Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/339

 Fortification and Siege of Port Hudson. 333

dred ; those of the rebels were slight, owing to their protected situa- tion, and it is supposed that less than one hundred fell inside their works.

ANOTHER FLAG OF TRUCE.

On the 15th, an unusual quiet reigned, apparently from the ex- haustion consequent upon such severe exertion. In the evening, General Banks sent in a flag of truce to ask General Gardner to re- ceive medicines and delicacies for the wounded Federal soldiers in our hands. General Gardner replied that he would receive all such articles, and have them used as purposed. He also took occasion to express surprise at the fact that no cessation of hostilities had yet been asked for by the enemy for the purpose of removing their dead and wounded, who had been lying on an open field — a number of them — under a hot sun, for two days.

The medicines were sent in, but still no request was made of us for a truce to remove the dead and wounded, although the enemy had been engaged during the night in carrying off their wounded as well as they might under our fire. A party of our men had gone out to succor a soldier whose appeals for water were painful to their ears, but they were fired upon by the enemy's skirmishers, and had to return without accomplishing their charitable object.

On the i6th, the eftluvia from the decomposing bodies having become very offensive at our line, Brigadier-General Beall sent a flag of truce to the division commander in front of him, proposing to deliver his dead to him for burial. This offer was accepted, and a truce declared on that part of the lines. Our men collected and delivered one hundred and sixty-seven corpses, besides which they found one poor fellow able to speak though desperately wounded, who was parched with the dreadful pangs of thirst, and whose face, neck and hands had been completely fly-blown.

On the evening of the i6th, a feeble attempt was made against the extreme left. The siege had now, on the i6th of June continued forty days since the commencement of the bombardment by the fleet, twenty-seven days of constant fighting on every side, and twenty- four days since the investment de facto had begun.

It was now left to engineering skill alone to try its schemes for re- ducing the place. Three points of our line were selected by the enemy's engineers as the weakest and most easily reduced by their regular approaches. These were Fort Desperate, the position of which has been heretofore described ; an acute salient angle on the