History of the United States, v.4, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 21: The Mississippi River through Robert Gould Shaw

CHAPTER XXI

Before and during the war the Mississippi River possessed, as a channel of communication and commerce, a great importance, which has steadily diminished with the development of the railroad system of the West. The importance of gaining the control of it was from the first appreciated at the North. Looked upon in the East as a military advantage, it was deemed by the people of the Western States indispensable to their existence as an outlet to their products, an artery for their supply. "The free navigation of the Mississippi" were words to conjure with, not only in the Southwest, but everywhere west of the Alleghanies, except in the region directly tributary to the great lakes.1 From the location of his home Lincoln was brought up with this sentiment, he had his mind impregnated with it in manhood, and now he did not for a moment lose sight of its military and commercial consequence. The capture of Forts Henry and Donelson and the resulting operations had freed the Mississippi north of Vicksburg; the capture of New Orleans had given us its mouth. But the Confederates had practical possession of it between their two strong fortresses of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, a distance of about two hundred miles, and thereby retained communication between Louisiana and Texas on one side and the rest of the Confederacy on the other. Louisiana supplied them with sugar, and the great State of Texas furnished quantities of grain and beef, besides affording, by virtue of its contiguity to Mexico, an avenue for munitions of war received from
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1 California and Oregon are manifestly excepted from this general statement.

Europe at the Mexican port of Matamoras,1 — a consideration of weight, for the ports of the Southern States were now pretty effectually sealed by the Federal blockade. Of the two fastnesses Vicksburg was by far the more important, and the desire in the Confederacy to keep it was ardent. Sentiment as well as military judgment inclined Jefferson Davis to make a strenuous effort for its defence. It was in his own State, whose notables were dear to him not only because in his view they were patriots, but because most of them were personal acquaintances or friends. His own plantation, too, was in the neighborhood of Vicksburg. He had in December, 1862, paid a visit to the State of Mississippi, and inspected with his soldier's eye the fortifications of the city, and, tarrying in Jackson to address the legislature, had urged them fervently to do their utmost in co-operation with the Confederate government to preserve this stronghold and their State from the inroads of the enemy.

From the Union point of view the three most important strategic points in the South were Richmond, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. Vicksburg ranked second, for its capture would give the United States the control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederacy asunder. One attempt had been made to take it by a bombardment from gun-boats and mortar-vessels, and later another by an assault of the army. Both had failed.2 Nevertheless, the government, the army, and the navy determined to persevere. Since it was within his province, Grant assumed, January 30, 1863, "the immediate command of the expedition against Vicksburg." 3

Vicksburg, which for the most part was built upon a bluff two hundred feet above high-water mark of the river, was a natural stronghold, strengthened by art and unassailable from the front. The problem was to reach the high ground on the
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1 Capt. Mahan's Farragut, pp. 207, 223,241; Soley, The Blockade and the Cruisers, p. 37.
2 See Nicolay and Hay, vol. v. p. 348, vol. vii. p. 131; Capt. Mahan's Farragut, p. 177; Swinton's Decisive Battles, chap. vii.; ante, p. 221.
3 O. R., vol W6v. part 1. p. 11.

east bank of the river so that it might be attacked or besieged from the side or rear. Grant prosecuted the work on a canal which had been begun with the object of making a channel across the peninsula opposite Vicksburg, by which transports might pass below it, carrying troops and supplies to a new base. With the same purpose he endeavored to open a route through the bayous from Milliken's Bend on the north to New Carthage on the south. Other devices of artificial channels connecting natural water-courses above Vicksburg were tried; apparently, indeed, every experiment was made that engineering skill or military initiative could suggest. Nearly two months were spent in such operations, and all of them failed.

It had been a winter of heavy and continuous rains. The river had risen to an unusual height, and in places the levees had given way. "The whole country was covered with water. Troops could scarcely find dry ground on which to pitch their tents. Malarial fevers, measles, and small-pox broke out among the men."1 From newspaper correspondents, from letters which the soldiers wrote home, from reports of visitors to the camps, the people of the North knew in detail of the many attempts and failures, of the exceeding discomfort of the army, and received exaggerated accounts of the sickness which prevailed.2 Having in mind the Grant of Shiloh rather than the Grant of Donelson, they looked upon his actions in a fault-finding mood, and believed the stories of his intemperance which were now in large measure revived. McClernand, one of his corps commanders who had hoped to head the expedition against Vicksburg, a patriotic War Democrat, a clever politician, and a man of influence in the West, was a mover in the intrigue for his displacement.3 An able
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1 Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 458. This is directly and indirectly supported by Grant's contemporaneous despatches to Washington. See O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. pp. 10, 14, 17, 18, 19, 24.
2 See Grant to Halleck, February 18, ibid., p. 18; Grant to E. B. Washburne, March 10, Grant letters edited by Wilson, p. 25.
3 General Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 315; Dana and Wilson, Life of Grant, p. 113 ; Badeau, Military History of Grant, vol. i. p. 180; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 458; New York Evening Post, July 8.

Western journalist who swayed public opinion maintained, in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, that Grant was incompetent, accused him of gross misconduct, and demanded, "in the name of the Western people and the Western troops, that his command should be taken from him and given to Rosecrans."1 Chase sent this letter to the President with his sanction, and added that reports inculpating General Grant "are too common to be safely or even prudently disregarded." a Nevertheless, Lincoln stood by his general faithfully.3

Grant was slandered. To Rawlins, his assistant adjutant-general, his true friend and mentor, he had early in March given a pledge on his honor that he would drink no more during the war, and at this time he was adhering to the pledge with rigor.4 His despatches and letters exhibit a cool brain, his actions show a steady judgment and unremitting energy. Since the battle of Shiloh6 he had most of the time had a
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1 April 4, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 153.
5 Ibid., p. 154.
8 It is to this period that Nicolay and Hay assign the retort of Lincoln to the zealous persons who demanded Grant's removal because he drank too much whiskey: "If I knew what brand of whiskey he drinks, I would send a barrel or so to some other generals." —Ibid.; Richardson's Life of Grant, p. 299; Anecdotes of A. Lincoln, J. R. McClure, p. 94. Nicolay and Hay do not vouch absolutely for the authenticity of this anecdote, and I doubt it, for the reason that if the traditions be true the President and Stanton were disturbed at the reports of Grant's intemperance. In his Reminiscences, Charles A. Dana gives a partial confirmation of this. "Stanton sent for me to come to Washington," Dana writes. "He wanted some one to go to Grant's army, he said, to report daily to him the military proceedings and to give such information as would enable Mr. Lincoln and him to settle their minds as to Grant, about whom at that time there were many doubts and against whom there was some complaint." The letter sending Dana his appointment is dated March 12. — McClure’sMagazine, November 1897, p. 29. See Dana to Stanton, July 13, ibid., January 1898, p. 254.
4 Letter of Rawlins to Grant, June 6, From Chattanooga to Petersburg, W. F. Smith, p. 179. In this connection see Charles A. Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, January 1898, pp. 254, 258.
5 This took place April 6, 7, 1862. See vol. iii. p. 620.

responsible command, but bad done nothing to attract public attention. Useful as the commander of a department, his service in the field had been small and inconspicuous, but in these ten months he had observed much and thought much about the conflict that tore his country. He was not a reader of military books, nor a close student of the campaigns of the great masters of his art, nor did he con the principles of strategy and the rules of tactics; but he was in his own way and within certain lines a deep thinker. After we read the despatches and comprehend the aim of such accomplished soldiers as McClellan and Meade, what refreshment there is in the grasp of the absolute purpose of the war shown in these words of Grant: "Rebellion has assumed that shape now that it can only terminate by the complete subjugation of the South or the overthrow of the government." 1 There must have passed through his mind the thought that if the chance came he could show the stuff that was in him. In taking command of the expedition against Vicksburg, he created the opportunity and began with two months of failures. Sensitive to detraction, he felt the calumnies propagated at the North, and was undoubtedly annoyed that, held in no higher estimation than Hooker and Rosecrans, he was with them on trial at the bar of public opinion, and in Washington, too, was regarded only as an equal contestant for a prize offered by the government.2 This was in the last days of March, 1863, after Rosecrans had won his victory of Stone's River and before Hooker had met with his defeat at Chancellorsville.

