The Civil War: A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian

by Shelby Foote

  Prentiss lost 239: less than six percent of his force, as compared to better than twenty percent of the attackers. However, even with the odds reduced by this considerable extent, he still had too few men to risk pursuit. Reinforcements arrived next day from Memphis, together with another welcome gunboat, but he was content to break up a rebel cavalry demonstration which he correctly judged to be nothing more than a feint designed to cover a general retirement. By dawn of July 6 the only live Confederates around Helena were captives, many of them too gravely wounded to be moved. In praising his troops for their stand against nearly twice their number, Prentiss did not neglect his obligation to the Tyler, whose skipper in time received as well a letter of commendation from the Secretary of the Navy. “Accept the Department’s congratulations for yourself and the officers and men under your command,” the Secretary wrote, “for your glorious achievement, which adds another to the list of brilliant successes of our Navy and Army on the anniversary of our nation’s independence.”

  3

  It was indeed a Glorious Fourth, from the northern point of view; Gideon Welles did not exaggerate in speaking wholesale of a “list of brilliant successes” scored by the Union, afloat and ashore, on this eighty-seventh anniversary of the nation’s birth. For the South, however, the day was one not of glory, but rather of disappointment, of bitter irony, of gloom made deeper by contrast with the hopes of yesterday, when Lee was massing for his all-or-nothing attack on Cemetery Ridge and Johnston was preparing at last to cross the Big Black River, when Taylor was threatening to retake New Orleans and Holmes was moving into position for his assault on Helena. All four had failed, which was reason enough for disappointment; the irony lay in the fact that not one of the four, Lee or Johnston, Taylor or Holmes, was aware that on this Independence Eve, so far at least as his aspirations for the relief of Vicksburg or Port Hudson were concerned, he was too late. At 10 o’clock that morning, July 3, white flags had broken out along a portion of Pemberton’s works and two high-ranking officers, one a colonel, the other a major general, had come riding out of their lines and into those of the besiegers, who obligingly held their fire. The senior bore a letter from his commander, addressed to Grant. “General,” it began: “I have the honor to propose to you an armistice for several hours, with a view to arranging terms for the capitulation of Vicksburg.”

  Pemberton’s decision to ask for terms had been reached the day before, when he received from his four division commanders, Stevenson, Forney, Smith, and Bowen, replies to a confidential note requesting their opinions as to the ability of their soldiers “to make the marches and undergo the fatigues necessary to accomplish a successful evacuation.” After forty-six days and forty-five nights in the trenches, most of the time on half- and quarter-rations, not one of the four believed his troops were in any shape for the exertion required to break the ring of steel that bound them and then to outmarch or outfight the well-fed host of bluecoats who outnumbered them better than four to one in effectives. Forney, for example, though he expressed himself as “satisfied they will cheerfully continue to bear the fatigue and privation of the siege,” answered that it was “the unanimous opinion of the brigade and regimental commanders that the physical condition and health of our men are not sufficiently good to enable them to accomplish successfully the evacuation.” There Pemberton had it, and the other three agreed. “With the knowledge I then possessed that no adequate relief was to be expected,” the Pennsylvania Confederate later wrote, “I felt that I ought not longer to place in jeopardy the brave men whose lives had been intrusted to my care.” He would ask for terms. The apparent futility of submitting such a request to a man whose popular fame was based on his having replied to a similar query with the words, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted,” was offset—at least to some extent, as Pemberton saw it—by two factors. One was that the Confederates had broken the Federal wigwag code, which permitted them to eavesdrop on Grant’s and Porter’s ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship exchanges, and from these they had learned that the navy wanted to avoid the troublesome, time-consuming task of transporting thousands of grayback captives far northward up the river. This encouraged the southern commander to hope that his opponent, despite his Unconditional Surrender reputation, might be willing to parole instead of imprison the Vicksburg garrison if that was made a condition of avoiding at least one more costly assault on intrenchments that had proved themselves so stout two times before. The other mitigating factor, at any rate to Pemberton’s way of thinking, was that the calendar showed the proposed surrender would occur on Independence Day. Some among the defenders considered a capitulation on that date unthinkable, since it would give the Yankees all the more reason for crowing, but while Pemberton was aware of this, and even agreed that it would involve a measure of humiliation, he also counted it an advantage. “I am a northern man,” he told the objectors on his staff. “I know my people. I know their peculiar weaknesses and their national vanity; I know we can get better terms from them on the Fourth of July than on any other day of the year. We must sacrifice our pride to these considerations.”

