The Regiment Leaves Somerset and is Ordered to Vicksburg—March Over the Country to Nicholasville—Reception at Paris, Ky.—Goes to Cincinnati—The Journey to Cairo and Memphis—Down the Mississippi—A Brush With the Guerillas—Siege of Vicksburg and Surrender of the City—The “Daily Citizen.”

It seems to have been understood, from the day the regiment reached Somerset till it was finally ordered away, that its stay there was to be brief; scarcely a day passed that was not attended with rumors that the regiment was going to Paris, Cincinnati, Vicksburg, and many other places. Towards the latter part of May, all the sick of the Brigade were sent to Lexington, Ky., and an order promulgated reducing each officer’s baggage to thirty pounds (they were formerly allowed eighty), and restraining the enlisted men from carrying more than a single change of underclothing. On the 3d of June, another order came for the regiment to be ready to march at a moment’s notice, the men to take eight days’ rations. The movement was begun on the 4th, at about daylight in the morning, resulting in a long march (eighteen miles), and terminating at Waynesborough, in Lincoln County,—a little hamlet containing one tavern, three whiskey-shops, and five dwelling-houses. The pause here was only for the night, and the distance accomplished was but a small part of the long and weary journey yet to be performed.

On the morning of the 5th of June, the regiment was again ordered forward, making a brief halt at noon for dinner at a place known as “Hall’s Gap,” a pass in the mountains. The entire line of march from Somerset, north, lay through that portion of Kentucky so famous for its beautiful landscapes; some of the finest of these views were had from the summits of the hills. The plains were covered with extensive fields of waving wheat of a bright emerald hue, and large areas of the famous blue grass, the varied shades of green contrasting richly with each other, and especially with the patches of red soil where the young corn was growing. Here and there, in the midst of this vegetation, were comfortable-looking farm-houses, surrounded by groups of towering sugar-maples in full leaf, the whole forming a picture of peace and beauty very tempting to the eyes of the foot-sore soldiers.

A march of three hours in the afternoon brought the regiment to Stanford, where it went into camp for the night, upon the same ground which it had occupied on the 29th of April. Here the Paymaster met the regiment and paid off the men, and here also a large mail was received. There was considerable straggling during the following day, the men not being contented to subsist upon the wholesome rations of the army; and having plenty of money, strayed about the country, visiting the farm-houses, buying milk and home-made bread. At night, when the regiment halted at Camp Dick Robinson, it was met by its sutler, one Mr. Sheepe, who had learned that the men were in funds, and had provided himself with a large stock of pies, cakes, and other “’lection truck.” He had been told only the day before that he must not sell intoxicating liquors; but despite these orders, the audacious Sheepe galloped off to a neighboring town and procured about eight dozens of Kentucky whiskey, which he now offered for sale, actually disposing of nearly a case at the enormous price of three dollars a bottle before the fact of his transgression became known at headquarters. Military law was often executed with as much swiftness as it was made; it was so in this case, and the greedy sutler’s unscrupulous speculation came to a speedy and profitless conclusion. The officer of the day (a member of the regiment) was equal to the occasion; the sutler’s team was instantly seized, and a guard set over it; Colonel Barnes was informed, and the officer of the day was directed to destroy the whiskey. Every remaining bottle was broken, and the contents spilled on the ground, the entire regiment and the most of the Brigade being deeply-interested spectators. The other goods were confiscated.

During the march of Sunday the 7th, the regiment acted as rear guard, and passed through a region which was more thickly settled than that already traversed. As was often the case on a long march, the soldiers were ignorant of the fact that this was the Lord’s Day, only being reminded of it by passing a church just as the congregation was dismissed.

Early in the afternoon Nicholasville was reached, and here the column halted for the rest of the day. A distance of seventy-one miles had been performed in less than four days, making an average march of over eighteen miles each day. Nicholasville was on the line of the railroad, and at an early hour on the morning of the 8th the men were aroused and ordered to take the cars for Cincinnati.