The failure of the engineering expedients to turn or to supplement the courses of the waters, the necessity of accommodating himself to the natural features of the country,
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1 April 11, O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 186.
2 Halleck to each, Hooker, Rosecrans, and Grant, March 1: "General: There is a vacant major-generalcy in the Regular Army, and I am authorized to say that it will be given to the general in the field who first wins an important and decisive victory." — Ibid., p. 75. Of course this was by direction of the President.

brought home to Grant the question, What was to be done? "The strategical way according to the rule," he writes, "would have been to go back to Memphis; establish that as a base of supplies . . . and move from there along the line of the railroad."1 This was the advice of Sherman, his ablest and most trusted lieutenant.2 But, reasoned Grant, that is a backward movement and gravely objectionable, because it will intensify the discouragement with the war prevailing at the North.3 "There was nothing left to be done," he said, "but to go forward to a decisive victory." 4 Without a council of war, without consulting any of his able officers, he formed his plan, and hoped for approval from Washington after he had begun to carry it out. He told it to his government in his despatches to Halleck, all of which are marked by courtesy and respect. From the confident and masterly tone of his communications, we may imagine with what satisfaction they were read by the President, who at first consented by silence, and, before the news of any signal success was received, authorized a despatch which gave Grant "full and absolute authority to enforce his own commands," and bore this further assurance: "He has the full confidence of the government." 5

His execution was as prompt as his conception was bold. March 23 he ordered the concentration of his army at
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1 Personal Memoirs, vol. I. p. 443.
2 Ibid., p. 642 note; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. 1. p. 815.
3 Ante, pp. 199, 221.
4 Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 443. 6 Stanton to Charles A. Dana, May 5, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 84. Dana, as special commissioner of the U. S. War Department, was now at Grant's headquarters, and made frequent reports to Stanton. He filled the position with cleverness and discretion. He estimated correctly Grant, Admiral Porter, Sherman, and McPherson, seems to have received their confidence, and did not abuse it. His despatches, written in the clear, terse English of which he was a master, are an excellent history of the progress of the campaign. The words of Stanton (June 5) to him are none too strong: "Your telegrams are a great obligation and are looked for with deep interest. I cannot thank you as much as I feel for the service you are now rendering." —Ibid., p. 93.

Milliken's Bend. The roads having dried up somewhat, although still" intolerably bad,"1 he ordered, March 29, McClernand's corps to march to New Carthage, while Sherman and McPherson with their corps were in due time to follow. The movement was slow, the transportation of supplies and ammunition and the progress of the artillery were difficult. For the success of the enterprise, the co-operation of the navy was necessary, and from Admiral Porter Grant received efficient and generous support.2 Gun-boats and other craft were needed for service below Vicksburg, more rations than could be hauled over a "single narrow and almost impassable road"8 were wanted, hence gun-boats and transports must run the batteries. On the night of April 16 such a movement was made. In utter darkness the fleet started; but the Confederates fired houses on the Louisiana side, and lighted bonfires on the east side of the river, disclosing to their view and aim seven iron-clads, three steamers with ten barges in tow, — these last heavily loaded with supplies. The Vicksburg batteries opened with shot and shell, and the gun-boats returned the fire. All the vessels were struck, but only one was disabled. A shell burst in the cotton surrounding the boilers of the steamer " Henry Clay," set her on fire, and she burned to the water's edge. "I was out in the stream when the fleet passed Vicksburg," writes Sherman, "and the scene was truly sublime." 4 "The sight was magnificent but terrible," are the words of Grant.5 The running of the batteries had been a success, and again on the night of April 22 six steamers towing twelve barges loaded with hay, corn, and provisions steamed and drifted past Vicksburg, bringing an abundance of supplies to the army south of this stronghold.
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1 Grant's report of July 6, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 47.
3 "Never in the history of combined movements has there been more hearty co-operation between the army and the navy than in the Vicksburg campaign of 1863, under the leadership of Grant and Porter." — Captain Mahan's Farragut, p. 206.
3 Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 471.
4 Memoirs, vol. i. p. 817.
5 Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 464.

Still remained the problem how to get on the high ground on the east bank of the river. McClernand's and McPherson's corps were set in motion for Hard Times, part of them in the steamers and barges, the others afoot. To mask the main movement, Sherman made a demonstration on Haynes's Bluff above Vicksburg. April 29 Porter's gun-boats attacked the fortress of Grand Gulf. Hoping that these would silence the enemy's batteries, Grant had ten thousand troops on board the steamers and barges, while he himself was in a tug-boat out in the stream, watching the assault, and ready, if the conditions warranted, to give the order to the troops to land and take the place by storm. But Grand Gulf was too high above the river, and its fortifications too strong to be captured by a front attack, and after five hours of bombardment the attempt was abandoned. "I immediately decided," wrote Grant, "upon landing my forces on the Louisiana shore and march them across the point to below the Gulf. At night the gun-boats made another vigorous attack, and in the din the transports safely ran the blockade."1 The vantage-ground on the east bank of the Mississippi was determined by intelligence from a negro who told Grant that there was a good road from Bruinsburg to Port Gibson. At daylight in the morning of April 30, employing the iron-clads and steamers as ferry-boats, he began the work of transferring the troops to Bruinsburg, on the east side of the river. Once across they commenced their march, and in two miles reached high ground. As soon as Grant had made sure that he would effect this landing, he had telegraphed Halleck, "I feel that the battle is now more than half won."2 Yet all the obstacles of nature had not been overcome. The country with its bayous, swamps, and ravines, its timber, undergrowth, and almost impenetrable vines and canebrakes, rendered offensive operations difficult and hazardous. But, urged by their general, the soldiers pressed on. At two o'clock in the morning
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1 Grant to Halleck, May 3, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 32.
2 April 29, ibid.

of May 1, on the road to Port Gibson they met the Confederates, whom they outnumbered. Skirmishing began, developing, as it grew light, into battle. "The fighting continued all day," said Grant, "and until after dark, over the most broken country I ever saw. . . . The enemy was driven from point to point."1 They were "sent in full retreat." 2 The next day Port Gibson was ours. The Confederates evacuated Grand Gulf. From that fortress Grant wrote a long despatch to Halleck, giving an account of his success. "This army is in the highest health and spirits," he said. "Since leaving Milliken's Bend they have marched as much by night as by day, through mud and rain, without tents or much other baggage and on irregular rations, without a complaint and with less straggling than I have ever before witnessed." 8 Could the army have transmitted a collective despatch, they might have said, Our general has been subject to the same discomforts as we, he has shared all our hardships.4

Grant had now a secure base of supplies at Grand Gulf. He had intended to co-operate with General Banks in the reduction of Port Hudson, and after its capture move with the united armies against Vicksburg; but he now learned that Banks had not made the progress expected, and, on the other hand, that General Joe Johnston was on his way to Jackson to take charge of the defence of Vicksburg, for which, as the South had taken alarm, reinforcements were constantly arriving. "Under this state of facts, I could not afford to delay," was his after explanation.5 May 3 he announced his purpose to Halleck thus: "I shall not bring my troops into this place [Grand Gulf], but immediately follow the enemy, and, if all promises as favorable hereafter
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1 Grant to Halleck, May 3, O. R., vol. xxiv. part 1. p. 82.
2 Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. 1. p. 484.
3 May 3, O. R, vol. xxiv. part i. p. 33.
4 See Grant's account of his inconveniences, Personal Memoirs, vol. I p. 490.
5 To Halleck, May 24, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 38.

as it does now, not stop until Vicksburg is in our possession."1 He was soon joined by Sherman's corps, and had a force of about 43,000. Opposed to him was Pemberton with 40,000 in Vicksburg and along the line of the railroad, and Johnston with about 15,000 in Jackson.2 With the Napoleonic idea Grant proposed to beat these forces in detail. He moved with amazing celerity. With only a single road leading from Grand Gulf, he knew that he could not supply his army from that point, and therefore stopped long enough to arrange for the transport of his ammunition and to get up what rations he could of hard bread, coffee, and salt, intending for the rest to live upon the country. He cut loose from his base and moved forward. "As I shall communicate with Grand Gulf no more . . . you may not hear from me again for several days," was his laconic despatch to his government.3 May 12, outnumbering the enemy, he beat him at Raymond after "a brisk fight of more than two hours." "I will attack the State capital to-day," he said in his telegram announcing this victory.4 He was as good as his word. May 15 he telegraphed: Jackson "fell into our hands yesterday after a fight of about three hours. Joe Johnston was in command. The enemy retreated north, evidently with the design of joining the Vicksburg forces. I am concentrating my forces at Bolton to cut them off if possible."5

