Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/638

Rh John Adams, who met his advance column and drove it back at Mechanicsburg, reported still more destruction.

Early in June the Federal works had been pushed up very close, especially in front of Lee and Forney, and the Federal mines crept still closer, particularly toward the Graveyard redan, the Third Louisiana redan on the Jackson road, and the lunette on the Baldwin’s Ferry road. The Confederates threw up new lines of defense behind these points and countermined. On the 19th of June the Federal works on the Graveyard road were within twenty feet of our redan. Pemberton made another appeal to Johnston: "My men have been thirty-four days and nights in trenches, without relief; and, as you know, are entirely isolated. What aid am I to expect from you? The bearer, Capt. G. D. Wise, can be confided in."

At this moment the army of Northern Virginia was advancing into Pennsylvania; Bragg’s army was facing Rosecrans before Chattanooga, and General Gardner was besieged at Port Hudson. The only relief obtained from the Trans-Mississippi forces was an expedition under Maj.-Gen. J. G. Walker against Young’s Point and Milliken’s Bend in June, which destroyed all the sources of Federal supplies in that quarter. Harrison captured Richmond and defeated the enemy’s cavalry June 6th; but H. E. McCulloch was repulsed from Milliken’s Bend on the 7th. Johnston continued to promise some relief, to save the garrison at least, and there was talk of cutting out, supported by an attack by Johnston. It was promised that General Taylor, with 8,000 men, would open communication from the west bank of the river; but nothing came of it.

Grant’s statement of his condition on June 14th was this: "I had now about 71,000 men. More than half were disposed of across the peninsula, between the Yazoo at Haynes’ Bluff, and the Big Black, with the division of Osterhaus watching the crossings of the latter river