The people of Paris had learned that the regiment was to pass through their city, and they at once made preparations to receive them on a generous scale. The houses were gayly trimmed with flags and bunting, and a large concourse of people assembled at the depot. When the train arrived, the soldiers were greeted with hearty cheers, and invited to partake of a tempting collation prepared expressly for them. The pause here was very brief,—only an hour,—and by five o’clock that afternoon, the regiment was for the second time in Cincinnati, meeting with a reception scarcely less cordial than their first, and partaking of a good supper at the celebrated Market Building, the soldiers’ restaurant. It was generally known in the city that the regiment and its brigade had been ordered to join the besieging army of Vicksburg, and the desire of the people to see those who were bound on such an important mission, as also to render them some kindness, was so great, that they thronged around the building where the soldiers were supping in such numbers, that, when the time came for the regiment to leave, it was impossible to form the line in the streets. As soon as the men emerged from the building, hundreds of people rushed toward them, offering them food, flowers, and flasks of whiskey. So great was the confusion thus created, that it required all the efforts of the officers to form the line, and finally it became necessary to sternly order the citizens to clear the streets. This being done, the regiment at once took up its line of march for the depot of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, followed all the way by dense throngs of excited people.

Soon after dark, the men took the cars and started on their eventful journey. The patriotic spirit of the people living along the route was manifested in a manner that caused the soldiers great joy, and strengthened their purposes to do their duty; wherever the train paused, the citizens crowded about the cars and regaled the men with food and drink; and at several stations, choirs composed of young ladies stood upon the platforms of the depots, singing patriotic songs as the train passed by.

At Washington, in Indiana, the train was stopped at the request of the people of the town, and a collation served; the committee of ladies that waited on the soldiers at the tables presented each with a bouquet and a nice lunch to take with them on their trip.

On the 10th, the train arrived at Cairo, Ill., and at three o’clock in the afternoon of the same day the various regiments embarked on river-boats,—the Twenty-ninth and Roemer’s New York Light Battery on the steamer “Mariner,”—and started down the Mississippi River. A stop of nearly three days was made at Memphis, it being supposed that the Brigade was waiting for orders. While here, the men made the most of their chance to study the city, strolled about its streets, and talked with its people. The statue of General Jackson, which stood in one of the parks, had been mutilated by the mob while the city was occupied by the Confederates; the historic words of General Jackson, “The Union—It must and shall be preserved,” inscribed upon its base, having been removed by a stone-hammer. Memphis was a busy place in those days; steamers laden with army stores, cotton, and troops, were constantly arriving and departing; and the city was filled with war rumors of every description.

The weather was pretty hot at this time, and the soldiers—whose destination was Vicksburg, some four hundred miles still farther south, in the midst of an unhealthy region—dreaded the experience in store for them, and expressed many hopes that the order sending them there might be countermanded; but no such good fortune was to be theirs; they were destined to breathe the poisonous malaria of the swamps of the Yazoo, infinitely worse than those of the Chickahominy, and share in the hardships and glories of that wonderful campaign.

On Sunday the 14th, the steamer “Mariner” and the other transports cast off from the pier and headed down stream, and now the question of destination became certain. Two river gunboats (tin-clads, boats covered with boiler-plate iron, musket but not cannon proof) accompanied the steamers as convoys, one going in advance, and the other following, a mile astern. At night the boats tied up to a tree, at White River Junction, where Sherman made his famous raid.

The next morning, the steamers cast off and continued their voyage down the river; Captain Leach was officer of the day, and two of the companies assigned to guard duty about the decks. The other officers of the regiment and the most of the men were below, the day being warm, when suddenly, about ten o’clock in the forenoon, a great commotion was heard on the upper deck. Colonel Barnes hastened to the deck, and observed that the transport just ahead of his, having on board a New York regiment, was sheering off towards the opposite bank, and at the same time the firing of musketry was heard. The captain of the boat began at once to get out his iron shutters, or casings, to place about the wheel-house, as a protection from balls; the commander of the battery, a fine officer, had taken the precaution to mount one of his pieces at the bows. The gunboats had become separated from the transports by quite a distance, and now the bullets were whistling about the decks of the steamer “Mariner” in a lively manner. A party of guerillas, concealed under the levee, were attempting, as they had often done before, to pick off the soldiers. The captain was directed to run the boat in-shore as close as the depth of water would permit. The commander of the battery loaded his gun with shell, and as soon as the boat got within fair range of the bank, fired, the shell exploding right among the enemy. The shell had no sooner burst, than the guerillas were seen scampering away, evidently much terrified, and not a little surprised that what they had taken to be an unarmed transport was supplied with a savage weapon in the shape of a cannon. This was the only interruption which the boats encountered during the trip, but greater watchfulness was afterwards observed. The night of the 16th was passed near a place called Providence, a very desolate region. On the afternoon of the arrival here, a strong wind, accompanied by rain, prevailed, and the boat was blown upon a sand-bar, in which position it remained the most of the night.