From an intercepted despatch he knew correctly the intentions of Johnston, who before the loss of the State capital had ordered Pemberton to come up if practicable, on the rear of the Union army at once. Pemberton with a large part of his force had reached Edwards Station, but deemed the movement ordered by his superior "suicidal." Not comprehending that in Grant he had a man of original mind to contend with, one who had got from his West Point training mental
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1 O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 33.
2 Johnston himself did not arrive in Jackson until May 13.
3 May 11, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 36.
4 May 14, ibid.
5 Ibid.

discipline and not merely a set of rules, he moved south of the railroad, intending to get between the Union army and its base on the Mississippi, — a useless movement, for, as we have seen, the great general had some days before abandoned his base of supplies. Owing to the heavy rains and high water in the creek which he had to cross, Pemberton had not proceeded far with his southward march when he received a despatch from Johnston, who was ten miles north of Jackson, saying, " The only mode by which we can unite is by your moving directly to Clinton."1 He made a retrograde movement with the design of taking a road north of the railroad to Clinton, when he encountered the forces of Grant, who, after his victory over Johnston, had set out to vanquish the other Confederate host. May 16 the two armies met in the battle of Champion's Hill. Again the Union force was the larger, again the Confederates were discomfited. They fled, and Grant pursued them. The next day they made a stand at Big Black River bridge. He attacked. They had lost heart and were filled with consternation at the swift movements and impetuous onsets of Grant. Let Pemberton tell the story of the day: "The enemy . . . advanced at a run with loud cheers. Our troops in their front did not remain to receive them, but broke and fled precipitately. One portion of the line being broken, it very soon became a matter of sauve qui pent." 2 Himself depressed and his troops demoralized, he retired within the defences of Vicksburg.

As soon as he could get across the Big Black River, Grant followed and took possession of the long-coveted heights of Walnut Hills and Haynes's Bluff, securing a base of supplies which had safe and unobstructed water communication with the North. As Grant and Sherman together rode up on the dry high ground north of Vicksburg and looked down upon the Confederate fortress and then upon the Federal fleet within easy distance, Sherman, perceiving the full force of what they had
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1 May 15, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 263.
2 Ibid., p. 207.

gained, and overcome with the recollection of the time when he had panted for that position,1 broke out into enthusiasm which knew no bounds, while Grant, imperturbable, thought and smoked on. There was reason for rejoicing. In nineteen days Grant had crossed the great river into the enemy's territory, had marched one hundred and eighty miles through a most difficult country, skirmishing constantly, had fought and won five distinct battles, inflicting a greater loss upon the enemy than he himself sustained and capturing many cannon and fieldpieces, had taken the capital of the State and destroyed its arsenals and military manufactories, and was now in the rear of Vicksburg.

From the demoralization of the Confederates, he hoped that he might carry their works by storm, and made an assault,2 which was unsuccessful. He then commenced the investment of the city. Since he had crossed the Mississippi only five days' rations had been issued from the commissary department; but the troops, drawing the rest of their supplies from the country, had lived fairly well, although they had suffered from the want of bread, as the cry from the private soldiers of "Hardtack! hardtack!" informed Grant as he rode one day along the lines.3 Solicitous for the comfort of the men, he soon made arrangements by which they had a full supply of coffee and bread.

May 18 Pemberton received a despatch from Johnston, saying that if Vicksburg were invested it must surrender ultimately; "instead of losing both troops and place, we must if possible save the troops. If it is not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and march to the northeast." 4 By immediate compliance with this order there is a bare chance that Pemberton might have saved a part of his army, but, after a council of war, he decided to make the attempt to hold Vicksburg.

Grant still hoped that he might take the place by storm. His soldiers were eager, and the advantages of a speedy cap

1 Ante, p. 221.
2 May 19.
3 Personal Memoirs, vol. 1. p. 530.
4 O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 272.

capture were great.1 May 22 he ordered an assault in force: this failed, with a loss of 3199.2 On the evening of that day he wrote, "I now find the position of the enemy so strong that I shall be compelled to regularly besiege the city."3 "I intend to lose no more men," he said on the morrow, "but to force the enemy from one position to another without exposing my troops."4 "The position is as strong by nature as can possibly be conceived of, and is well fortified," he advised Halleck. ..." The enemy are now undoubtedly in our grasp. The fall of Vicksburg and the capture of most of the garrison can only be a question of time. I hear a great deal of the enemy bringing a large force from the East to effect a raising of the siege."5 His next despatch shows watchfulness as well as confidence: "I can manage the force in Vicksburg and an attacking force on the rear of 30,000, but may have more to contend against. Vicksburg will have to be reduced by regular siege. My effective force here is about 50,000, and can be increased 10,000 more from my own command." 6 Halleck had anticipated his desire for reinforcements, and had ordered troops to him from Missouri and Kentucky, so that by the time he was ready for a final assault he had an army of 75,000.

The head-work of the siege fell largely upon the engineers, who were too few in number. Therefore all the officers who were graduates of West Point were pressed into this branch of the service, and their academic knowledge of military engineering was made of avail. Grant, Sherman, and McPherson did double duty, counting no labor too mean which would contribute to the glorious result in view. Much of the
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1 These are well stated by Grant in his report of July 6, O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 55.
a 502 killed, 2550 wounded, 147 missing. The loss in his five successful battles of May had been but 4337. — Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 549.
2 To Porter, O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 337.
3 Ibid., p. 343.
4 May 24, ibid., p. 37.
6 May 25, ibid., p. 39.

drudgery was performed by negroes, who, attracted by the promise of wages ushered in by the new era, flocked into the Union lines. "We are now approaching with pick and shovel," wrote General Sherman to his brother, the Senator. ..." In the mean time we are daily pouring into the city a perfect storm of shot and shells, and our sharpshooters are close up and fire at any head that is rash enough to show itself above ground."1 "The approaches are gradually nearing the enemy's fortifications," said Grant in his despatch to Halleck, June 3. . . . "We shell the town a little every day and keep the enemy constantly on the alert. We but seldom lose a man now. The best of health and spirits prevail among the troops." "Vicksburg is closely invested" is, five days later, the report of his progress. "I have a spare force of about 30,000 men with which to repel anything from the rear. . . . Johnston is concentrating a force at Canton." June 18 he wrote, "Deserters come out daily. All report rations short."2

The situation of the besieged was pitiable. The mass of demoralized soldiers who poured into the city, fleeing from the victorious Union army after the battle of Big Black River bridge, was a bad augury, and, while the feeling was for the moment relieved by the repulse of the two assaults of Grant, gloom settled down upon soldiers and people before the steady systematic work of the investing army. The "tumultuous, joyous city full of stirs" became a camp and a trench.3 In the town were many non-combatants, some of whom were women and children; and while the casualties among them were not many, the nervous strain from the continual bombardment by the fleet on one side and the Federal artillery on the other was great. One soldier remarked the demoralizing effect of the howling and bursting shells, another the intense and hideous hiss of the conical balls from the heavy
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1 May 29, Sherman Letters, p. 206.
2 O. R., vol. xxiv. part. i. pp. 40, 41, 43.
3 Edward S. Gregory, Annals of the War, p. 116.

