Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/318

284 about equal to those of Pemberton whom he was besieging; each had not far from 30,000 men, and it has been claimed by some historians that the Confederates were numerically superior. Be this as it may, the relative conditions of the two armies was vastly different. The Union forces were flushed with victory, while the Confederates were disheartened by defeat; the Union forces were well fed and clothed, having opened communications with their heavily laden transports in the Yazoo, while the Confederates were poorly supplied and had starvation staring them in the face. Grant had an abundance of ammunition, while Pemberton was but poorly supplied, and of his 30,000 men there were 6,000 in hospital, so that he could hardly muster more than 15,000 effectives.

Reinforcements, provisions, munitions, artillery, and intrenching tools were sent down the river to Grant, and the men set to work with a will to dig their way into Vicksburg. The rugged hills, which afforded excellent ground for constructing works of defence before the siege, were utilized by the besiegers while they prosecuted their enterprise. Day and night the cannon rained shot and shell into the doomed city, the land forces under Grant being seconded vigorously by the gun-boats and mortar rafts of the flotilla. Mine after mine was run under the enemy's works, and met by countermines, which were often so close that the diggers were separated only by thin curtains of earth and could plainly hear the blows of pick and spade. Portions of the defensive works were blown up, but no practicable breach was made to justify an assault in force. Famine was busily at work inside the walls of Vicksburg, and knowing the state of affairs there, General Grant was willing to wait patiently for the result. A Confederate officer thus tells the story: About the thirty-fifth day provisions began to get very scarce, and the advent of General Johnston's relieving force was anxiously and momentarily looked for. Mule meat was