83. Cave Life in a Besieged City
By A SOUTHERN LADY (1863)
So constantly dropped the shells around the city, that the
inhabitants all made preparations to live under the ground
during the siege. Martin sent over and had a cave made in a
hill near by. We seized the opportunity one evening, when the
gunners were probably at their supper, for we had a few
moments of quiet, to go over and take possession. We were
under the care of a friend of Martin's, who was paymaster on
the staff of the same General with whom Martin was Adjutant.
We had neighbors on both sides of us; and it would have
been an amusing sight to a spectator to witness the domestic
scenes presented without by the number of servants
preparing the meals under the high bank containing the caves.
Our dining, breakfasting, and supper hours were quite
irregular. When the shells were falling fast, the servants came
in for safety, and our meals waited for completion some little
time; again they would fall slowly, with the lapse of many
minutes between, and out would start the cooks to their work.
Some families had light bread made in large quantities, and
subsisted on it with milk (provided their cows were not killed
from one milking time to another), without any more cooking,
until called on to replenish. Though most of us lived on corn
bread and bacon,
[_]
This is one of the most graphic accounts of the siege of Vicksburg, which was taken,
1863, by General Grant.
served three times a day, the only luxury of the meal
consisting in its warmth, I had some flour, and frequently had
some hard, tough biscuit made from it, there being no soda or
yeast to be procured. At this time we could, also, procure beef.
And so I went regularly to work, keeping house under ground.
Our new habitation was an excavation made in the earth, and
branching six feet from the entrance, forming a cave in the
shape of a T. In one of the wings my bed fitted; the other I
used as a kind of a dressing room ; in this the earth had been
cut down a foot or two below the floor of the main cave; I
could stand erect here; and when tired of sitting in other
portions of my residence, I bowed myself into it, and stood
impassively resting at full height—one of the variations in the
still shell-expectant life. Martin's servant cooked for us under
protection of the hill. Our quarters were close, indeed; yet I
was more comfortable than I expected I could have been made
under the earth in that fashion.
We were safe at least from fragments of shell and they were
flying in all directions; though no one seemed to think our
cave any protection, should a mortar shell happen to fall
directly on top of the ground above us.
And so the weary days went on— the long, weary days—when
we could not tell in what terrible form death might come to us
before the sun went down. Another fear that troubled Martin
was, that our provisions might not last us during the siege. He
would frequently urge me to husband all that I had, for
troublesome times were probably in store for us ; told me of
the soldiers in the intrenchments, who would have gladly
eaten the bread that was left from our
meals, for they were suffering every privation, and that our
servants lived far better than these men who were defending
the city. Soon the pea meal became an article of food for us
also, and a very unpalatable article it proved. To make it of
proper consistency, we were obliged to mix some corn meal
with it, which cooked so much faster than the pea meal, that it
burned before the bread was half done. The taste was peculiar
and disagreeable.
Still, we had nothing to complain of in comparison with the
soldiers: many of them were sick and wounded in a hospital in
the most exposed parts of the city, with shells falling and
exploding all around them,
Even the very animals seemed to share the genera' fear of a
sudden and frightful death. The dogs would be seen in the
midst of the noise to gallop up the street, and then to return,
as if fear had maddened them. On hearing the descent of a
shell, they would dart aside— then, as it exploded, sit down
and how] in the most pitiful manner. There were many walk.
ing the street, apparently without homes.
In the midst of other miserable thoughts, it came into my mind
one day, that these dogs through hunger might become as
much to be dreaded as wolves. Groundless was this anxiety,
for in the course of a week or two they had almost
disappeared.