rifled-guns of the steamer Cincinnati, and a lady tells of the fearful noise, the wild screams, the whizzing and clattering sound of the shrapnel-shells that struck terror to the heart.1 The lie of the ground lent itself to the building of caves which served as a refuge for women and children. The caves soon became dwelling-places where they ate and slept. Their fathers, husbands, and sons were on duty in the trenches. The bombardment from the mortars across the Mississippi, the constant fire on the Confederate lines by artillery and sharpshooters, caused the loss of many officers and men,2 and immediate anguish to their households. "The screams of the women of Vicksburg," writes one of them, "were the saddest I have ever heard. The wailings over the dead seemed full of a heart-sick agony. I cannot attempt to describe the thrill of pity, mingled with fear, that pierced my soul, as suddenly vibrating through the air would come these sorrowful shrieks! —these pitiful moans! — sometimes almost simultaneously with the explosion of a shell." 8 Grief, anxiety, sordid cares, and suffering at the deprivation of the necessaries and conveniences of life made up the existence of the citizens and the women. Soon there was lack of the proper kind of food, then hunger stared them in the face. The sole hope was that Johnston would break the investment, and the appeals of Pemberton, which were sent to him with great difficulty, were urgent. Jefferson Davis was in deep concern at the impending fate of Vicksburg, and did his utmost to forward reinforcements from all available points, but, after draining the resources of the Confederacy, he was able to increase Johnston's army to a total of only 24,000 to 34,000 men.4 The reinforcements to Grant were coming
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1 Lockett, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 483; Gregory, Annals of the War, p. 122; My Cave Life in Vicksburg (New York, 1864), p. 124.
2 See Pemberton to Johnston, June 10, O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 958. 3 My Cave Life in Vicksburg, p. 131.
4 Johnston said his force was 24,000; the War Department put it at 34,000. — O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. pp. 194,195, 223, 224. For most of the time Johnston's headquarters were either at Canton or Jackson.

more rapidly and in greater numbers, and there was no time when Johnston could have brought more than an equal force to attack that which Grant had set apart to frustrate any attempt to break the siege. The Union troops would fight behind breastworks with the probability of repulsing the Confederates with great slaughter. Johnston was wise when he refused to give battle with an inadequate army. The acrimony exhibited in the correspondence between him and his President is apt to induce friends of the South to impute a share of the blame for their great disaster to one or the other, but, it seems to me, with little reason. Johnston ought, indeed, to have proceeded in person to join Pemberton as soon as he arrived at Jackson, but he offers the excuse that he was too weak physically to attempt such a ride.1 With that exception he seems to have done everything possible,2 and Davis in Richmond wrought in his sphere with energy and zeal. The superior resources of the North were bound to tell whenever a great military leader should arise. The leader had arisen, the government furnished him everything, and he bore full sway. Despatches were so long in transmission from Washington to his headquarters that the orders or the wishes of the President or Halleck were ineffectual when received. Halleck directed him to unite, if possible, his forces with Banks's in order to attack Vicksburg and Port Hudson separately with the combined armies, but he received the despatch on the battle-field of the Big Black just before his soldiers charged the enemy, and, flushed with his victories, he knew that by the logic of events he should disregard the order.3 Against this able handling of abundant resources the efforts
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1 Johnston's Narrative, p. 187. 2 After the war Grant said: "I have had nearly all of the Southern generals in high command in front of me, and Joe Johnston gave me more anxiety than any of the others. I was never half so anxious about Lee. . . . Take it all in all, the South, in my opinion, had no better soldier than Joe Johnston—none at least that gave me more trouble."—J. R. Young, Around the World with General Grant, vol. ii. pp. 212, 213. 3 Halleck's order is dated May 11, and was received the 17th. — O. R. vol. xxiv. part i. p. 36; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 524

of the Confederates were vain. Johnston comprehended the situation, and placed the dilemma before the authorities in Richmond. "Without some great blunder of the enemy we cannot hold both Mississippi and Tennessee," he telegraphed June 15; "which it is best to hold is for the Government to determine ... I consider saving Vicksburg hopeless." 1 With so difficult a choice before him, Jefferson Davis may not be blamed that he did not order Bragg's army to Mississippi, leaving Tennessee open to Rosecrans.

The communication between Johnston and Pemberton was irregular and precarious. One courier availing himself of the river went as far as he dared in his skiff, then landed and waited for the darkness of night. He removed all his clothes, fastened his despatches securely within them, and bound them in turn firmly to a plank. This he pushed into the stream, and floated with it down the river past the gun-boats to Confederate ground.2 June 14 Johnston sent this word: "All that we can attempt to do is to save you and your garrison. . . . Our joint forces cannot raise the siege of Vicksburg." This was received within a week, and Pemberton in reply suggested a plan for this relief.3

Meanwhile the garrison was suffering from fatigue, lack of food, enfeeblement, and sickness. Soon after the commencement of the siege the meat ration was reduced one half, and in lieu thereof, that of sugar, beans, and rice was increased. As an encouragement to the troops Pemberton impressed the chewing tobacco in the city, and issued it to them; this, he said, "had a very beneficial influence." 4 The meat became almost exhausted, bacon gave out. Recourse was had to the flesh of horses and mules. It is said that the Frenchmen among the Louisiana troops prepared a toothsome dish of
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1 O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 227. I have transposed somewhat the words of the despatch without harm to the meaning.
2 My Cave Life in Vicksburg, p. 115; see, also, Gregory, Annals of the War, p. 123; O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 958.
3 Ibid., part i. pp. 244, 279.
4 Ibid., p. 278.

rats. Corn meal ran low, and the supply was eked out by a mixture of dried peas ground up. The incessant work of countermining against the greater number of besiegers who pushed operations night and day, the labor of defence, the exposure in the trenches "to burning suns, drenching rains, damp fogs and heavy dews,"1 wore the men out, and, together with a growing want of confidence in their commander, caused a loss of morale. Of this, the conversations of pickets during their temporary truces and the reports of deserters gave Grant an inkling, as he steadily and grimly closed about the beleaguered city and made ready for a final assault. Pemberton. who seems to have been a brave and conscientious officer, saw his power of resistance declining day by day. June 28 he received an "appeal for help" from many soldiers in the trenches, which from its sincerity must have moved his feelings and may have been an influence in determining his action. "Our rations," it said, "have been cut down to one biscuit and a small bit of bacon per day, not enough scarcely to keep soul and body together, much less to stand the hardships we are called upon to stand. ... If you can't feed us, you had better surrender us, horrible as the idea is, than suffer this noble army to disgrace themselves by desertion. . . . Men are not going to lie here and perish if they do love their country dearly. . . . Hunger will compel a man to do almost anything. . . . This army is now ripe for mutiny unless it can be fed." 2

When July 1 came, Pemberton made up his mind that he could not repel another assault, which he knew was at hand, and that ne must surrender or endeavor to cut his way out. He submitted the question by confidential notes to his division commanders, and afterwards held with them a council of war; all being unanimous for capitulation, he decided on opening negotiations with Grant. July 3 white flags denoting
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1 O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 286.
2 Found among General Pemberton's papers, O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 982; see a pathetic account by Major Hogane of a stripling who from weakness "could not lift his spade." — Southern Historical Society Tapers, vol. xi. p. 484.

his desire for a parley were raised on his works, causing hostilities thereabouts to cease. Two officers bearing a flag of truce with a letter from him asking for terms wended their way toward the Union lines. This resulted in a conference that afternoon between Grant and Pemberton, who were old acquaintances, having served in the same division during a part of the Mexican war. They met on a hillside, near a stunted oak-tree, a few hundred feet from the Confederate lines, and after their interchange of views Grant wrote that evening a letter offering terms of capitulation which, after a little delay, were accepted. At 10.30 on the morning of July 4, in the self-same hour that Lincoln announced to the country the result of Gettysburg, he sent this word to his government: "The enemy surrendered this morning. The only terms allowed is their parole as prisoners of war."1 "Glory, hallelujah!" wrote General Sherman to Grant, "the best Fourth of July since 1776."2 The number of prisoners taken was 29,491, while the Confederate loss up to that time had probably reached 10,000. Besides, 170 cannon and 50,000 small arms were captured. The muskets, being of an improved make recently received from Europe, were used to replace the inferior arms of many regiments of the Union army. The result had been gained at small cost: Grant's loss during his whole campaign was 9362.

"In boldness of plan, rapidity of execution, and brilliancy of results," wrote Halleck, a scholar in military affairs, your "operations will compare most favorably with those of Napoleon about Ulm." 3 Others of his friends have drawn a parallel with the Italian campaign of 1796.4 On the day that the news was received in Washington the government conferred on him the honor of a major-generalship in the regular army; and later, on his recommendation, made Sherman and
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1 O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 44.
2 July 3, ibid., part iii. p. 461.
3 Ibid., part i. p. 63.
4 General Sherman, Century Magazine, February 1888, p. 588; Greene, The Mississippi, p. 170; Badeau, Military History of U. S. Grant, vol. i. p. 285.

McPherson, his efficient and faithful lieutenants, brigadiers in the regular service.

