The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South
Alexander Kelly McClure, Ed.

[128] bombarding night and day with seven mortars and artillery, and that he is losing many officers and men. He will hold out while he has anything to eat. Activity is urged by General Pemberton in a dispatch of the 15th.

On June 14th and 15th, General Johnston writes Pemberton that he can only hope to save the garrison, and asks for the details of a plan of co-operation. He also holds out the hope of General Dick Taylor's reinforcing the outside army with 8,000 men from Richmond, La. On the 21st, Pemberton suggested as his plan that Johnston should move at night to the north of the railroad while he marched by the Warrenton road, by Hankinson's ferry, to which Johnston was to send two brigades of cavalry and two batteries. Snyder's Bluff was also suggested as his objective point. By verbal message General Pemberton said the army for his relief ought not to be less than 40,000 men. General Johnston asserts that his force never amounted to more than two-thirds of this minimum. On the 22d, however, he still engages to make a trial, but recommends that General Pemberton cross the Mississippi river rather than surrender. On that date, General Pemberton asked General Johnston to treat with Grant for the surrender of the place without the troops. On the 27th, General Johnston declines to negotiate, and makes another flourish of Kirby Smith. No other dispatches were received. After dispatching Pemberton that he would advance to see what could be done on the 7th of July, he examines the country to the north of the railroad, and is satisfied that nothing can be effected. When he has just begun the like examination of the southern line, he hears on the 4th of the surrender of the town and its defenders. General Johnston was again too late.

On the 3d, the white flag went up for a parley. The first proposition of General Pemberton, which was delivered by Major General Bowen and Colonel Montgomery, suggested that the terms of surrender should be left for decision to three commissioners on either side. General Grant, courteously receiving the flag-of-truce, made answer, rejecting the proposal of commissioners as unnecessary, and suggesting a personal conference with the general of the defense, whose gallantry and stubbornness he highly lauded. At three o'clock P. M. the two commanders met in what is described by some correspondent, who, perhaps, never saw the place, as “a small vale, where the apricots and fig-trees had bloomed in happier times.” The same correspondent says the two men had been personal friends in the same “happier times.” Certainly the bearing of General Grant was all that magnanimity and the sympathy of the brave could inspire.