Nurse and Spy in the Union Army Part 20

"Yes. Is it Bourbon or Monongahela?"

"Why do you ask, Mr. President?"

"Because if it makes him win victories like that at Vicksburg, I will send a demijohn of the same kind to every general in the army."

It is also stated on the same authority that General Grant is strictly temperate.

His men are almost as much attached to him as are the Army of the Potomac to General McClellan. He is a true soldier, and shares all the hardships with his men, sleeping on the ground in the open air, and eating hard bread and salt pork with as good a grace as any private soldier.

He seldom wears a sword, except when absolutely necessary, and frequently wears a semi-military coat and low crowned hat.

The mistakes which people used to make, when coming to headquarters to see the general, often reminded me of a genuine anecdote which is told of General Richardson, or "Fighting d.i.c.k," as we familiarly called him. It occurred when the troops were encamped near Washington, and was as follows:

The general was sauntering along toward a fort, which was in course of erection not far from headquarters, dressed in his usual uniform for fatigue, namely: citizen's pants, undress coat, and an old straw hat which had once been white, but was now two or three shades nearer the general's own complexion.

Along came one of those dashing city staff officers, in white gloves, and trimmed off with gold lace to the very extreme of military regulations. He was in search of General Richardson, but did not know him personally.

Reining up his horse some little distance from the general, he shouted: "hallo, old fellow! can you tell me where General Richardson's headquarters are?"

The general pointed out the tent to him, and the young officer went dashing along, without ever saying "thank you." The general then turned on his heel and went back to his tent, where he found the officer making a fuss because there was no orderly to hold his horse. Turning to General R., as he came up, he said: "Won't you hold my horse while I find General R.?" "Oh yes, certainly," said he.

After hitching the horse to a post near by for that purpose, the general walked into the tent, and, confronting young pomposity, he said in his peculiar tw.a.n.g, "Well, sir, what will you have?"

When the Federal troops marched into Vicksburg, what a heart-sickening sight it presented; the half-famished inhabitants had crawled from their dens and caves in the earth, to find their houses demolished by sh.e.l.l, and all their pleasant places laid waste.

But the appearance of the soldiers as they came from the entrenchments covered with mud and bespattered with the blood of their comrades who had been killed or wounded, would have touched a heart of stone.

The poor horses, and mules, too, were a sad sight, for they had fared even worse than the soldiers--for there was no place of safety for them--not even entrenchments, and they had scarcely anything at all to eat for weeks, except mulberry leaves.

One man, in speaking of the state of affairs in the city, during the siege, said: "The terror of the women and children, their constant screams and wailings over the dead bodies of their friends, mingled as they were with the shrieks of bursting sh.e.l.l, and the pitiful groans of the dying, was enough to appall the stoutest heart." And others said it was a strange fact that the women could not venture out of their caves a moment without either being killed or wounded, while the men and officers walked or rode about with but little loss of life comparatively.

A lady says: "Sitting in my cave, one evening, I heard the most heart-rending shrieks and groans, and upon making inquiry, I was told that a mother had taken her child into a cave about a hundred yards from us, and having laid it on its little bed, as the poor woman thought, in safety, she took her seat near the entrance of the cave. A mortar-sh.e.l.l came rushing through the air, and fell upon the cave, and bursting in the ground entered the cave; a fragment of the sh.e.l.l mashed the head of the little sleeper, crushing out the young life, and leaving the distracted mother to pierce the heavens with her cries of agony."

How blightingly the hand of war lay upon that once flourishing city! The closed and desolate houses, the gardens with open gates, and the poor, starving mules, standing amid the flowers, picking off every green leaf, to allay their hunger, presented a sad picture.

I will give the following quotation as a specimen of cave life in Vicksburg: "I was sitting near the entrance of my cave about five o'clock in the afternoon, when the bombardment commenced more furiously than usual, the sh.e.l.ls falling thickly around us, causing vast columns of earth to fly upward, mingled with smoke. As usual, I was uncertain whether to remain within, or to run out. As the rocking and trembling of the earth was distinctly felt, and the explosions alarmingly near, I stood within the mouth of the cave ready to make my escape, should one chance to fall above our domicile.

"In my anxiety I was startled by the shouts of the servants, and a most fearful jar and rocking of the earth, followed by a deafening explosion, such as I had never heard before. The cave filled instantly with smoke and dust. I stood there, with a tingling, p.r.i.c.kling sensation in my head, hands and feet, and with confused brain. Yet alive! was the first glad thought that came to me--child, servants, all here, and saved!

"I stepped out and found a group of persons before my cave, looking anxiously for me, and lying all around were freshly-torn rose bushes, arborvitae trees, large clods of earth, splinters, and pieces of plank.

"A mortar-sh.e.l.l had struck the corner of the cave; fortunately, so near the brow of the hill, that it had gone obliquely into the earth, exploding as it went, breaking large ma.s.ses from the side of the hill--tearing away the fence, the shrubbery and flowers--sweeping all like an avalanche down near the entrance of my poor refuge.

"On another occasion I sat reading in safety, I imagined, when the unmistakable whirring of Parrott sh.e.l.ls told us that the battery we so much dreaded had opened from the entrenchments. I ran to the entrance to call the servants in. Immediately after they entered a sh.e.l.l struck the earth a few feet from the entrance, burying itself without exploding.