Of what occurred when the Federal troops took possession of the city and the Confederates marched out, accounts differ in detail but agree in essence. Grant wrote, "Not a cheer went up, not a remark was made that would give pain." A Confederate officer of high rank recollects a hearty cheer from a division of the Union army, but it was given "for the gallant defenders of Vicksburg." 1

When the news of the victory reached Port Hudson, the Confederate commander surrendered it to General Banks, who had invested it with his army.2 July 16 the steamboat Imperial, which had come directly from St. Louis, landed its commercial cargo on the levee at New Orleans.3 As Lincoln said, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea." 4

Since the first of January the eyes of the North had been on Vicksburg. There were crushed hopes and hope deferred, elation at the success of Grant's May campaign and at a false report of the capture of the stronghold, then weary waiting with hearts buoyed up by anticipation. When the final triumph came, the joy was rendered all the greater by the
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1 Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 570; Lockett, Century War Book, vol. Hi. p. 492. See, also, Gregory, Annals of the War, pp. 129,130; My Cave Life in Vicksburg, p. 139. "Grant entered the city at eleven o'clock, and was received by Pemberton with more marked impertinence than at their former interview. He bore it like a philosopher, and in reply treated Pemberton with even gentler courtesy and dignity than before." — C. A. Dana to Stanton, July 5, Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, January 1898, p. 265.
2 This was on July 8, O. R., vol. xxvi. part i. p. 52 et seq.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 327.
4 He then added: "Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it." — Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 398. Grant's army was mainly from the Western States, although there were several Eastern and some Southern regiments in it; part of the latter were colored. Banks's army was principally from the East, with a few Western and some Southern regiments.

long suspense, and it was augmented by the coincidence with Gettysburg, the popular mind associating both victories with the Fourth of July, the day of the nation's birth.1 Gettysburg and Vicksburg ought to have ended the war. While the North took courage that a great military leader had arisen to give aim to its resources, the South was deeply depressed at her defeat in the two campaigns. On account of the failure of the invasion into Pennsylvania and the "expressions of discontent in the public journals at the result of the expedition," and the fear that such a feeling might extend to his soldiers, Lee earnestly requested Davis to supply his place as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia with "a younger and abler man;" but this request was promptly refused.2
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1 See Lincoln's speech, July 7, the day on which intelligence of the capture of Vicksburg was received. — Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 366. The news was sent up the river by steamer to Cairo, 626 miles, whence it was telegraphed.
2 Lee to Davis, August 8, Life of Jefferson Davis by his wife, vol. ii. p. 393; Davis to Lee, August 11, ibid., p. 396; O. R., vol. xxix. part. ii. p. 639. The main authorities for the campaign of Vicksburg are the despatches of Grant, Dana, Johnston, and Pemberton, O. R., vol. xxiv. parts i. and iii.; Grant's report of July 6 (of which Halleck wrote : "Your narrative of this campaign, like the operations themselves, is brief, soldierly, and in every respect creditable and satisfactory " ) ; reports of Pemberton, August 2, of Johnston, November 1. I have also used the correspondence in general and the reports of McPherson and Stephen D. Lee ; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. i.; General Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i.; The Sherman Letters ; Johnston's Narrative; articles of Johnston, Lockett, and Grant, Century War Book, vol. iii; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. ; Capt. Mahan, Life of Farragut, The Gulf and Inland Waters; J. Davis, Confederate Government, vol. ii.; Life of Davis by his wife, vol. ii.; Greene, The Mississippi; Badeau, Military History of Grant, vol. i.; Life of Grant by Dana and Wilson ; Pollard's Third Year of the War; Wolseley in North Amer. Review, October 1889; Annals of the War; South. Historical Society Papers, vol. xi.; My Cave Life in Vicksburg; The Vicksburg Daily Citizen (printed on wall paper), July 2 ; Swinton, Decisive Battles ; New York Tribune, May 23, July 7, Times, July 7, 9, Evening Post, Herald, World, Chicago Tribune, Phila. Inquirer, Boston Advertiser, July 8, Boston Courier, July 9; Charles A. Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, November December 1897, January 1898; Grant's Letters, edited by Wilson.
I have not thought it necessary to go into the trouble between Grant and McClernand. See O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. pp. 37,43,84,102,158 et seq. ; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. pp. 135, 141, 286.
The cavalry raid of Colonel Grierson "was of great importance," attracting "the attention of the enemy from the main movement against Vicksburg."— Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 489.
Johnston hoped to attack Grant about July 7. See O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 245. See Grant's after opinion of this project, J. R. Young, vol. ii. p. 213. For Sherman's pursuit of Johnston, see O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 517 et seq.
The President appointed a day "for national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer," and in his proclamation said: "These victories have been accorded not without sacrifices of life, limb, health, and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal, and patriotic citizens. Domestic affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fearful bereavements. It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father, and the power of his hand equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows." — Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 370.
The opinion of the government of the respective merits of the commanders at Vicksburg and Gettysburg may be gauged by the appointment on the same day of Grant as major-general and Meade as brigadier-general, in the regular service.
As support to my statement that Gettysburg and Vicksburg ought to have ended the war, see Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 567 ; General Sherman, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 334; Longstreet, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 350; Edward Channing, The United States of America, p. 283; William A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 62 ; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 309; Greene, The Mississippi, p. 208.

With superior resources, larger armies as veil disciplined as those of the South and better equipped and supplied, with generals equal on the whole in ability, the North was certain to win in the end provided it would with persistency and patience make the sacrifice of men and money necessary to subjugate the brave and high-spirited people of the Southern Confederacy who were still determined on resistance. But volunteering had practically ceased,1 and only a pretty rigorous conscription could furnish the soldiers needed. Such a measure was contrary to the genius and the habits of the people, and it could not be enforced unless the government were backed by public sentiment. Whether the President would receive that necessary support might have been momentarily doubted from what took place in New York City shortly after the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. During the enrolment under the Conscription Act of March 3, 1863,2 disturbances had occurred, but they were
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l Ante, p. 236.
2 Ante, p. 237.

speedily quelled,1 and though giving rise to local excitement, were not of such nature as to indicate any extended and violent opposition to the policy of filling the armies of the North by compulsion. July 7 the draft began in Rhode Island, the next day in Massachusetts, and proceeded quietly in various districts until Saturday, July 11, which had been the day appointed for the drawings to commence in New York City. Our attention must be directed to the Ninth Congressional District, which was inhabited mainly by laborers, largely of foreign birth, and had the previous autumn given a Democratic majority of over 3000. The popular dissatisfaction with the draft was known, and there were rumors of trouble; but, although a large crowd assembled at the provost-marshal's office on Saturday, the drawing took place without any disturbance whatever, good humor prevailing, even jocularity. Sunday intervened. The names of the conscripts, who were nearly all mechanics and laborers, were published in the newspapers; and as the meaning of compulsory military service for three years was brought home to them, they fell into despondency, while their wives and mothers abandoned themselves to excitement and rage. As crowds gathered to discuss the provisions of the law, as the opinion of prominent Democrats that it was unconstitutional circulated, the wrath of the common people grew. The provision which allowed a man to buy himself loose for three hundred dollars was the moving cause of the bitterness and hate. Introduced into the act when it was supposed that this amount of money as a bounty would procure a substitute, it now fell short of hiring a soldier, owing to the continued decline in the purchasing power of the paper currency, the demand for labor, the rise of wages, and the cost of living, and was therefore looked upon as a cheap device for the rich to escape by making the poor men bear their burdens. It was a day of busy and seething agitation. The populace
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1 J. D. Cox, Reminiscences; Report of the Provost-Marshal-General, p. 19; Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1863, p. 817.

felt that the draft was unjust; they were on the verge of resistance.

