“My heart stood still as we would hear the reports from the guns, and the rushing and fearful sound of the shell as it came toward us.”

The Battle of Gettysburg is commonly cited as the definitive “turning point” of the U.S. Civil War. It’s true that the three-day clash, the deadliest of the entire conflict, saw Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia suffer a catastrophic defeat. The Union victory also dashed Rebel hopes of negotiating a settlement of the two-year-old war, while finally ending any chance of the Confederacy winning diplomatic recognition from European powers like Britain and France. Despite this, it was the surrender of Vicksburg that truly sealed the South’s fate. After all, the city was the last major Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi, America’s most important inland waterway. Its capture by the North would give the Union unfettered control the river, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two. Federal guns pounded the city and its civilian inhabitants for 47 days before Vicksburg’s commanding general, John C. Pemberton, finally sought terms on July 4, 1863. During that time, conditions within the city went from difficult to virtually impossible. Food shortages drove many to desperation, while a scarcity of water amid the sweltering Mississippi summer made life downright intolerable. Such privations were made all the more worse by near-constant artillery bombardments that reduced citizens to refugees in their own community. Below, historian Dr. Samuel Mitcham Jr., author of Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War explains the shocking scope of the ordeal suffered by the city’s 4,600 residents.

By Dr. Samuel Mitcham Jr. 

AFTER MORE THAN a year of trying to overtake the stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the U.S. Army finally managed to surround it beginning on May 18, 1863.

General Ulysses S. Grant could not take the city by direct assault, so he resorted to a protracted siege and bombardment with more than 200 guns. His batteries were supported by Admiral David D. Porter’s fleet with dozens of heavy naval guns.

“The place was a perfect pandemonium,” a Southern sergeant recalled.

Porter’s heaviest weapons were 13-inch mortars, which could throw a 200-pound shell up to three miles. They blew up entire buildings. Major Lockett, chief engineer of the Confederate Army of Mississippi, measured a crater left by a naval mortar round. It was 11 feet deep.

In anticipation of a siege, several Vicksburg’s civilians had already dug caves in which to shelter, but they were not yet accustomed to such bombardments. All realized that a direct hit from one of the Yankee mortar shells would bury them alive.

“I shall never forget my extreme fear during the night, and my utter hopelessness of ever seeing the morning light,” resident Mary Ann Loughborough recalled. “My heart stood still as we would hear the reports from the guns, and the rushing and fearful sound of the shell as it came toward us.”

The bombardment greatly accelerated the cave digging on the sides of the many hills in and around Vicksburg. There were 500 such dugouts by the end of the second week of the siege.

“The earthy, suffocating feeling, as of a living tomb, was dreadful to me,” one woman recalled. In fact, there were so many caves, the Yankees called Vicksburg “Prairie Dog Town.”

Some of the wealthier citizens converted their caves into elegant dwellings complete with carpets, works of art, and even pianos. Some covered their floors with planks and the entrances with tent flaps. Enterprising African-Americans, known then as “free men of color,” saw an opportunity and offered to build caves for $30 to $50 each. They had all the business they could handle.

Despite all the efforts to make the dugouts comfortable, they were still little more than holes in the ground — dark, damp and prone to flooding. And many attracted snakes. One woman discovered a six-foot-long serpent living in her shelter. She fled in panic and found an officer who killed it with his sword. Another lady discovered a rattlesnake under the mattress she had slept on all night.

Overcrowding was also a problem. One cave held 200 people, including recuperating soldiers, aristocratic ladies, poor whites, slaves, and free people of color. In their misery, race and class were forgotten, and residents slept together, side-by-side.

Eleven-year-old Willie Lord recalled quickly getting tired of “squalling infants, family quarrels and the noise of general discord.”

Ironically, the safest caves were the closest to the enemy. There was less danger near the front lines because the Union gunboats did not want to run the risk of missing their mark and accidentally lobbing a shell onto Federal positions.

Despite the popularity of underground shelters, some Vicksburg residents could not be persuaded to leave their homes, no matter what. Mr. McRae, a prominent merchant in town, was sitting in his home one night when a Minié ball came through a window and passed through his beard. He still would not leave, but his wife went to a cave, taking their children and slaves with her.

Citizens also constructed small, temporary shelters called “rat holes.” When people were downtown in a shop or store and the Yankee artillery opened up, they would not have time to reach their caves. Instead, they would yell “every rat to his hole!” and dive in until the danger had passed.

Soldiers and civilians alike soon learned to walk down the middle of the street, so they could see incoming shells. They knew they were probably safe if an enemy projectile passed over their heads because an exploding shell generally threw its fragments forward, leaving those behind it unharmed.

By the end of the siege, there was not a single intact windowpane in the city.

Vicksburg also smelled. There was barely enough water to drink and none to spare for bathing or washing clothes. Lice were everywhere.

Food was an even bigger concern, both for soldiers and civilians alike. As the siege wore on, rations were progressively cut again and again, and much of what remained was horrible.

The beef was soon exhausted, so residents ate horses and mules.

Rats were another major source of protein. Many recalled how they tasted like squirrels. By the end of the siege, they were considered a delicacy. Rats sold in the public meat market for $3.50 a piece, which was equal to two weeks’ pay for a Confederate private. But soon, even rats were in short supply.

Despite the hardships, Confederate morale was remarkably resilient. During World War One, it was axiomatic that soldiers who had been in the forward trenches more than 48 hours were considered no longer fit for combat. Yet Confederate troops stayed in their trenches for weeks, spending day after day in the hot Mississippi sun, covered with lice, without bathing or changing clothes, unable to stretch or exercise, and with grossly inadequate rations. Yet they were still able to check every attack that came their way.

When their commander, General Pemberton, finally surrendered on July 4, 1863, many of them cried.

Dr. Samuel Mitcham Jr. is the author of Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War (Regnery Publishing, June 4, 2018). He is a retired university professor, and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.