the cry was. "The rebs are coming!" and Sergt. Cory thought he could even see them coming and was vigorous in urging us to redouble our fire. Weeks
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passed in this way, and it looked as if it would be the slow work of starving them out, which might take months.
Mining and trying to blow up the strongest of the enemy's forts was now resorted to. On June 25th, a mine under the Hill Fort, opposite McPherson's line, was exploded at 3 o'clock. With the explosion all the artillery opened a fur- ious fire. The top of the hill was blown off and a crater made, where the fort had been, but they had another work inside, and we gained very little. A darky was blown into our lines not much hurt, but very much surprised at his de- liverance from slavery in this manner. He thought he had been about three miles in the air, but probably 50 or 100 feet. He did good service with Logan, with whom he remained. Other mines were immediately prepared under the most prom- inent works opposite each of the three Corps, and these were ` ready for blowing up when the surrender came. and would probably have been our Fourth of July fire works.
During the rapid firing of this day, a musket ball struck Patrick Calahan, a detailed 46th Indiana man. He was No. 3 of the right-hand gun and was just stopping vent. The gun was loaded, the gunner, Belmer, stepped back to sight it Calahan seemed to be stepping backward to the trail handspike to guide the trail, but he was really staggering backward and would have fallen had not the gunner caught him and laid him down out of the range of shot. The ball had passed clear through him in the region of the groin. He was sent to the hospital at Memphis, recovered, and lived some 25 years after the war. Daniel Mulrine was the only other man of our own wounded at our fort during the whole siege, shot through the shoulder, but recovered.
The cupola of the Court House in Vicksburg was just visible from some positions on our line, especially from ours. But it was about two miles from our guns. When we could
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CHANNEL
LANE CENTENNIAL
£2863
SBURG
MISSISSIPPI RIVER
CHIO BATTERY
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RIVER
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MAP OF THE
Vicksburg National Military Park
AND VICINITY
THE 5 HET TION OF THE SECRETARY OF A.V
VICKSBURG NATIONAL PARK COMMISSION
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do little execution on the rebel works, we amused ourselves firing at the Court House. To reach it with ordinary field guns of that day, the oun had to be fired at an elevation of about 30 to 35 degrees, which would first send the shot high up in the air. Such an elevation was hard on the gun- stock, which had to bear the brunt of the recoil, and several broke off where the elevating screw passes through the stock and thereby weakens it. But we could never tell that the Court House had been hit.
One day Grant and Chief of Artillery Hickenlooper came along and inspected our position and said: "This is the finest position on the line; we will put a heavy gun in here." so they gave orders to pull out the right gun and put in a 30- pound Parrot in charge of a detachment of A Company, First Regulars. Our right gun was moved clear to the left of the rest. where the detachment had to work hard again to make a protection. though they never made it as good as the one taken from them.
Our motar boats in the river. on the other side of the tongue of land, were continually throwing 13-inch shells into the city. These would rise high in the air, seemingly two miles, the burning fuse slowly turning all the time, then poising a fraction of a second in air would begin to fall, with ever increasing rush and noise, and strike with a heavy thud and bury itself six to eight feet in the ground: if it then ex- ploded it made a tremendous hole: if it struck a building not much would be left of it. If one had struck the Court House no cupola would have been left to fire at. To protect themselves from these shells and all other shot, the people dug into hill-sides, making one or two rooms for residences. my of them furnished quite comfortably.
The clay soil is such that you can cut down a hill-side and it will stand there for years like a wall. As an illustration
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of this, we had dug a sinkhole back of our position, and when in 1905, forty-two years afterwards, some of our men were down there at the unveiling of the monument marking our position during the siege. they found this hole just as we left it, and identified our position absolutely by this, which they clearly remembered, though brush and trees had grown over the hill.
Johnson toward the latter part of June made desperate efforts to relieve Pemberton, by making an assault on our rear, while he made it from the works; but the men abso- lutely refused to try it; they knew better than Johnston what their fate would be at the hands of men who, for five weeks, had been at them wearing the life out of them. But another scheme was proposed; that was to make boats enough to carry them across the river to the Louisiana shore. Houses were torn down to make boats, a lot of which. roughly made, were found ready when we got possession. But the scheme would never have succeeded, as we knew their purpose and our gun- boats were on the watch, and would have shattered them so that not a boatload would have reached the other shore. And our force at the Big Black under Sherman was so strong that Johnson could never have broken through.
The rebels were now evidently running short of rations.
Key to Illustration on Opposite Page.
STANDING: Chas. H. Humphreys, Wm. Merreness, F. D. Torrence. A. B. Mitchell.
SITTING: Geo. W. Brier. Iowa Smith, Win. Foreman, Fredrick, son of Capt. Mitchell, J. Quincy Smith. Pomeroy Mitchell, Geo. H. Humphreys.