Monday1 dawned. Aware of the commotion in the city, the authorities had taken some measures for protection. Shortly after seven the provost-marshal opened the headquarters of the Ninth District, on the corner of Third Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, and made ready to continue the draft. The wheel was placed on the table. Slips of paper, bearing the names of the men liable, rolled tightly and bound with a ring of india-rubber, were put into the wheel. One-fifth of the names were to be drawn, and if the corresponding persons were not rejected as physically or mentally unfit for service or exempted for other reasons under the law, or did not furnish a substitute, or pay three hundred dollars, they must serve in the army for three years or until the end of the war. At ten o'clock the wheel began to turn, and at each revolution a man blindfolded drew out a name which the provost-marshal read to the comparatively orderly crowd of mechanics and laborers who filled the room. For half an hour all proceeded quietly. A hundred names had been drawn when a pistol was fired in the street, and a mass of brickbats and paving-stones came crashing through the windows and doors of the house, hurled by a mob of some thousand, which had been gathering since early in the day. The workmen of the Second and Sixth Avenue street-railroads and of many of the manufactories in the upper part of the city had stopped work and, parading the streets, had persuaded and compelled others to join their ranks. When their force had grown to a little army, they moved with one accord to where the drafting was going on, attacked and took possession of the house, driving the provost-marshal and his deputies away. The furniture was broken up, turpentine poured on the floor, the building set fire to, and soon this and the adjoining houses in the block were ablaze. The superintendent of police came near on a tour of inspection,
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1 July 13.

and, though not in uniform, was recognized, set upon, mauled badly, and only through his indomitable spirit escaped with his life. The provost-marshal's guard from the Invalid corps, hurrying to the scene, were stopped and pelted with stones by the dense crowd of rioters which filled the streets for two squares from the burning buildings. The soldiers fired into the mob, but with little effect; they were overpowered, their muskets taken away, and many of them were cruelly beaten. A strong squad of police appeared and received a volley of stones; they drew their clubs and revolvers and charged the mob, but after a fight of a few minutes they were forced by vastly overpowering numbers to retreat.

Emboldened by these victories, the mob roamed about the city at will. The cry of the Roman populace, "Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay!"1 tells the story. The rioters, who were almost all foreign born, with a large preponderance of Irish, marched through the streets of the upper part of the city, still gaining by constraint or sympathy constant accessions to their numbers, and shouting, "How are you, Old Abe?" "Down with the rich men," and" We'll hang Horace Greeley to a sour-apple tree." Excitement and drink inflamed them to frenzy. Because the proprietor of the Bull's Head hotel on Forty-fourth Street refused to furnish them liquor, the torch was applied. The residence of the mayor on Fifth Avenue was attacked. Houses of other obnoxious men were sacked and set afire. The headquarters of the Eighth District on Broadway,2 where two hundred and sixteen names had been drawn from the wheel that morning, were burned to the ground, as were also those of the Fifth, both districts being strongly Democratic. The fire-engine companies responded to the alarms, but some of the firemen had been drafted on Saturday and their sympathies ran with the mob. Between their lukewarmness and the interference of the rioters nothing was done to check the flames in the odious buildings, but the chief engineer, by ardent pleading, gained permission to
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1 Julius Caesar, act iii. scene
2. a Near Twenty-ninth Street.

turn the hose on the fire where it had spread to the houses of owners who were innocent according to the ethics of the tumultuous crowd. The prejudice of the Irish against the negroes, the feeling of the populace that they were being drafted for an abolition war, broke out into wrath that vented itself in cruel assaults on blacks found in the streets. Hotels and restaurants where they were employed were invaded, and the fleeing servants pursued with unbridled fury. A number of negroes were beaten to death, hanged to trees and lamp-posts, and burned as they hung. Towards evening the mob attacked the fine building of the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue,1 a benevolent institution giving shelter to several hundred children; the few policemen present were able to defend it long enough for the inmates to escape, were then overpowered, whereupon the rioters wreaked their rage by sacking the building and deliberately firing it. Next to negroes, the rioters hated abolitionists and radical Republicans, and attacked some of their houses; they hunted for Horace Greeley, and failing in their search, assailed with brickbats the Tribune office, rushed into the counting-room, seized the newspapers, tore them and trampled them in the street, gutted the office, and were about to set it afire when a strong police force coming across the Park on the run charged and dispersed the mob. A despatch to Stanton at 9.30 represents well the state of affairs at the close of the first day of the riot: "The situation is not improved since dark. Small mobs [are] chasing isolated negroes as hounds would chase a fox. ... In brief, the city of New York is to-night at the mercy of a mob." 2 The police in the main had been able to act only on the defensive, but by their efficiency had saved the town from utter pillage. The Seventh Regiment, whose mere presence would have been a restraint on tumult, was in Maryland, while nearly all the other militia companies of the city and the State had been sent to Pennsylvania
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1 Between Forty-third and Forty-fourth streets.
2 O. R., vol. xxvii. part li. p. 886.

to aid in repelling the invasion of Lee. At midnight mischief was still afoot, and the sky was aflame with the lurid glow of burning buildings; but a heavy rain fell, quenching the fires and driving the rioters to their homes.

Tuesday, July 14, witnessed depredations of a larger, bolder, and more frantic mob. Perceiving their opportunity, the thieves and ruffians of the city who on Monday had swelled the crowd now almost dominated it, and went about plundering as the laborers and mechanics strove against the draft. The rioters, who had no leader, were armed with pistols, guns, bludgeons, clubs, pieces of iron rails, and pitchforks, and while making few demonstrations down town, had complete possession of the city from Union Square to Central Park. The sacking and burning of houses, the outrages on negroes, continued. Gentlemen were robbed in the streets. The street cars and omnibuses ceased to run, and the tracks of the Hudson River and of the Harlem railroads were torn up. All business stopped. Shopkeepers shut and barred their doors and windows, while the mob compelled the closing of warehouses. Laborers on new buildings, in the manufactories, on the docks, left off work and augmented the mass of people, part of whom were actors in the mob and part only spectators. One report stated that the women were more excited than the men. The city fell into a tremor of fear.

Governor Seymour hastened from Long Branch to New York, and at noon on Tuesday made from the steps of the City Hall to a crowd of men and boys a speech for which he and his supporters have since made many apologies. Addressing the rioters as "My friends," he coaxed, pleaded, and promised. In his agitation he truckled to them, evidently thinking for the moment that honeyed words would assuage the tumult which had run wild for thirty hours, and persuade the mob to stay its destroying hand.1 The same day, how
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1 The Public Record of H. Seymour, pp. 127, 128, gives four reports of this speech. My description is warranted by those of the Tribune, Herald, and Times.

ever, he issued two proclamations which, taking into account that he sincerely believed the Conscription Act unconstitutional and the draft unnecessary, were all that could be desired.1

Although the riot was more formidable than on Monday, and indeed raged more furiously than on any day of the four, measures were in train to put it down. The governor, the mayor, General Wool, and General Sandford, commander of the New York State National Guards, co-operated harmoniously in the one aim of restoring the supremacy of the law. Wool brought all the soldiers except small guards from the forts in the harbor to the city, and obtaining a reinforcement from the Rear-Admiral of the Navy Yard, and calling a company from West Point, he secured in all about 800 troops. All the militia who were at home were ordered on duty, and the military were aided in the most effective manner by 2000 police. Hampered as they had been from the first by the continued cutting of the telegraph wires, their defensive work was energetic and successful. In this they were assisted by veterans out of the service and citizens who volunteered and organized themselves and were furnished arms and ammunition. The rioters were repulsed in their attacks on two arsenals, and while they captured another and got possession of the arms, these were afterwards taken from them by the marines and the regulars. The police had a bloody and successful fight in Second Avenue, when they retook a lot of carbines stolen from a factory. The gas works, shipyards, and manufactories threatened by the mob were protected, while two companies guarded the Treasury buildings. A gun-boat was stationed in East River, ready to open fire on Wall and Pine Streets when the proper signal should be given. In Broadway, in Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth avenues, and in the cross streets from Twenty-seventh to Thirty-second streets, the military fought the rioters, and defeated or dispersed them. A stiff fight took place on
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1 These are printed in the Public Record of H. Seymour, p. 126,

Forty-second Street; the barricades in Twenty-ninth were stormed and carried, but not without loss. The police had many conflicts with the rioters, and were successful in them all, although they suffered many casualties. No blank cartridges were used, and a large number of the mob were killed; but the populace had tasted blood and were maddened by the sight of their own dead. They drove furiously on, and at the close of the day there was some discouragement among the forces of law and order. It was reported that the police were exhausted, and could not much longer sustain the unequal contest.1

Wednesday, July 15, broke with the feeling feverish all over the city, but as the day wore on the situation began to look better. In the afternoon Robert Nugent, assistant provost marshal-general, who had charge of the draft in New York City, was sent for by the governor and the mayor, and when he arrived at the St. Nicholas Hotel, their headquarters, was asked whether he had received any word from Washington to stop the draft. He said yes: the day before he had received from James B. Fry, his superior officer,2 a telegram directing him to suspend it, but he had no authority to publish the order. At their earnest solicitation, however, and for the reason that the drawings had been discontinued by necessity, he consented to write a notice over his own name, saying, "The draft has been suspended in New York City and Brooklyn." 3 This appeared in nearly all the newspapers, and undoubtedly was the cause of the rioters retiring to their homes and employments. The militia regiments which had been sent to Pennsylvania began to arrive, and used harsh measures to repress the mobs, who still with rash boldness fronted the lawful powers. Cannon and howitzers raked the streets.

