Go in on your own hook, boys: With the 16th Indiana at Vicksburg

As the Federal army tightened the noose around Vicksburg on May 21, 1863, Captain James R.S. Cox of the 16th Indiana had an opportunity to observe General Ulysses S. Grant up close and personal.

          Cox was atop a ridge with Generals Stephen Burbridge and A.J. Smith when he saw “General Grant, smoking as usual, walking slowly along the ridge, paying no attention to the sharpshooters who are feeling for him,” he wrote. “Some newspapers deem him incompetent to fill the position, but the soldiers of his army swear by him. They know that the campaign, thus far and under great difficulties, has been conducted successfully. I had formed an idea from the description that he was a whiskey barrel on legs but found myself greatly in error. Paying little attention to dress, he usually wears a stand-up collar with cap and coat much the worse for wear. He seems a plain unassuming man, whether studying his maps or as is his custom, smoking, walking up and down with his hands behind him, grave and thoughtful, becoming one filling his high position.”

          Captain Cox’s in-depth description of the skirmishing on May 21st at Vicksburg first saw publication in the June 12, 1863, edition of the Dearborn County Democratic Register published in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

 

As the 16th Indiana's skirmish line approached the Confederate works at Vicksburg on May 21, 1863, the Hoosiers traded barbs and bullets with the gray-clad defenders, their favorite phrase being "Here's your mule!" The Hoosiers came away impressed with the Vicksburg defenses and Colonel Thomas J. Lucas was convinced a frontal assault would be a "useless sacrifice." The following day's assault would bear out Lucas's prediction. 

Headquarters, 10th Division, 13th Corps

(near Vicksburg, Mississippi, May 1863)

On Monday [May 18, 1863], the advance of Grant’s army passing over Black River and driving in rear guards and skirmishers bivouacked within cannon range of the vaunted Sevastopol of the New World. After its long mud impediment, like one of the Southern alligators suddenly awakened from its torpor, this army had marched nearly 200 miles, passing completely in rear of the foe. In 20 days, it had fought and gained 8 battles, captured 72 pieces of artillery, the capitol of the state, 10,000 prisoners, and so many small arms that for want of transportation, thousands of them were burnt.

Division after division arrived during the night and took up their position so when the sun rose on Wednesday morning [May 20] it found the Rebel forces completely encircled: Sherman’s army corps on the right, McPherson in the center, McClernand on the left with McArthur and his men in possession of Warrenton on the Mississippi. The enthusiasm common with recruits had long since passed away from the men which compose this army. Here were regiments who spoke with pride of battlefields as far back as Belmont while many bore inscribed upon their banners the proud word Shiloh.

The Rebels had spent a year in preparing to meet the shock and now the gathering forces of the Federal army seemed locked round the doomed city in a death struggle for supremacy of the Southwest. Every state in the Northwest is represented here, and they seem to know that before them are strong works with desperate men to man them. A spirit of grim earnestness is seen on every countenance from the general in his tent to the skirmisher watching his chance for a shot over the walls of the fort.

General Stephen G. Burbridge

In the morning, the roar of cannons unceremoniously awoke us and after breakfast, we started out to see a day’s work, General [A.J.] Smith permitting me to accompany him while the company remained behind has headquarters guards. Passing a short distance up a ravine, horses were hitched, it being unhealthy for them on the top of the ridge. Upon reaching it, we found our gallant Brigadier General Stephen G. Burbridge at work with the 17th Ohio Battery. He said he had been at work since daylight and had dismounted some of the enemy’s cannons. Burbridge is a noted artillerist. At Champion Hill, he fired the shot that killed General Lloyd Tilghman. The Rebel general had just sighted a gun and stepped back when a piece of exploding shell hit him on the head and made one traitor less.

On the point, the eye takes in a portion of the Rebel works. We almost involuntarily draw a long breath as we perceive the number and strength of their forts. Each of their smaller works are constructed open to the rear with a front and apron at the sides which are connected with similar works by rifle pits. There are three or four of these small forts and then a large one along the whole range of hills.

Burbridge sighted a gun at a point where the wheels could be seen in the large fort in front of McPherson. A column of smoke 200 feet high showed that he had exploded a caisson or limber. It created quite a confusion and we could see them trying to take away the artillery horses through a glass. We watched one fellow tugging away at the halter of an obstinate mule until shells commenced dropping too thick, then he broke. The bullets of their sharpshooters were singing over us as we lay in the shade on the green hillside, and our thoughts of May parties at home were disturbed by some of them coming unpleasantly near.

Some of the boys of the 6th Missouri Cavalry came out to see the fun. That regiment has a great reputation. They have been driven from their homes by guerillas, had their homes burned, friends murdered, wives and little ones exposed to inclement weather. Feeling themselves to be the avengers of blood, seldom troubling themselves with prisoners, they show no mercy and feel no remorse. In trying to rally a wavering line at the Arkansas Post fight, Major [Samuel] Montgomery, in plain view on horseback, shook his fist at the yelling scoundrels in the fort in his excess of wrath.

