The day we left home for the war was an eventful one, and the incidents crowded into that day will never be effaced from my memory. There was a rally that afternoon, upon which occasion we added some important names to our company roll. Some of the boys who then enlisted in our ranks were prominent in our local society and passed current in the ranks of our best young people. Others came out of their obscurity for the first time on that occasion, and were first known and noticed on the day of th

IT was May 7, 1863 when Company B, 113th Illinois Vol. Infantry, to which I belonged, started from Milliken's Bend, La., with the balance of Grant's army for the rear of Vicksburg. That day we marched 14 miles and at night camped on a beautiful plantation and procured raw cotton from a nearby gin to sleep on. By noon of the 8th we had reached the banks of Woody Bayou and halted there for dinner. That night we had arrived at the plantation of Confederate General Fiske and appropriated some of his

ON the 18th of May, 1863, Vicksburg was completely invested. A year before the first attempt was made against this fortified city, and in reply to a demand of surrender at that time the rebels said: "Mississippians did not know and refused to learn how to surrender to an enemy." Now we'uns had arrived and proposed to teach them how to surrender to an enemy. Some time before daylight on the morning of the 19th we were quietly aroused and instructed to prepare our breakfasts without noise or unnec

WITH the first faint flush of day the morning of the 20th, I was up and taking soundings for the locality of my company headquarters. I was as stiff as an old foundered horse, and my head ached and felt swelled. The battle was still being waged by the advance pickets of the contending forces, but the fearful rumble of yesterday's battle had subsided entirely. Nothing appeared in that early morning, at first, to recall the horrors of yesterday, but as the daylight began to pour in amongst the tre

WHILE waiting the charge of the storming party and watching their progress across the field to the enemy's works, I noticed a group of general officers close to our left, composed of Grant, Sherman and Giles A. Smith, with their field glasses, watching the little storming party painting a trail of blood across that field. Those distinguished commanders, unlike ourselves, were standing behind large trees, and squinted cautiously out to the right and left, exposing as little of their brass buttons

WE failed to take Vicksburg by assault. We not only failed to take it, but we failed to break their lines of defense and make permanent lodgment anywhere along our front, General McClernand to the contrary notwithstanding. For ten hours that day we fought the entrenched enemy and had not won the battle. Our forces had charged the parapets and bastioned forts valorously but death was the sole reward of their great valor. We lost 3,000 men while the sheltered confederates, within their formidable

IT was stated that within a week after the investment of Vicksburg, its garrison was reduced to 14-1/2 ounces of food for each man a day. And the rebel commander declared he would hold the town until the last dog was eaten. I guess Pemberton kept his word, for after their surrender I don't remember of seeing a single dog in the city of Vicksburg. How the tables were turned on poor Fido to be sure—that the biter should not only be bitten but eaten. A lieutenant on the 6th Missouri who had been ta

MEANWHILE the siege was prosecuted with vigor; no let up. Night and day the steady pounding of the artillery went on, and the bomb shells sailed up in flocks from the mortar fleet on the Mississippi. General Grant daily watched and directed the work of his mighty army, and knew the great fortress was surely crumbling. Often during those long hot days of June, I saw General Grant, perhaps attended by one or two orderlies, worming his quiet way through and along our trenches, carefully noting all

Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. On page 4, "ond" was replaced with "and". On page 4, "smille" was replaced with "smile". On page 4, "Governer" was replaced with "Governor". On page 6, "partiotic" was replaced with "patriotic". On page 7, "departue" was replaced with "departure". On page 7, "and and" was replaced with "an