The Rock of Chickamauga: A Story of the Western Crisis, Joseph A. Altsheler [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

spoke only at intervals, and few words then, but nothing in the country about them escaped their attention.

Dick had glasses of his own, and he, too, began to look. He saw a region much wooded and cut by deep streams. Before them lay the sluggish waters of Chickasaw Bayou, where Sherman had sustained a severe defeat at an earlier time, and farther away flowed the deep, muddy Yazoo.

“See the smoke, George, rising above that line of trees along the river?” said Dick.

“Yes, Dick,” replied Warner, “and I notice that the smoke rises in puffs.”

“It has a right to go up that way, because it's expelled violently from the smoke-stacks of steamers. And those steamers are ours, George, our warships. Our navy in this war hasn't much chance to do the spectacular, but we can never give it enough credit.”

“That's right, Dick. It keeps the enemy surrounded and cuts off his supplies, while our army fights him on land. Whatever happens the waters are ours.”

“And the Mississippi has become a Union river, splitting apart the Confederacy.”

“Right you are, Dick, and we're already in touch with our fleet there. The boats do more than fight for us. They're unloading supplies in vast quantities from Chickasaw Bayou. We'll have good food, blankets, tents to shelter us from the rain, and unlimited ammunition to batter the enemy's works.”

The investment of Vicksburg had been so rapid and complete that Johnston, the man whom Grant had the most cause to fear, could not unite with Pemberton, and he had retired toward Jackson, hoping to form a new army. Only three days after Champion Hill Grant had drawn his semicircle of steel around Vicksburg and its thirty thousand men, and the navy in the rivers completed the dead line.

Dick rode with Colonel Winchester and took the best view they could get of Vicksburg, the little city which had suddenly become of such vast military importance.

Now and then on the long, lower course of the Mississippi, bluffs rise, although at far intervals. Memphis stands on one group and hundreds of miles south Vicksburg stands on another. The Vicksburg plateau runs southward to the Big Bayou, which curves around them on the south and east, and the eastern slope of the uplift has been cut and gulleyed by many torrents. So strong has been the effect of the rushing water upon the soft soil that these cuts have become deep winding ravines, often with perpendicular banks. One of the ravines is ten miles long. Another cuts the plateau itself for six miles, and a permanent stream flows through it.

The colonel and Dick saw everywhere rivers, brooks, bayous, hills, marshes and thickets, the whole turned by the Southern engineers into a vast and most difficult line of intrenchments. Grant now had forty thousand men for the attack or siege, but he and his generals did not yet know that most of the scattered Confederate army had gathered together again, and was inside. They believed that Vicksburg was held by fifteen thousand men at the utmost.

“What do you think of it, Colonel?” asked Dick, as they sat horseback on one of the highest hills.

“It will be hard to take, despite the help of the navy. Did you ever see another country cut up so much by nature and offering such natural help to defenders?”

“I've heard a lot of Vicksburg. I remember, Colonel, that, despite its smallness, it is one of the great river towns of the South.”

“So it is, Dick. I was here once, when I was a boy before the Mexican war. Down on the bar, the low place between the bluffs and the river, was the dueling ground, and it was also the place for sudden fights. It and Natchez, I suppose, were rivals for the wild and violent life of the great river.”

“Well, sir, it has a bigger fight on its hands now than was ever dreamed of by any of those men.”

“I think you're right, Dick, but the general means to attack at once. We may carry it by storm.”

Dick looked again at the vast entanglement of creeks, bayous, ravines, forests and thickets. Like other young officers, he had his opinion, but he had the good sense to keep it to himself. He and the colonel rejoined the regiment, and presently the trumpets were calling again for battle. The men of Champion Hill, sanguine of success, marched straight upon Vicksburg. All the officers of the Winchester regiment were dismounted, as their portion of the line was too difficult for horses.

Their advance, as at Champion Hill, was over ground wooded heavily and they soon heard the reports of the rifles before them. Bullets began to cut the leaves and twigs, carrying away the bushes, scarring the trees and now and then taking human life. The Winchester men fired whenever they saw an enemy, and with them it was largely an affair of sharpshooters, but on both left and right the battle rolled more heavily. The Southerners, behind their powerful fortifications at the heads of the ravines and on the plateau, beat back every attack.

Before long the trumpets sounded the recall and the short battle ceased. Grant had discovered that he could not carry Vicksburg by a sudden rush and he recoiled for a greater effort. He discovered, too, from the resistance and the news brought later by his scouts that an army almost as numerous as his own was in the town.

The Winchester regiment made camp on a solid, dry piece of ground beyond the range of the Southern works, and the men, veterans now, prepared for their comfort. The comrades ate supper to the slow booming of great guns, where the advanced cannon of either side engaged in desultory duel.

The distant reports did not disturb Dick. They were rather soothing. He was glad enough to rest after so much exertion and so much danger and excitement.

“I feel as if I were an empty shell,” he said, “and I've got to wait until nature comes along and fills up the shell again with a human being.”

“In my school in Vermont,” said Warner, “they'd call that a considerable abuse of metaphor, but all metaphors are fair in war. Besides, it's just the way I feel, too. Do you think, Dick, we'll settle down to a regular siege?”

“Knowing General Grant as we do, not from what he tells us, since he hasn't taken Pennington and you and me into his confidence as he ought to, but from our observation of his works, I should say that he would soon attack again in full force.”

“I agree with you, Knight of the Penetrating Mind, but meanwhile I'm going to enjoy myself.”

“What do you mean, George?”

“A mail has come through by means of the river, and my good father and mother—God bless 'em—have sent me what they knew I would value most, something which is at once an intellectual exercise, an entertainment, and a consolation in bereavement.”

Dick and Pennington sat up. Warner's words were earnest and portentous. Besides, they were very long, which indicated that he