[The following is in relation to living conditions within the besieged city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the American Civil War.]
As more Union troops entered Vicksburg, the eerie silence continued. It was the first time in almost two months that the Union guns were quiet. Despite the victory and Independence Day, Grant’s men were not celebrating. They were too shocked at the conditions of soldiers and citizens in Vicksburg, and relieved that the long siege was over.
The Yankee troops had spent more than a year conquering “a country where nearly all the people, except the negroes, were hostile to us and friendly to the cause we were trying to suppress,” as Grant noted. But instead of victorious gloating, there was only “a feeling of sadness among the Union soldiers at seeing the dejection of their late antagonists,” Grant wrote. Union boats arrived with supplies at the wharves, and starved Southerners rushed down and carried away goods in both arms.
Grant allowed the malnourished rebs to draw federal rations. “Very few of them could walk without aid twelve rods,” observed a Yankee soldier. ”…The hip bones of some of them had worn through the skin, and their bodies were a mass of sores caused by the vermin.” They were so lice and scurvy ridden that every article of their clothes would have to be burned.
Source:
Jenkins, Sally, and John Stauffer. “The Swamp and the Citadel.” The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy. Anchor Books, 2010. 111-12. Print.
Further Reading:
Ulysses Simpson Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant)
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