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' Old Camp Ground of the Battery at the Siege of Vicksburg as it appeared in 1905.
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Sometimes one of our boys would throw a hard tack up on their parapet and call out, "Here, Johnnie, is a hard tack for you." And Johnnie would reach over for it.
Inside Vicksburg they began to see there was no hope for them. They were in a trap. We also felt that with the next explosion of the mines and a general assault, the place would be ours. We were now much stronger than on the 22nd of May.
On July 3d, the welcome Paymaster came around; we had not seen him for six months, owing to our being on the move so that no pay-rolls could be made out while making our way through and over the bavous from Milliken's Bend to Hard Times Landing. Indeed, we couldn't have used much money. there was nothing to buy. But now we could get anything we wanted from the North, and, though a little out of practice we found that when we got near a sutler's tent, we still knew how to get rid of money.
On this day also the rebels saw their end had come and began negotiations for surrender. Many of the officers still opposed it, but Pemberton said, "I'm a Northern man, myself. and I know the vanity of these men to wind this up on the Fourth of July, and we can get better terms on that day than afterwards." He was partly right. caly in this, that many more men went out of Vicksbury alive on that Fourth of July than would have been the case if the siege had kept on.
Our battery had the name of firing the last shot into Vicks- burg the afternoon of July 3d. Next morning about eight o'clock, it was announced that Vicksburg had surren- dered. Such Fourth of July demonstrations as we indulged in were never seen up North. We yelled; threw our hats in the air : hugged each other ; some even cried for joy. For it was not only the end of our toil and danger. but we realized that this was a long step toward the end of the war.
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THE SAVING OF THE UNION.
JULY 4TH, 1863.
"Clang! Clang! It is the stroke of sword on sword;
The men who should be brothers meet as foes.
The mightiest Union in the world is rent in twain by slavery's grim and awful woes.
Should one more victory crown the Southern arms,
England and France their open aid will give,
And secret traitors at the North will join the Victors ranks, The Union cannot live .
All eyes are fixed on Meade, and silent Grant,
And with the rising of that July sun
Loud ring the cheers, the news flies far and wide,
VICKSBURG has FALLEN! GETTYSBURG is WON."
If Meade had stopped Lee from crossing the Potomac, which he could have done even ten days after the battle of Gettysburg, the war would virtually have been at an end.
Members of the battery who went into Vicksburg returned giving full accounts of the scenes witnessed there, and bring- ing back to camp copies of the "Daily Citizen," a paper pub- lished in Vicksburg ( for the last time), on July 2, 1863. It is a very interesting relic of the war, and as it tells a part of the story of the siege we will include a description of the paper, and a few quotations from it.
The Vicksburg "Daily Citizen" was printed during the last part of the siege (having exhausted its supply of paper) upon any kind of material available, often appearing upon common brown wrapping-paper. The specimen before us is printed 4 1 the plain side of a piece of common wall-paper, ten inches wide and sixteen inches long. Among the articles which it omains is an exaggerated account of General Lee's campaign in Maryland. from which we quote:
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"ON DIT .- That the great Ulysses-the Yankee general- issimo, surnamed Grant-has expressed his intention of dining in Vicksburg on Saturday next, and celebrating the Fourth of July by a grand dinner, and so forth. When asked if he would invite General Joe Johnston to join, he said, 'No, for fear there will be a row at the table.' Ulysses must get into the City before he dines in it. The way to cook a rabbit is to first catch the rabbit."
"VICTIMIZED .- We learned of an instance wherein a 'knight of the quill' and a 'disciple of the black art,' with malice in their hearts and vengeance in their eyes, ruthlessly put a period to the existence of a venerable feline that has for a time, not within the recollection of the oldest inhabitant. faithfully performed the duties to be expected of him, to the terror of sundry vermin in this neighborhood. Poor defunct Thomas was then prepared, not for the grave, but for the pot, and several friends invited to partake of a nice rabbit. As a matter, of course. no one would wound the feelings of another, especially in these times, by refusing a cordial invitation to dinner, and the guests assisted in consuming the poor animal with a relish that did honor to their epicurian tastes. The 'sold' assure us that the meat was delicious, and that pussy must look out for her safety in future."
"MULE MEAT .- We are indebted to Maj. Gillespie for a steak of Confederate beef, alias mule. We have triel it, and can assure our friends that, if it is rendered necessary, they need have no scruples at eating the meat. It is sweet, savory, and tender, and so long as we have a mule left, we are satisfied our soldiers will be content to subsist upon it."
As stated the city surrendered on the morning of the fourth, and the Yankee Generalissimo, surnamed Grant, and his Yan- kee boys did march in and got the rabbit, and some of those boys got into the office of this same "Daily Citizen" and
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