On the 16th more regiments, among them the Seventh, reached the city, and continued without abatement the stern
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1 O. R., vol. xxvii. part ii. p. 889.
2 Provost-marshal-general, with headquarters in Washington.
3 O. R., vol. xxvii. part ii. p. 903,

work of the day before, capturing, moreover, from the rioters a quantity of arms. Order began to be restored; street cars and omnibuses were running; laborers were resuming work. The Hudson River Railroad had been relaid, and trains arrived and departed as usual. The last fight of note took place in the evening near Gramercy Park, where the rioters, who were sacking houses, fired upon a force of United States infantry and cavalry which had been sent thither to protect the property. The soldiers entered the houses, killed many of the rioters, arrested the ringleaders, pursued those who had escaped up the avenue, and dispersed them in all directions. This practically ended the riot. It had lasted four days, with an estimated loss in killed and wounded of 1000, most of whom were of the mob, and a probable damage to private property of $l,500,000.1
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1 My authorities for this account are the despatches and reports of Wool, E. S. Sandford, Fry, Nugent, Jenkins, Mayor Opdyke, D. D. Field, Charles W. Sandford, Hall, Lefferts, Berens, and others, O. R., vol. xxvii. part ii.; Report of the Provost-Marshal-General, March 17,1866; National Intelligencer, July 9; New York Tribune, July 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, Times, 14, 15, Evening Post, 14, 15, 16, Herald, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, World, 13, 14, 15, 16: New York letter to London Times, July 14, 15, do. London Daily News, July 15, appearing in the issues of July 28; Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1863; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii.; Harper's Magazine, September 1863; Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons, Emerson, vol. ii.; James B. Fry, New York and the Conscription of 1863; Howard Carroll, Twelve Americans; Greeley's American Conflict, vol. ii.; Morgan Dix, Memoirs of J. A. Dix, vol. ii.; Public Record of H. Seymour; Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii.; The Draft Riots in New York, Barnes (New York, 1863). Barnes writes: "Eighteen persons are known to have been killed by the rioters, eleven of whom were colored. The number of buildings burned by the mob from Monday morning until Wednesday morning was over fifty" (p. 6). "Of the twenty persons tried on charge of being concerned in the riots, nineteen were convicted" and sentenced to imprisonment (p. 112). For a description of the sacking of a house, see Life of A. H. Gibbons, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44, 48, 49, 65,66, and Evening Post, July 15. See also J. R. Gilmore, Per. Rec. of A. Lincoln.
Senator Collamer, of Vermont, wrote J. S. Morrill, July 17: "The hope which I entertained that our military successes would smooth the way to a quiet and satisfactory execution of our enrolment and draft has been in some degree frustrated by the New York riots; yet I do not despair." — The Forum, November 1897, p. 268.
Riots in resistance to the draft broke out in Boston and in Troy, but were speedily suppressed.

Following the draft riots, Governor Seymour earnestly requested the President to suspend the draft, in order to see whether the quota of New York could not be filled by volunteers; and, believing that one-half the people of the loyal States thought the Conscription Act unconstitutional, he asked a further postponement until a decision on it could be had from the courts. He had no difficulty in showing that the enrolment in some of the districts in New York and Brooklyn was excessive and unfair, and since these had given strong Democratic majorities at the preceding election, he argued, with an array of figures, that it had been of a "partisan character." The President would not consent to suspend the draft, and waste time by a recurrence to the volunteer system, already deemed inadequate by Congress; and while he would be willing to facilitate the obtaining of a decision from the United States Supreme Court, he could not afford to delay operations while waiting for it. "We are contending with an enemy," he wrote, "who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an army which will now turn upon our victorious soldiers, already in the field, if they shall not be sustained by recruits as they should be. . . . My purpose is to be in my action just and constitutional and yet practical." 1 Justice was shown by the correction at once of the glaring disparities in the quotas which affected the New York and Brooklyn districts. These errors undoubtedly crept in through inadvertence, unavoidable in the devising of the complicated machinery necessary for the execution of a new and far-reaching statute. James B. Fry, the provost-marshal-general and head of the bureau, was a man of parts, of a high sense of honor, and zealous for the impartial administration of the law;2 he appointed his subordinates
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1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 382.
2 Seymour in his letter of August 3 said: "I do not doubt the impartiality of Colonel Fry."

in New York City only on excellent recommendations, and they aimed to secure a just and equitable enrolment.

Many writers have asserted that one of the causes of the draft riots was the belief of the people in certain of the districts that they had been tricked in the assignment of their quotas. I have been unable to find any evidence supporting this view, nor am I aware of any fault-finding with the enrolment until after those days in which the mob stopped with violence the prosecution of the draft. Fry states distinctly that no such complaints were received by the War Department.1

The draft was only temporarily interrupted. Strenuous precautions were taken to insure order during its continuance. Ten thousand infantry and three batteries of artillery — "picked troops including the regulars " — were sent to New York City from the Army of the Potomac ;2 the First Division of the New York State National Guard was ordered upon duty; and the governor by proclamation counselled and admonished the citizens to submit to the execution of the law of Congress. August 19 the draft was resumed and proceeded with entire peacefulness. It went on generally throughout the country, and while it did not actually furnish many soldiers to the army, owing to the numerous exemptions under the statute and the large number of those drafted who paid the commutation money,3 it stimulated enlistments by inducing States, counties, cities, and towns to add to the government bounty other bounties sufficient to prevail upon men to volunteer and fill the respective quotas.

The correspondence between Lincoln and Seymour which has been referred to 4 reveals the earnest patriotism of each of
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1 New York and the Conscription, p. 32.
2 Meade to Halleck, August 16, ibid., p. 84; Stanton to Dix, August 15, Life of Dix, vol. ii. p. 86. Dix had succeeded Wool in the command at New York.
3 See Report of the Provost-Marshal-General, p. 28.
4 Seymour's of August 3 and 8, Public Record, pp. 148, 157; Lincoln's of August 7, 11, Complete Works, vol. ii. pp. 381, 386.

these men, and arouses a keen regret that they did not pull together, when the country needed the devotion of all who loved it. Appreciating the benefit and even the necessity of support from the Democratic executive of the chief State of the Union, the President wrote him a serious letter, with the design of becoming "better acquainted," and with the wish for "a good understanding" in the common purpose of "maintaining the nation's life and integrity." 1 In three weeks Seymour wrote a formal reply, promising soon a longer letter in which he should express himself without reserve touching "the condition of our unhappy country; " 2 but this communication he never sent. Meanwhile the arrest of Vallandigham, his burst of righteous indignation at it,3 and the President's defence of it showed how far apart they were in certain essential principles, and may have influenced him to withhold the answer which he had promised to Lincoln's friendly advance.4 In the common danger of Lee's invasion into Pennsylvania, when the governor displayed a patriotic zeal and well-directed energy which could not have been excelled by a Republican in his position, amicable relations seemed to grow up between Washington and Albany, to be disturbed again by the friction occasioned by the draft riots and the correspondence between the two capitals regarding the suspension of the draft.5 In these letters the greater magnanimity of the President is discovered, and is the mark of the greater man.6 How far
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1 March 23, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 10.
2 Ibid., p. 11.
3 Letter of May 16 to Erastus Corning and others, Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1863, p. 689. See, also, Diven to Fry, May 22, New York and the Conscription, p. 73.
4 Howard Carroll, in the Twelve Americans, p. 29, gives an apparently authoritative explanation why a second letter was not sent, but it does not fit into the situation.
5 See Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. chaps, i. and ii.; Fry, New York and the Conscription.
6 See, also, Lincoln's opinion on the draft which he did not publish, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii. p. 49.