At daylight on the 17th, the little fleet commenced on the fourth and last day of the voyage. Towards noon, just as a sharp bend in the river was passed, the gunboat in advance changed its course, and in a few minutes the whole fleet had left the Mississippi and was plowing the dark and sluggish waters of the Yazoo. The land on either side was low and swampy, covered with a thick growth of cypress and other trees, from the boughs of which were hanging long locks of greenish gray moss, giving the place a sombre appearance. In about two hours from this time, the boats reached a clearing on the right bank, when the white tents of a vast army were suddenly revealed. This was Snyder’s Bluff, or Milldale; the troops here encamped forming the extreme right flank of General Grant’s besieging army before Vicksburg. As the boats neared the landing, the soldiers on shore came flocking down to the bank to inspect the new-comers, and observing that their uniforms appeared to be new, immediately took them to be recently-mustered troops, and accordingly indulged in some disparaging remarks, little knowing that they were deriding the sunburnt veterans of the Peninsula, and the heroes of Antietam,—soldiers whose subsequent services before Vicksburg and at Jackson those rough but good-hearted men of the West learned to appreciate. Upon landing, a camp was formed about a fourth of a mile from the river, the Twenty-ninth occupying a position on the extreme right of the Brigade. A large portion of the Ninth Corps had been ordered here from Kentucky, and had arrived a few days in advance of the Brigade of Colonel Christ. The camp of the corps extended all the way from Haine’s Bluff to Snyder’s Bluff, and the service at first required of it was that of observation, rather than direct contact with the enemy. The army of General Johnston was hovering in the rear of Vicksburg, ready to strike our besieging army at any exposed and vulnerable point, and every precaution against such a misfortune became necessary.

No sooner had the corps arrived than the work of constructing fortifications commenced, and two entrenched lines were formed. The first extended along Oak Ridge, guarding the roads that crossed the Big Black River; and the second in the rear of the first, extending from Haine’s to Snyder’s Bluff, through Milldale and the high ground east of Vicksburg, commanding all the approaches from the north and east; of this work the regiment did its full share. The weather was extremely hot, the sky for the most of the time cloudless; and it seems miraculous that men, natives of a northern clime, should have proved themselves able to toil under the rays of an almost torrid sun; yet such was the fact, and, stranger still, the health of the troops was unexceptionably good while here.

This labor was not constant, the regiments of the Brigade relieving each other at regular intervals, and working by details of one and two hundred men at a time. There was little of any other work to perform except the necessary camp guard and police service, and consequently the men had a large amount of “spare time” on their hands; but the life here was not monotonous, however, for although the corps was nearly eight miles from Vicksburg, the booming of Grant’s cannon was distinctly heard night and day, and the camp flooded with startling rumors.

The regiment was encamped in the midst of a fruitful region; peaches, plums, and blackberries were very abundant, and of these the men had plenty. As an offset to these advantages, there were many poisonous insects and reptiles. One soldier relates, that, upon awakening one morning, he found a rattlesnake snugly coiled up under his knapsack, upon which he had rested his head during the night. It was by no means seldom that these and other reptiles equally venomous were killed in and about the camp.

On Sunday the 28th, the regiment received orders to prepare and keep constantly on hand five days’ rations and sixty rounds of cartridges, and to be ready to move at short notice. On the morning of the following day, it was ordered to pack knapsacks and start immediately; a distance of five miles was marched, and a halt made beside the road. Toward night the wind rose to a hurricane, and then came on a severe storm of rain, with thunder and lightning, actually flooding the earth, which a few minutes before had been parched and dusty. The storm continued till morning, and the night was spent in the forest, without tents. The next day was warm and sultry, and a halt, for the greater part of it, was made near the place of the previous night’s encampment for the purpose of proceeding with the formalities of mustering the regiment for pay. The Twenty-ninth, together with other portions of the corps, were heading towards Vicksburg, moving along by short and slow marches till the morning of the 4th of July, when, at an early hour, the men were hurried out of their tents, and a rapid movement began in the direction of Grant’s front lines. The corps had approached to within a short distance of the city, when couriers came riding from the front bearing the cheering news that Vicksburg had fallen. Then followed a scene of the wildest joy; the exultant soldiers threw up their caps and cheered loud and long for Grant and the Union.

