Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/535

Rh sign of impatience. And it is a fact that though I was with Grant during the most trying campaigns of the war, I never heard him use an oath.

We reached De Shroon's about eleven o'clock. The night was spent in embarking the men, and by eleven o'clock the next morning (April 30th) three divisions were landed on the east shore of the Mississippi, at the place General Grant had selected. This was Bruinsburg, sixty miles south of Vicksburg, and the first point south of Grand Gulf from which the highlands of the interior could be reached by a road over dry land.



I was obliged to separate from the headquarters on the 30th, for the means for transporting the troops and officers were so limited that neither an extra man nor a particle of unnecessary baggage was allowed, even horses and tents being left behind; and I did not get over until the morning of May 1st, after the army had moved on Port Gibson, where they first engaged the enemy. As soon as I was landed at Bruinsburg I started in the direction of the battle, on foot, of course, as my horse had not been brought over. I had not gone far before I overtook a quartermaster driving towards Port Gibson, who took me into his wagon. About four miles from Port Gibson we came upon the first signs of the battle—a field where it was evident that there had been a struggle. I got out of the wagon as we approached, and started towards a little white house with green blinds, covered with vines. It was here I saw the first real bloodshed in the war. The little white house had been taken as a field hospital, and the first thing my eyes fell upon as I went into the yard was a heap of arms and legs which had been amputated and thrown into a pile outside. I had seen men shot, and dead men plenty; but this pile of legs and arms gave me a vivid sense of war such as I had not before experienced.