Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/205

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During the long siege Porter's fleet showered into the city day and night the largest shot known in modern warfare. Small rifle guns were in deep pits opposite the city, firing down the streets from the Louisiana side upon every one who was visible. The entrenched army on the land side, exposed to the continuous fire day and night of Grant's besieging infantry and artillery, their ranks being constantly thinned by shot and shell, not a man to spare from his place in the trenches, exposed to the burning sun and drenching rains and heavy dews, without shelter and rations first reduced to one-half and then to one- quarter, and lastly to eating mule meat, growing less and less every day. Not even the size of a hand could be exposed without drawing the fire of many sharpshooters on either side.

As the siege advanced, sickness began to make its inroads, and finally, July 4th, the men being utterly worn out and exhaused, and sick from improper food and cramped position in the trenches, 8,000 men being on the sick report, the city surrendered. Twenty-nine thousand men were paroled, but of this number those in the trenches were scarcely fit for duty. Large numbers were quartermaster, commissary and hospital employees and attaches of the army.

The losses in this campaign, from General Grant's landing on the Mississippi side to the day before surrender, were 9,362 Federals, killed, wounded and missing, (Federals killed 1,514), and 9,059 Confederates, (killed 1,260).

VANQUISHED BY STARVATION.

Vanquished by starvation and overwhelming odds, both on land and water, reduced to a handful of men for duty, with scarce a supply of ammunition, the city was surrendered. No men ever failed more nobly. The press of England, prejudiced as it was against slave owners, loudly applauded the endurance and heroism of the defence, placing it equal to any siege in history, and never surpassed in the heroism of its defenders.

My friends, the Confederates not only fought the people of the Northern States, but the Federals had the world to back them. The sentiment of Europe was against slavery, and as a consequence "hands off" was the motto of the great powers, who might have recognized the Confederacy. The blockade of our coast by nearly 600 armed vessels, and the gunboats in every river, had an untold power of deprivation ; withheld everything food, clothes, ammuni-