528

THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.

not much hurt, but was terribly frightened. Some one asked him how highhe had gone up. “ Dunno, Massa, but t’ink ’bout free mile,” was the reply.General Logan commanded at this point, and took this colored man to hisquarters, where he did service to the end of the siege.

As soon as the explosion took place the crater was seized upon by two regi-ments of our troops who were near by, under cover, where they had beenplaced for the express purpose. The enemy made a desperate effort to expelthem, but failed, and soon retried behind the new line. From here, however,they threw hand-grenades, which did some execution. The compliment wasreturned by our men, but not with so much effect. The enemy could laytheir grenades on the parapet, which alone divided the contestants, and thenroll them down upon us; while from our side they had to be thrown overthe parapet, which was at considerable elevation. During the night we madeefforts to secure our position in the crater against the missiles of the enemy,so as to run trenches along the outer base of their parapet, right and left;but the enemy continued throwing their grenades, and brought boxes of fieldammunition (shells) the fuses of which they would light with port-fires, andthrow them by hand into our ranks. We found it impossible to continuethis work. Another mine was consequently started, which was exploded onthe 1st of July, destroying an entire rebel redan, killing and wounding a con-siderable number of its occupants, and leaving an immense chasm where itstood. No attempt to charge was made this time, the experience of the 25thadmonishing us. Our loss in the first affair was about thirty killed andwounded. The enemy must have lost more in the two explosions than wedid in the first. We lost none in the second.

From this time forward the work of mining and of pushing our posi-tion nearer to the enemy was prosecuted with vigor, and I determined toexplode no more mines until we were ready to explode a number at dif-ferent points and assault immediately after. We were up now at threedifferent points, one in front of each corps, to where only the parapet of theenemy divided us.

At this time an intercepted dispatch from Johnston to Pemberton informedme that Johnston intended to make a determined attack upon us, in orderto relieve the garrison of Vicksburg . I knew the garrison would make noforcible effort to relieve itself. The picket lines were so close to each other —where there Avas space enough between the lines to post pickets — that themen could converse. On the 21st of June I was informed, through thismeans, that Pemberton was preparing to escape, by crossing to the Louisiana side under cover of night; that he had employed workmen in making boatsfor that purpose; that the men had been canvassed to ascertain if theywould make an assault on the “Yankees ” to cut their way out; that theyhad refused, and almost mutinied, because their commander Avould notsurrender and relieve their sufferings, and had only been, pacified by theassurance that boats enough Avould be finished in a week to carry themall over. The rebel pickets also said that houses in the city had been pulleddown to get material to build these boats with. Afterward this story was