Today in History:

390 Series I Volume XXIV-II Serial 37 - Vicksburg Part II

Page 390 Mississippi, WEST TENNESSEE, ETC. Chapter XXXVI.

from of the Texas line on this day at the most moderate estimate 500 men. Major Elliott, of the Thirty-THIRD Illinois, one of the columns of five regiments, has, since the surrender of Vicksburg, stated their killed at 600 and their wounded at 1,200 on this day in front of the Texas lines. On the day of the truce the ground was still strewn with guns by the many hundreds.

The morning report of the SECOND Texas Infantry on the 17th exhibits and aggregate of 468 . The artillery detachments and volunteers reasons absent form the lines. In considering all the circumstances, it and wounded three times their number of the enemy on this hard-fought day. This is not surprising when we consider the determination with which the enemy fourth from 10 o'clock in the morning till dark, within from 20 to 400 paces of the muzzles of our rifles. They were cheered on, too, by seeing a redan of our some 600 to 800 yards to my right carried by their soldiers at the hottest of the assault, and their flag flaunting triumphantly on its parapet. It was stated to me by ; their officers on the day of truce that day had driven our men at Baker's Creek and at CHAMPION's Hill easily and furiously before them that officers and men came up to or works with the utmost considerance of sweeping over our lines at the first assault, and of carrying the city by sweeping over our lines at the fist assault, and of carrying the city by the first couple de manim that the morale of their army was perfect, and when darkness found them outside and repulsed, they were as much astonished as chagrined. The companies of my regiment in the front and rifle-pits on the right were so reduced by killed and wounded, and our room being somewhat increased by the removal of the two pieces of artillery, the four companies first posted on the lines of the left were on May moved into the fort. Failing to carry the city by assault, the enemy applied himself to a siege in regular form, and constructed his earthworks with almost incredible diligence and activity. Cannons placed in battery soon frowned on us from every eminence, and rifle-pits with breastworks bursted everywhere in front of our lines. From the commencement of the siege in form there was a fierce cannonade once, twice, thrice, or even oftener in the twenty-four hors, with occasional shots at irregular intervals, an incessant stream of mines swept just above the upper slope of our parapet, increasing in strength was kept up form dawn till dark, whether any one was seen on our works instantly hissed around it. This constant firing rendered the position in our rear unsafe, several men were there wounded. On May 29, at 3 a. m. it being yet dark, a sudden, exceedingly rapid, and most sublime cannonade burst on us. The hills trembled and flashed with flame the fused and fragments of spherical case steamed with fire over our heads. We anticipated an assault. I could not per with fire over our heads. We anticipated an assault. I could not per with fire over or heads. The immense superiority of ; the enemy in artillery practice, our scarcity of ammunition, and the searching fie through the enbasion of fill up and obliterate the embrasures. An occasional elongated ball would as pass through the upper part of our parapet, where it was scant 16 feet thick, and brain or wound men within. As some balls, after traversing the parapet lower down, lodged, against the weak revetment of the interior slope, 16 feet of earth was thus seen to be about


Page 390 Mississippi, WEST TENNESSEE, ETC. Chapter XXXVI.