"A man came in, much frightened, and asked permission to remain until the danger was over. He had been there but a short time when a Parrott sh.e.l.l came whirling in at the entrance and fell in the center of the cave before us, and lay there, the fuse still smoking.

"Our eyes were fastened upon that terrible missile of death as by the fascination of a serpent, while we expected every moment that the terrific explosion would take place. I pressed my child closer to my heart and drew nearer the wall. Our fate seemed certain--our doom was sealed.

"Just at this dreadful moment, George, a negro boy, rushed forward, seized the sh.e.l.l, and threw it into the street, then ran swiftly in the opposite direction.

"Fortunately the fuse became extinguished and the sh.e.l.l fell harmless to the ground, and is still looked upon as a monument of terror."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WESTERN GIBRALTAR--THE "LEAD MINERS"--THE PALMETTO EXCHANGED FOR THE STARS AND STRIPES--ENTHUSIASM OF TROOPS--SUFFERINGS FORGOTTEN--I AM ATTACKED BY FEVER--UNFIT FOR DUTY--"VICKSBURG IS OURS"--SPIRIT YEARNINGS--"ROCK ME TO SLEEP MOTHER"--IMPOSITION OF STEAMBOAT OFFICERS--GRANT'S CARE FOR HIS MEN--BURSTING OF A Sh.e.l.l IN CAMP--CONSEQUENCES--SPEECHLESS AGONY--I AM RELEASED FROM DUTY--MY TRIP TO CAIRO--MISS MARY SAFFORD--ARRIVAL AT WASHINGTON.

It was a proud day for the Union army when General U. S. Grant marched his victorious troops into the rebel Sebastopol--or "the western Gibraltar,"

as the rebels were pleased to term it.

The troops marched in triumphantly, the Forty-fifth Illinois, the "lead miners," leading the van, and as they halted in front of the fine white marble Court House, and flung out the National banner to the breeze, and planted the battle-worn flags bearing the dear old stars and stripes--where the "palmetto" had so recently floated--then went up tremendous shouts of triumphant and enthusiastic cheers, which were caught up and re-echoed by the advancing troops until all was one wild scene of joy; and the devastated city and its miserable inhabitants were forgotten in the triumph of the hour.

This excitement proved too much for me, as I had been suffering from fever for several days previous, and had risen from my cot and mounted my horse for the purpose of witnessing the crowning act of the campaign. Now it was over, and I was exhausted and weak as a child.

I was urged to go to a hospital, but refused; yet at length I was obliged to report myself unfit for duty, but still persisted in sitting up most of the time. Oh what dreary days and nights I pa.s.sed in that dilapidated city! A slow fever had fastened itself upon me, and in spite of all my fort.i.tude and determination to shake it off, I was each day becoming more surely its victim.

I could not bear the shouts of the men, or their songs of triumph which rung out upon every breeze--one of which I can never forget, as I heard it sung until my poor brain was distracted, and in my hours of delirium I kept repeating "Vicksburg is ours," "Vicksburg is ours," in a manner more amusing than musical.

I will here quote a few verses which I think are the same:

Hark! borne upon the Southern breeze, As whispers breathed above the trees, Or as the swell from off the seas, In summer showers, Fall softly on the ears of men Strains sweetly indistinct, and then-- Hist! listen! catch the sound again-- "Vicksburg is ours!"

O'er sea-waves beating on the sh.o.r.e, 'Bove the thunder-storm and tempest o'er, O'er cataracts in headlong roar, High, high it towers.

O'er all the breastworks and the moats, The Starry Flag in triumph floats, And heroes thunder from' their throats "Vicksburg is ours!"

Spread all your banners in the sky, The sword of victory gleams on high, Our conquering eagles upward fly, And kiss the stars; For Liberty the G.o.ds awake, And hurl the shattered foes a wreck, The Northern arms make strong to break The Southern bars.

All honor to the brave and true Who fought the b.l.o.o.d.y battles through, And from the ramparts victory drew Where Vicksburg cowers; And o'er the trenches, o'er the slain, Through iron hail and leaden rain, Still plunging onward, might and main, Made Vicksburg ours.

I think I realized, in those hours of feverish restlessness and pain, the heart-yearnings for the touch of a mother's cool hand upon my brow, which I had so often heard the poor sick and wounded soldiers speak of. Oh how I longed for one gentle caress from her loving hand! and when I would sometimes fall into a quiet slumber, and forget my surroundings, I would often wake up and imagine my mother sat beside me, and would only realize my sad mistake when looking in the direction I supposed her to be, there would be seen some great bearded soldier, wrapped up in an overcoat, smoking his pipe.

The following lines in some measure express my spirit-longings for the presence of my mother in those nights of torturing fever and days of languor and despondency:

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight; Make me a child again, just for to-night!

Mother, O come from the far-distant sh.o.r.e, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Over my slumbers your loving watch keep-- Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toils and of tears, Toil without recompense--tears all in vain-- Take them, and give me my childhood again.

I have grown weary of warfare and strife, Weary of bartering my health and my life, Weary of sowing for others to reap-- Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

After the fall of Vicksburg a large proportion of the soldiers in that vicinity, who had fought so bravely, endured so many hardships, and lain in the entrenchments so many weary weeks during the siege, were permitted to visit their homes on furlough.

In view of this General Grant issued a special order forbidding steamboat officers to charge more than five dollars to enlisted men, and seven dollars to officers, as fare between Vicksburg and Cairo. Notwithstanding this order the captains of steamers were in the habit of charging from fifteen to thirty dollars apiece.