  One other possible advantage he had, though admittedly it had not been of much use to Buckner at Donelson the year before. John Bowen had known and befriended Grant during his fellow West Pointer’s hard-scrabble farming days in Missouri, and it was hoped that this might have some effect when the two got down to negotiations. Although Bowen was sick, his health undermined by dysentery contracted during the siege—he would in fact be dead within ten days, three months short of his thirty-third birthday—he accepted the assignment, and that was how it came about that he was the major general who rode into the Union lines this morning, accompanied by a colonel from Pemberton’s staff. However, it soon developed that the past seventeen months had done little to mellow Grant in his attitude toward old friends who had chosen to do their fighting under the Stars and Bars. He not only declined to see or talk with Bowen, but his reply to the southern commander’s note, which was delivered to him by one of his own officers, also showed that he was, if anything, even harsher in tone than he had been in the days when Buckner charged him with being “ungenerous and unchivalrous.” Pemberton had written: “I make this proposition to save the further effusion of blood, which must otherwise be shed to a frightful extent.” Now Grant replied: “The useless effusion of blood you propose stopping by this course can be ended at any time you may choose, by an unconditional surrender of the city and garrison.… I do not favor the proposition of appointing commissioners to arrange terms of capitulation, because I have no terms other than those indicated above.”

  There were those words again: Unconditional Surrender. But their force was diminished here at Vicksburg, as they had not been at Donelson, by an accompanying verbal message in which Grant said that he would be willing to meet and talk with Pemberton between the lines that afternoon. Worn by strain and illness, Bowen delivered the note and repeated the off-the-record message, both of which were discussed at an impromptu council of war, and presently—by then it was close to 3 o’clock, the hour Grant had set for the meeting—he and the colonel retraced in part the route they had followed that morning, accompanied now by Pemberton, who spoke half to himself and half to his two companions as he rode past the white flags on the ramparts. “I feel a confidence that I shall stand justified to my government, if not to the southern people,” they heard him say, as if he saw already the scapegoat role in which he as an outlander would be cast by strangers and former friends for whose sake he had alienated his own people, including two brothers who fought on the other side. First, however, there came a ruder shock. Despite the flat refusal expressed in writing, he had interpreted Grant’s spoken words, relayed to him through Bowen, as an invitation to parley about terms. But he soon was disabused of this impression. The three Confederates came upon a group of about a dozen Union officers awaiting them on a hillside only a couple of hundred yards beyond the outer walls of the beleaguered c
ity. Ord, McPherson, Logan, and A. J. Smith were there, together with several members of Grant’s staff and Grant himself, whom Pemberton had no trouble recognizing, not only because his picture had been distributed widely throughout the past year and a half, but also because he had known him in Mexico, where they had served as staff lieutenants in the same division. Once the introductions were over, there was an awkward pause as each waited for the other to open the conversation and thereby place himself in somewhat the attitude of a suppliant. When Pemberton broke the silence at last by remarking that he understood Grant had “expressed a wish to have a personal interview with me,” Grant replied that he had done no such thing; he had merely agreed to such a suggestion made at second hand by Bowen.

  Finding that this had indeed been the case, though he had not known it before, Pemberton took a different approach. “In your letter this morning,” he observed, “you state that you have no other terms than an unconditional surrender.” Grant’s answer was as prompt as before. “I have no other,” he said. Whereupon the Pennsylvanian—“rather snappishly,” Grant would recall—replied: “Then, sir, it is unnecessary that you and I should hold any further conversation. We will go to fighting again at once.” He turned, as if to withdraw, but fired a parting salvo as he did so. “I can assure you, sir, you will bury many more of your men before you will enter Vicksburg.” Grant said nothing to this, nor did he change his position or expression. The contest was like poker, and he played it straight-faced while his opponent continued to sputter, remarking, as he later paraphrased his words, that if Grant “supposed that I was suffering for provisions he was mistaken, that I had enough to last me for an indefinite period, and that Port Hudson was even better supplied than Vicksburg.” Grant did not believe there was much truth in this, but he saw clearly enough from Pemberton’s manner that his unconditional-surrender formula was not going to obtain without a good deal more time or bloodshed. So he unbent, at least to the extent of suggesting that he and Pemberton step aside while their subordinates talked things over. The Confederate was altogether willing—after all, it was what he had proposed at the outset, only to be rebuffed—and the two retired to the shelter of a stunted oak nearby. In full view of the soldiers on both sides along this portion of the front, while Bowen and the colonel talked with the other four Union generals, the blue and gray commanders stood together in the meager shade of the oak tree, which, as Grant wrote afterwards, “was made historical by the event. It was but a short time before the last vestige of its body, root and limb had disappeared, the fragments taken as trophies. Since then the same tree has furnished as many cords of wood, in the shape of trophies, as ‘The True Cross.’ ”