Seymour was influenced by the general opinion of cultivated Democrats of New York, that Lincoln was an uncouth, grotesque personage and a weak though well-meaning man, is not disclosed, but he could not have been unaffected by it; nevertheless, he reposed confidence in the President's sense of justice, which came home again to the people of the North now that the distrust and gloom of the preceding winter had been dispelled by the signal victories in the field.

While Irishmen were killing negroes in New York, negroes were laying down their lives for the common country in an attack on one of the strong defences of Charleston. Prompted more by sentiment than by military sagacity, another attempt was made to capture the city in which the secession had begun. In the chain of occurrences, when "some one had blunder'd," an assault was ordered on Fort Wagner,1 with two brigades constituting the forlorn hope. At the head of the storming column was the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, the first colored regiment of the North to go to the war, commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, "the blue-eyed child of fortune, upon whose happy youth every divinity had smiled." 2 The troops charged with spirit, and none exhibited greater courage than the negroes; but, subjected to a deadly fire, the gaps made in the ranks were terrible. They rushed on and planted their flag on the parapet, Shaw waving his sword and crying, "Onward, boys!"

''Right in the van,
On the red rampart's slippery swell,
With heart that beat a charge, he fell
Foeward, as fits a man." 3

The troops could not maintain their hold and were forced to retire.

The sacrifice of Shaw was not in vain. That a gentleman
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1 July 18.
2 Oration of Prof. William James on the day of the unveiling of the Shaw monument.
3 Lowell, Memoriae Positum; inscribed upon the Shaw monument.

should leave a congenial place in the Second Massachusetts and part from brothers in friendship as well as brothers in arms because his anti-slavery sentiment impelled him to take a stand against the prejudice in the army and in the country against negro soldiers;1 that he brought his regiment to a fine degree of discipline; that when the supreme moment came his blacks fought as other soldiers have fought in desperate assaults, — all this moved the hearts and swayed the minds of the Northern people to an appreciation of the colored soldier, to a vital recognition of the end which Lincoln strove for, and to the purpose of fighting out the war until the negro should be free.

Thirty-four years later appeared on Boston Common the contribution of sculpture to this heroic episode. The thought and skill of Augustus St. Gaudens portraying Shaw and his negro soldiers marching to Battery Wharf to take the steamer for the South has forever blazoned the words of Lincoln: "And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." 2
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1 Major Henry L. Higginson said in his address in Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, May 30, 1897: "One morning in February, 1863, as our regiment . . . lay in camp before Fredericksburg, . . . Robert Shaw came to tell us that he was going home to be Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, colored. . . . We all knew how much Robert cared for his own regiment, the 2d Massachusetts, how fond he was of his old comrades, and how contrary to his wishes this move was." We knew "well the full significance and nobility of the step, . . . for at that date plenty of good people frowned on the use of colored troops." —Shaw Monument Book, p. 29.
2 The great consummation was to prove "That among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost."—Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 398.
Note.— The inscription upon the back of the frame of the tablet of the Shaw monument, written by President Charles W. Eliot, is a succinct history of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, and typifies that of the colored troops in general: "The white officers, taking life and honor in their hands, cast in their lot with men of a despised race unproved in war, and risked death as inciters of servile insurrection if taken prisoners; besides encountering all the common perils of camp, march, and battle.
The black rank and file volunteered when disaster clouded the Union cause, served without pay for eighteen months till given that of white troops, faced threatened enslavement if captured, were brave in action, patient under heavy and dangerous labors, and cheerful amid hardships and privations.
Together they gave to the nation and the world undying proof that Americans of African descent possess the pride, courage, and devotion of the patriot soldier. One hundred and eighty thousand such Americans enlisted under the Union flag in 1863-1865."
A joint resolution of the Confederate Congress, approved May 1, 1863, declared, "That every white person being a commissioned officer . . . who shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States . . . shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall if captured be put to death or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court." A final section provided that the negroes captured should be delivered to the authorities of the States to be dealt with according to their present or future laws.— Statutes at Large, Confederate States. See correspondence between Generals Grant and Taylor, O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. pp. 425, 443, 469, also pp. 589, 590.
In this account I have been helped by the addresses of Major H. L. Higginson, Governor Roger Wolcott, Mayor Josiah Quincy, and Booker T. Washington, by the report of Colonel Henry Lee, and the oration of Professor William James, printed in the Shaw Monument Book (Boston, 1897). Colonel Lee spoke of "the antipathy and incredulity of the army and the public at the employment of colored men as soldiers," and added, "'I was opposed on nearly every side when I first favored the raising of colored regiments,' said President Lincoln to General Grant, and no one can appreciate the heroism of Colonel Shaw and his officers and soldiers without adding the savage threats of the enemy, the disapprobation of friends, the antipathy of the army, the sneers of the multitude here, without reckoning the fire in the rear as well as the fire in front" (p. 58). Governor Wolcott said: "On the blood-stained earthworks of Fort Wagner a race was called into sudden manhood" (p. 63). William James declared that "The war for our Union . . . has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eye of history. It freed the country from the social plague. . . . And nowhere was that meaning better symbolized and embodied than in the constitution of this first Northern negro regiment" (p. 74). I have likewise used, Letter from E. L. Pierce to Governor Andrew, July 22, 1863, Pierce's Addresses and Papers, p. 133; The Negro as a Soldier in the War of the Rebellion, N. P. Hallowell, a paper read before the Military Historical Society of Mass., January 5, 1892; Nicolay and Hay, vols. vi. and vii.; Army Life in a Black Regiment, Thomas W. Higginson; Harvard Memorial Biographies, vol. ii.; History of the Negro Race in America, Williams, vol. ii.
For a better understanding of the subject I shall add some other references to the employment of colored soldiers. — Chase to Garfield, May 14, 1863. "The enlistment of colored troops is going on well." — Schuckers, p. 467. See Halleck to Grant, March 31, O. R., vol. xxiv. part iii. p. 156. Grant wrote Halleck, April 19: "At least three of my army corps commanders take hold of the new policy of arming the negroes and using them against the enemy with a will. They, at least, are so much of soldiers as to feel themselves under obligation to carry out a policy which they would not inaugurate in the same good faith and with the same zeal as if it was of their own choosing." — O. R., vol. xxiv. part i. p. 31. Dana wrote Stanton, June 10: " 'It is impossible,' says General Dennis, 'for men to show greater gallantry than the negro troops in this fight [Milliken's Bend].'" — Ibid., p. 96; and he wrote, June 22: "I am happy to report that the sentiment of this army with regard to the employment of negro troops has been revolutionized by the bravery of the blacks in the recent battle at Milliken's Bend. Prominent officers, who used in private to sneer at the idea, are now heartily in favor of it." — Ibid., p. 106. Grant wrote Banks, July 11: The capture of Port Hudson " will prove a death to Copperheadism in the Northwest, besides serving to demoralize the enemy. Like arming the negroes, it will act as a two-edged sword, cutting both ways." — Ibid., part iii. p. 499; and to Halleck, July 24: "The negro troops are easier to preserve discipline among than our white troops, and I doubt not will prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought bravely." — Ibid., p. 547. Lincoln wrote Grant, August 9: "General Thomas has gone again to the Mississippi valley, with the view of raising colored troops. I have no reason to doubt that you are doing what you reasonably can upon the same subject. I believe it is a resource
which, if vigorously applied now, will soon close this contest. It works doubly — weakening the enemy, and strengthening us. We were not fully ripe for it until the river was opened. Now I think at least 100,000 can and ought to be organized along its shores, relieving all the white troops to serve elsewhere. Mr. Dana understands you as believing that the Emancipation Proclamation has helped some in your military operations. I am very glad if this is so." — Ibid., p. 584. Grant wrote Lincoln, August 23: "By arming the negro we have added a powerful ally. They will make good soldiers, and taking them from the enemy weakens him in the same proportion they strengthen us. I am therefore most decidedly in favor of pushing this policy to the enlistment of a force sufficient to hold all the South falling into our hands and to aid in capturing more."—Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 466.
In August Fort Sumter was demolished, but was still held by the Confederates as an infantry outpost. Siege had been laid to Fort Wagner, and September 7 it succumbed. Charleston was not taken.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.4. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].