Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/77

Rh the afternoon of June 25th the mine was sprung. The explosion was terrific, forming a crater fully thirty-five feet in diameter; but it did not open the fort. There still remained between the new ground which we had won by the explosion and the fort an ascent so steep that an assault was practically impossible. From this point a desperate attempt was made, however, to gain ground which would be of practical value. The fight was kept up with fury for several days, but we were never able either to plant a battery or open a rifle-pit there.

Eventually McPherson completed a new mine, which he exploded on the first day of July. Many Confederates were killed, and six were thrown over into our lines by the explosion. They were all dead but one, a negro, who got well and joined our army. McPherson did not, however, get possession of the place through this mine, as he had hoped.

Little advancement was made in the siege after McPherson sprang his first mine on the 25th of June, except in time, and to hold the lines of investment. Several things conspired to produce inactivity and a sort of listlessness among the various commands—the heat of the weather; the unexpected length of the siege; the endurance of the defense; the absence of any thorough organization of the engineer department; and, above all, the well-grounded general belief of our officers and men that the town must presently fall through starvation, without any special effort or sacrifice. This belief was founded on the reports from within Vicksburg. Every new party of deserters which reached us agreed that the provisions of the place were near the point of total exhaustion, that rations had been reduced lower than ever, that extreme dissatisfaction existed among the garrison; and it was generally expected—indeed, there was a sort of conviction—on all hands that the city would be surrendered on Saturday, July 4th, if, in fact, it could hold out as long as that.

The general indisposition of our troops to prosecute the siege zealously, and the evident determination on the part of the enemy to hold out until the last, caused General Grant to hold a council of war on the morning of June 30th, to take judgment on the question of trying another general assault, or leaving the result to the exhaustion of the garrison. The conclusion of the council was in favor of the latter policy; but two days later, July 2d, Grant told me that if the enemy did not give up Vicksburg by the 6th, he should storm it.

Happily, there was no need to wait until the 6th. The general expectation that something would happen by July 4th was about to be confirmed. On the morning of Friday, July 3d, a man appeared on the Confederate line, in McPherson's front, bearing a flag of truce. General A. J. Smith was sent to meet the man, who proved to be an officer, General J. S. Bowen. He bore a letter from Pemberton addressed to Grant. The letter was taken to headquarters, where it was read by the general, and its contents made known to the staff. It was a request