This Hallowed Ground - Bruce Catton [171]
“The veteran American soldier fights very much as he has been accustomed to work his farm or run his sawmill; he wants to see a fair prospect that it ‘is going to pay.’ His loyalty, discipline and pluck will not allow him under any circumstances to retreat without orders, much less to run away, but if he encounters a resistance which he thinks he cannot overcome, or which he thinks it would ‘cost too much’ to overcome, he will lie down, cover himself with a little parapet, and hold his ground against any force that may attempt to drive him back.”9
There were strange interludes now and then; facing each other at close range, week after week, the men of the opposing armies developed an odd sort of fellow-feeling for each other. One day the men in one Federal trench saw the Confederates opposite them standing on top of their parapet, looking toward them; they climbed into the open themselves and looked at their enemies, and when someone yelled across and asked the Rebels why they were standing up like that, the reply came back: “Because you are.” Then a lad in the 11th Wisconsin cried impulsively: “I’m going down into the ravine and shake hands with them Rebs.” He ran downhill to a little creek, a Confederate ran down to meet him, and presently hundreds of men from both sides were down there, shaking hands, talking, and picking blackberries. The Confederates asked the Federals how they liked the Mississippi climate, said that they had been getting mule meat for breakfast, and did not seem to feel that they could hold out much longer. Then at last a Confederate officer came out and scolded the men for fraternizing; the Confederates reluctantly went back to their trenches, the Federals did the same, and in another minute the firing had been resumed as if there had never been a break.
Pickets grew friendly. One night a party from the 33rd Illinois was at work digging a trench out toward the Confederate line; unwittingly the men pushed their work until they had gone through the Rebel picket line, and the Confederate pickets protested at this infringement of their territory. Their officer of the guard came out and remonstrated: this was irregular, the Unionists were trespassing on Confederate soil. A Union officer replied that they did not mean to trespass, but they were under orders — they had been told to dig in this direction, picket line or no, and what could they do about it? The Confederate officer at last agreed that there was nothing that could be done about it, and he added despondently: “I suppose it really makes no difference, you’ll soon have the place anyway.”10
Closer and closer came the lines, until in places they were only a few yards apart. Now the Federals began to make tunnels under the Confederate lines, planting mines and exploding them. These were small-scale affairs and caused relatively few casualties; they did result in marvels now and then, as when one mine blew a Negro camp cook in the Confederate army clear over inside the Union lines. He was unhurt, oddly enough, and the Iowa outfit that captured him put him in a tent and exhibited him to the curious for several days, charging five cents a head.11
Inside Vicksburg food supplies were running low and hope was gone. The bombardment went on without a letup. Union trenches were so close in some spots that only a wall of earth separated attackers and defenders. Before long, obviously, the Federals could make a concerted rush that would break the defensive line once and for all. Luckless Pemberton held a council of war, confessed that there was no chance that Johnston could break the Federal cordon and relieve the Vicksburg garrison, and remarked that as far as he could see they could do one of two things — surrender now, while it might still be possible to get decent terms, or make one wild, desperate attempt to cut their way out — which would be completely hopeless but which probably would kill a good many Yankees. Most of the generals voted for surrender, and Pemberton agreed. On July 3 a white flag went through the lines, and before