  But that was later, after the souvenir hunters had the run of the field. For the present, the oak remained as intact as almost seven weeks of bullets and shells from both sides had allowed, and Grant and Pemberton continued their pokerlike contest of wills beneath its twisted branches. If the Confederate played a different style of game, that did not necessarily mean that he was any less skillful. In point of fact—at any rate in the limited sense of getting what he came for—he won; for in the end it was the quiet man who gave way and the sputterer who stood firm. In the adjoining group, Bowen proposed that the garrison “be permitted to march out with the honors of war, carrying with them their arms, colors, and field batteries,” which was promptly denied, as he no doubt had expected; whereupon Pemberton, after pointing out that his suggestion for the designation of commissioners had been rejected, observed that it was now Grant’s turn to make a counteroffer as to terms. Grant agreed; Pemberton would hear from him by 10 o’clock that evening, he said; and with that the meeting broke up, though it was made clear that neither opponent was to consider himself “pledged.” Both returned to their own lines and assembled councils of war to discuss what had developed. Pemberton found that all his division commanders and all but two of his brigade commanders favored capitulation, provided it could be done on a basis of parole without imprisonment. Grant found his officers of a mind to offer what was acceptable, although he himself did not concur; “My own feelings are against this,” he declared. But presently, being shielded in part from the possible wrath of his Washington superiors by the overwhelming vote of his advisers, he “reluctantly gave way,” and put his terms on paper for delivery to Pemberton at the designated hour. Vicksburg was to be surrendered, together with all public stores, and its garrison paroled; a single Union division would move in and take possession of the place next morning. “As soon as rolls can be made out, and paroles signed by officers and men,” he stipulated, “you will be allowed to march out of our lines, the officers taking with them their side-arms and clothing, and the field, staff, and cavalry officers one horse each. The rank and file will be allowed all their clothing, but no other property.” Remembering Pemberton’s claim that he had plenty of provisions on hand, Grant added a touch that combined generosity and sarcasm: “If these conditions are accepted, any amount of rations you may deem necessary can be taken from the stores you now have, and also the necessary cooking utensils for them.… I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, U. S. GRANT, Major General.”

  Now that he had committed his terms to paper, he found them much more satisfactory than he had done before. “I was very glad to give the garrison of Vicksburg the terms I did,” he afterwards wrote. To have shipped the graybacks north to Illinois and Ohio, he explained, “would have used all the transportation we had for a month.” Moreover, “the men had behaved so well that I did not want to humiliate them. I believed that consideration for their feelings would make them less dangerous foes during the continuance of hostilities, and better citizens after the war was over.” So he said, years later, making a virtue of necessity and leaving out of account the fact that he had begun with a demand for unconditional surrender. For the present, indeed, he was so admiring of the arrangement, from the Union point of view, that he did what he could to make certain Pemberton could not reject it—as both had reserved the right to do—without risking a mutiny by the beleaguered garrison. He had Rawlins send the following note to his corps commanders: “Permit some discreet men on picket tonight to communicate to the enemy’s pickets the fact that General Grant has offered, in case Pemberton surrenders, to parole all the officers and men and to permit them to go home from here.”