There was now no need of the regiment at the front; indeed, the only enemy left was at the rear, and a halt was immediately ordered, several of the officers and men taking advantage of the pause to visit the captured city.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, the regiment had orders to march, and proceeding some four miles towards the Big Black, halted on the side of a hill. Here the tents were pitched, and during the afternoon the whole of the division came up and went into camp about the hill. When the night came on, the celebrations of the day were revived; each company kindled a huge bonfire, and each man lighted a candle throughout the whole division. The effect of this illumination was extremely fine, and in keeping with the grand events of the day. The members of the regiment who went to Vicksburg returned, giving very full accounts of the things they had witnessed there, and some of them brought to camp copies of the “Daily Citizen,” a paper printed in Vicksburg (for the last time), July 2, 1863. The author has before him one of these copies, and as it is a very interesting relic of the war, and tells a part of the story of the siege, he will conclude this chapter with a description of the paper, and a few quotations from it.

The Vicksburg “Daily Citizen” was printed during the last part of the siege (having exhausted its supply of paper) upon any kind of material available, often appearing upon common brown wrapping-paper. The specimen in the author’s possession is printed on the plain side of a piece of common wall-paper, ten inches wide and sixteen inches long. Among the articles which it contains is an exaggerated account of General Lee’s campaign in Maryland, from which we quote:—

“We lay before our readers in this issue an account of Lee’s brilliant and successful onslaught upon the abolition hordes, and show, even from their own record, how our gallant boys of the cavalry have fleshed their swords to the hilt with their vaunting foes, and how each musket of our infantry has told its fatal leaden tale. To-day Maryland is ours, to-morrow Pennsylvania will be, and the next day Ohio—now midway, like Mahomet’s coffin—will fall. Success and glory to our arms! God and right are with us.”

“On Dit.—That the great Ulysses—the Yankee generalissimo, surnamed Grant—has expressed his intention of dining in Vicksburg on Saturday next, and celebrating the Fourth of July by a grand dinner, and so forth. When asked if he would invite General Joe Johnston to join, he said, ‘No, for fear there will be a row at the table.’ Ulysses must get into the city before he dines in it. The way to cook a rabbit is ’first to catch the rabbit.’”

“Victimized.—We learned of an instance wherein a ‘knight of the quill’ and a ‘disciple of the black art,’ with malice in their hearts and vengeance in their eyes, ruthlessly put a period to the existence of a venerable feline that has for a time, not within the recollection of ‘the oldest inhabitant,’ faithfully performed the duties to be expected of him, to the terror of sundry vermin in his neighborhood. Poor defunct Thomas was then prepared, not for the grave, but for the pot, and several friends invited to partake of a nice rabbit. As a matter of course, no one would wound the feelings of another, especially in these times, by refusing a cordial invitation to dinner, and the guests assisted in consuming the poor animal with a relish that did honor to their epicurean tastes. The ‘sold’ assure us the meat was delicious, and that pussy must look out for her safety.”

“Mule Meat.—We are indebted to Major Gillespie for a steak of Confederate beef, alias mule. We have tried it, and can assure our friends that, if it is rendered necessary, they need have no scruples at eating the meat. It is sweet, savory, and tender, and so long as we have a mule left, we are satisfied our soldiers will be content to subsist upon it.”

As stated, the city was surrendered on the morning of the 4th of July, and the army of General Grant marched in and took possession. Some of the Federal soldiers who went into the city entered the office of the “Citizen,” and finding the type for the paper all set in the forms, added the following note, and struck off a large number of copies, which were extensively distributed among our troops:—

“Note (at foot of last column).—July 4, 1863.

“Two days bring about great changes: the banner of the Union floats over Vicksburg; General Grant has ‘caught the rabbit’; he has dined in Vicksburg, and he brought his dinner with him. The ‘Citizen’ lives to see it. For the last time, it appears on wall-paper. No more will it eulogize the luxury of mule meat and fricasseed kitten, or urge Southern warriors to such diet nevermore. This is the last wall-paper edition, and is, excepting this note, an exact copy of it. It will be valuable hereafter as a curiosity.”

The author, deeming this paper a curious chapter in the history of the siege of Vicksburg, has thought it not improper to quote thus fully from its columns.