"He seems a plain, unassuming man, whether studying his maps or as is his custom smoking, walking up and down with his hands behind him, grave and thoughtful," wrote Captain James R.S. Cox of his army commander at Vicksburg. "History will decide whether as the servant of a nation and the leader of great armies he possessed the requisite abilities which constitute a great general." 

Attended by a single aide, here comes General Grant, smoking as usual, walking slowly along the ridge, paying no attention to the sharpshooters who are feeling for him. Some newspapers deem him incompetent to fill the position, but the soldiers of his army swear by him. They know that the campaign, thus far and under great difficulties, has been conducted successfully. I had formed an idea from the description that he was a whiskey barrel on legs but found myself greatly in error. Paying little attention to dress, he usually wears a stand-up collar with cap and coat much the worse for wear. He seems a plain unassuming man, whether studying his maps or as is his custom, smoking, walking up and down with his hands behind him, grave and thoughtful, becoming one filling his high position. History will decide whether as the servant of a nation and the leader of great armies he possessed the requisite abilities which constitute a great general. In conversation with the commander of the 13th Army Corps, he was heard to say, “We will throw in a few shells and then try it” to which McClernand answered, “Try it, it is then.”

At 3 o’clock, our line was ordered to advance skirmishing. The 16th Indiana was lying in a ravine within 500 yards of the fort. General Burbridge told his men, as he was not following but leading them on, to “Go in boys on your own hook, protect yourselves as well as possible, and get up as near and do them as much harm as you can.” The firing now became very brisk and the Rebels opened with front and enfilading fire.

General Smith sent me to McClernand asking for support. The latter sent to [General Eugene] Carr who ordered [General William P.] Benton’s brigade to advance. As the latter moved forward, they were very much exposed to a raking fire of musket balls and grape. Many fell, but the remainder went over the hill in gallant style. A heavy fire was now going on around the entire works. All the time our own guns were going and McPherson’s three or four batteries were plumping for keeps at the large fort on our right.

A Rebel shell killed a man while we were at Blunt’s battery. While their enfilading fire of grape hummed about our ears real ugly, one cluster I shall remember as a piece bounced off my head, leaving a headache and a hole in my cap while raising a bump not laid down in any phrenological chart.

All this time our line was so near their works that they could hear each other talking. The 16th was yelling and shouting their usual by-word “here’s your mule” and swearing at the Rebels as they fired, “Now damn you, why don’t you hoist the white flag?” Also, they asked if they did not want some crackers and what was the price of soap. The Rebels asked what regiment was in front of them to which our boys answered, “The 16th Hoosiers!” At last, the line was withdrawn, it being intended merely to feel them. Tomorrow [May 22], the grand assault was to be made.

Colonel Thomas J. Lucas, 16th Indiana Volunteer Infantry 

Our regiment had suffered some. Orderly [Lewis W.] Jamison of Co. B was killed, Captain [James M.] Hildreth shot in the foot, while Colonel Thomas Lucas had a bullet through the pants and boot. But one opinion was expressed by everybody and that was that the forts in our front could not be taken by storm. The privates said we were so near that we could look in that ditch, but we cannot cross it to get at the works. Colonel Lucas, giving his opinion, said it would be a useless sacrifice.

I need not tell what is left of the 16th Indiana to charge; start them skirmishing and if they can get over, they will go, but if we are ordered, there is no discretion. General Smith said to Burbridge there is no discretion left us, the order is plain, to which the answer was “Well, we can try, but I would like to see more artillery used to batter down their walls.” Our pickets were posted in the yard where the Rebels had burnt a dwelling within 400 yards of their fort.

          The moonlight plainly revealed the lines of the Rebel works and as it streamed through, the trees showed in contrast the beautiful shrubbery and flowers, blackened chimneys, and the cannons planted in the road. The mortar boats afforded a splendid sight as they kept up their slow and ceaseless firing. There would be a broad flash of light, and the burning fuse of the ascending shell looked like a star as it seemed mounting, by sudden bounds, higher and higher. Just as it would commence descending in the curve of a parabola, the sound of its discharge from the mortar would reach the ear. As it nears the ground, the star is lost in the dazzling flash of the bursting shell, followed by the noise of its rush through the air and its explosion which may be heard over a circle of 20 miles. 

To read more about the siege of Vicksburg, check out these posts:

A Whistling Hail of Death: The First Assault on Vicksburg with the 95th Illinois 

The Ground was Slippery with Blood: The 54th Ohio Tries for Vicksburg

A Most Bloody and Foolhardy Charge: A Buckeye Recalls the First Crack at Vicksburg

The Forlorn Hope at Vicksburg 

Talking Smack with the Johnnies at Vicksburg 

Working for Vicksburg: A Voice from the 33rd Illinois 

Exhausting Pemberton's Peas: The Siege of Vicksburg 

Spades are Trumps: The 96th Ohio and the Siege of Vicksburg

Source:

Letter from Captain James R.S. Cox, Co. F, 16th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Dearborn County Democratic Register (Indiana), June 12, 1863, pg. 2

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