  He could have spared himself the precaution and his courier the ride. “By this time,” a Confederate declared, “the atmosphere was electric with expectancy, and the wildest rumors raced through camp and city. Everyone had the air of knowing something vital.” What was more, a good deal of back-and-forth visiting had begun on both sides of the line. “Several brothers met,” a Federal remarked, “and any quantity of cousins. It was a strange scene.” Whatever the blue pickets might say, on whatever valid authority, was only going to add to the seethe of speculation within and without the hilltop fortress which was now about to fall, just under fourteen months after its mayor replied to the first demand for surrender, back in May of the year before: “Mississippians don’t know, and refuse to learn, how to surrender to an enemy. If Commodore Farragut and Brigadier General Butler can teach them, let them come and try.” The upshot was that Grant had come and tried, being so invited, and now Pemberton had been taught, although it galled him. Assembling his generals for a reading of the 10 o’clock offer, he remarked—much as his opponent had done, an hour or two ago, across the way—that his “inclination was to reject these terms.” However, he did not really mean it, any more than Grant had meant it, and after he had taken the all but unanimous vote for capitulation, he said gravely: “Gentlemen, I have done what I could,” then turned to dictate his reply. “In the main, your terms are accepted,” he told Grant, “but in justice both to the honor and spirit of my troops, manifested in the defense of Vicksburg, I have to submit the following amendments, which, if acceded to by you, will perfect the agreement between us.…” The added conditions, of which there were two, were modest enough
in appearance. He proposed to march his soldiers out of the works, stack arms, and then move off before the Federals took possession, thus avoiding a confrontation of the two armies. That was the first. The second was that officers be allowed “to retain their … personal property, and [that] the rights and property of citizens … be respected.” But Grant declined to allow him either, and for good cause. As for the first, he replied, it would be necessary for the troops to remain under proper guard until due process of parole had been formally completed, and as for the second, while he was willing to give all citizens assurance that they would be spared “undue annoyance or loss,” he would make no specific guarantees regarding “personal property,” which he privately suspected was intended to include a large number of slaves, freed six months ago by Lincoln’s Proclamation. “I cannot consent to leave myself under any restraint by stipulations,” he said flatly. Denial of the proposed amendments was contained in a dispatch sent before sunrise, July 4. Pemberton had until 9 a.m. to accept the original terms set forth in last night’s message; otherwise, Grant added, “I shall regard them as having been rejected, and shall act accordingly.”

  Now it was Pemberton’s turn to bend in the face of stiffness, and this he did the more willingly since the morning report—such had been the ravages of malnutrition and unrelieved exposure—showed fewer than half his troops available for duty as effectives. “General,” he answered curtly about sunrise: “I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this day, and in reply to say that the terms proposed are accepted.” The rest was up to Grant, and it went smoothly. At 10 o’clock, in response to the white flags that now fluttered along the full length of the Confederate line, John Logan marched his division into the works. Soon afterwards the Stars and Stripes were flying over the Vicksburg courthouse for the first time in two and a half years. If the victors were somewhat disappointed professionally that seven weeks of intensive shelling by 220 army cannon, backed up by about as many heavier pieces aboard the gunboats and the mortar rafts, had done surprisingly little substantial damage to the town, it was at least observed that the superficial damage was extensive. Not a single pane of glass remained unbroken in any of the houses, a journalist noted. It was also observed that, despite the southern commander’s claim that he had ample provisions, the gauntness of the disarmed graybacks showed only too clearly, not only that such was not the case, but also that it apparently had not been so for some time. One Federal quartermaster, bringing in a train of supplies for the troops in occupation, was so affected by the hungry looks on the faces of the men of a rebel brigade that he called a halt and began distributing hardtack, coffee, and sugar all around. Rewarded by “the heartfelt thanks” of the butternut scarecrows, he said afterwards that when his own men complained that night about the slimness of their rations, “I swore by all the saints in the calendar that the wagons had broken down and the Johnny Rebs had stolen all the grub.” Not only was there little “crowing,” which some Confederates had feared would be encouraged and enlarged by a Fourth of July surrender, but according to Grant “the men of the two armies fraternized as if they had been fighting for the same cause.” Though that was perhaps an overstatement of the case, there was in fact a great deal of mingling by victors and vanquished alike—“swapping yarns over the incidents of the long siege,” as one gray participant put it—and even some good-natured ribbing back and forth. “See here, Mister; you man on the little white horse!” a bluecoat called out to Major Lockett, whose engineering duties had kept him on the move during lulls in the fighting. “Danged if you aint the hardest feller to hit I ever saw. I’ve shot at you more’n a hundred times.” Lockett took it in good part, and afterwards praised his late adversaries for their generosity toward the defeated garrison. “General Grant says there was no cheering by the Federal troops,” he wrote. “My recollection is that on our right a hearty cheer was given by one Federal division ‘for the gallant defenders of Vicksburg!’ ”