Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/61

Rh and they fought not merely with indomitable courage, but with gaiety. They sunk the Cincinnati. They repelled the great assault of May the 22nd, five charge's in all, supported by a furious cannonade; and the assault of June the 25th, made through a breach caused by the explosion of a Federal mine. They fought their guns until they were disabled. They fought with rifles, with bayonets, and with hand grenades, and with fire balls. For forty-seven days and nights they fought, until their ammunition was all but spent, until starvation was upon them, until all their strength was gone. They were surrounded and out numbered, and help was far, far away. On the Fourth of July, the city surrendered.

At ten in the morning the troops marched out of the trenches by battalion, stacked arms, and returned to their old quarters in the town. Men and officers were paroled and permitted to return to the Confederacy. The officers retained their side arms and their personal baggage. "When the 2nd Texas Infantry," says the colonel of that regiment, "marched through the chain of the enemy's sentinels, the spirits of most of the men were even then at the highest pitch of fighting valor. Released from the obligation of their parole, and arms placed in their hands, they would have wheeled about, ready and confident." What was said of the 2nd Texans may be said with truth of each command engaged in that heroic defense.

So ended the siege of Vicksburg. With the long march to Enterprise, the exchange of the troops, their fortunes in the last years of the war, this paper cannot deal. The Botetourt Artillery–all that was left of it–was exchanged at Enterprise. Ragged, worn and cheerful, it marched away to old Virginia. Its Captain, John William Johnston, becoming Major of Artillery, left the company. Through the remainder of the war he commanded Johnston's Battery of light artillery. He fought at Dalton, Resaca, Columbia, Franklin and Nashville, and surrendered at Salisbury, N. C, two days after the surrender of his kinsman, Joseph E. Johnston. He was a soldier all his life, and a much loved man. In this paper I have more than once quoted Gunner No. 4, Adam H. Flecker, who lives now at Lynchburg, in Virginia. Gunner No. 4 has this to say of his old captain: "I have two pictures in my mind. When we camped at Manassas