My Cave Life in Vicksburg, with Letters of Trial and Travel by Mary Ann Webster Loughborough

Author:Mary Ann Webster Loughborough [Loughborough, Mary Ann Webster]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781418118341
Google: A5nVPAAACAAJ
Publisher: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library
Published: 2004-01-15T00:28:51+00:00

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CHAPTER XXI.

Table of Contents

WEARY—THE COURIERS FROM GENERAL JOHNSTON—DANGEROUS PASTURAGE—MULE MEAT—LOCAL SONGS—MISSED BY A MINIÉ BALL.

I am told by my friends, who call, that I am looking worn and pale, and frequently asked if I am not weary of this cave life. I parry the question as well as possible, for I do not like to admit it for M——‘s sake; yet, I am tired and weary—ah! so weary! I never was made to exist under ground; and when I am obliged to, what wonder that I vegetate, like other unfortunate plants—grow wan, spindling, and white! Yet, I must reason with myself: I had chosen this life of suffering with one I love; and what suffering, after all, have I experienced?—privations in the way of good and wholesome food, not half what the poor people around us are experiencing.

A fear of those that can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do! I will not be unnerved—I have no right to complain. Wherever He hath placed me, there will I be found in His strength; and hereafter I will be brave and steadfast.

To reason with myself in this time of danger was one of the chief employments of my cave life. Time passes on, and all say the siege cannot last much longer; and still we are here—and still the deafening noise of shells—and the variety of missiles that are thrown fall, scattering death in all directions.

About this time, the town was aroused by the arrival of a courier from General Johnston, who brought private despatches to General Pemberton, the nature of which did not transpire; yet, from the very silence of General Pemberton, the officers augured the worst.

The courier brought many letters to the inhabitants from friends without. His manner of entering the city was singular: Taking a skiff in the Yazoo, he proceeded to its confluence with the Mississippi, where he tied the little boat, entered the woods, and awaited the night. At dark he took off his clothing, placed his despatches securely within them, bound the package firmly to a plank, and, going into the river, he sustained his head above the water by holding to the plank, and, in this manner, floated in the darkness through the fleet, and on two miles down the river to Vicksburg, where his arrival was hailed as an event of great importance, in the still life of the city.

The hill opposite our cave might be called “death’s point” from the number of animals that had been killed in eating the grass on the sides and summit. In all directions I can see the turf turned up, from the shells that have gone ploughing into the earth. Horses or mules that are tempted to mount the hill by the promise of grass that grows profusely there, invariably come limping down wounded, to die at the base, or are brought down dead from the summit.

A certain number of mules are killed each day by the commissaries,

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