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that they will be required to take either the oath of allegiance or leave the city soon.
In the mean time they will have to be fed. Of food there is very little left.
Even the secret hoards had all been brought out before the surrender.
Something of their sufferings may be understood when we discover that flour was actually sold at ten dollars per pound or two hundred dollars a barrel; sugar, one dollar and seventy-five cents; corn, ten dollars a bushel; bacon, five dollars a pound; rum, one hundred dollars a gallon, and other things in proportion.
General Pemberton, it is said, refused to allow the citizens to draw from the army stores, insisting that the private stock in the city should be used for that purpose.
Mr. Genella, a prominent merchant in this city, being accused of extortion in this matter, publishes a card in vindication of his character.
The principal part of the female population is composed of the wives and families of the foreign population, the husbands and supporters of which have long ago been forced into the rebel army.
Numbers of these undoubtedly drew rations from the army stores.
Beside them were a few ladies of good family, the wives of officers, and a few of the residents of the town.
These were not free of their presence after our occupation.
We met a few who were unbroken in spirit, and seemed to call down maledictions upon the pestilent Yankees.
The most of them appeared to be stricken with all the sadness of adversity, and crushed beneath a weight of suffering and sorrow.
When we consider that these people-men, women, and children-have, for a month and a half, been in daily terror of their lives, never being able to sleep a night at their homes, but crawling into caves, unable to move except in the few peaceful intervals in the heat of the day, we may appreciate what a life of horror was theirs.
These caves, indeed, are among the most curious features of this life in a besieged city.
In several places the streets are cut through the bluff, and in the walls rows of caverns have been hewn, resembling somewhat the appearance of a burrow of rabbits.
Most of these are shaped like the letter Y, the stem forming the main entrance, and branching out some seven feet. Into these subterranean pits the inhabitants would crawl so often as the guns and mortars opened out what promised to be a heavy fire.
As many as twenty-five have been crowded into one hole.
The sight of these poor creatures flying
With blanket in the alarm of fear caught up,was both ludicrous and melancholy. The cry would go up from the irreverent soldiers, “Rats, to your holes,” as women and children huddled into the bank. The men generally remained outside, or sought shelter in the bombproofs and magazines nearer the batteries. It is surprising that the injuries to the citizens have not been greater. The incessant rain of shells and balls, which at times resembled the fall of hail, seems for the most part to have fallen hurtess into to the ramparts of solid earth. About three thousand wounded are to be found in the hospitals. About four hundred and fifty have been buried by the rebels. Among the principal sufferers are General Green, who was killed, General Baldwin wounded, Colonel Erwin killed, Major Hoadley killed, Lieutenant-Colonel Griffin killed. Of the citizens, Mike Donovan wounded, and the following ladies: Mrs. Cisco killed, Mrs. C. W. Peters killed, Mrs. Major T. B. Reed, Mrs. W. S. Hazard, Mrs. W. H. Clements, Miss Lucy Rawlings, and Miss Ellen Canovan wounded, and Miss Holly killed. A child of Mrs. Jones's was killed by a shell while sitting in the entrance of the cave. One of the most wonderful things of the siege is the fact that ladies, following the ex. ample of the men, have actually promenaded the streets in numbers during the bombardment, priding themselves on their ability to dodge the shells. Some of the most remarkable escapes are reported. Persons have been buried with the shower of dirt thrown up by shells in front of them. Others have had their clothing torn from them, their faces blackened with powder, and other strange escapes. Perhaps the most noticeable case is that of a shell which fell through the Citizen office while the power press was running, and although the shell burst under a room full of people no one was hurt. Indeed, the coolness of these people under the terrible fire is most astonishing. They have become as familiar with the sound and symptom of bomb, Parrott, and columbiad as to be able to designate them and their course with unerring certainty. Such a fire-baptism has given them something of the salamandrine character. As one of them described the philosophy to me: If you see a shell burst above you, stand still, unless it is very high; if it be the sound of a Parrott, the shot has passed before you heard it; alarm is needless, and so on. No men in. the world have ever been called upon to endure so heavy a fire, and none we fancy would now prove such splendid artillerists. Vicksburgh was, in the outbreak of the rebellion, a city containing some very rabid secessionists, and also some very staunch Union men. Two years and a half of revolutionary misrule has left the city half destroyed, the people beggared, and the adjacent country ruined. These miserable agitators have brought upon themselves a heavy vengeance. Now their sentiments, such of them as remain and have any reason left, see to what a sad extremity they are reduced, and we make free to say that they are glad to be restored once more to the dominion of the national authority. Of all the rest, the blessings of our advent will convert them to the cause. Neither Nashville, nor Memphis, nor New-Orleans, underwent the scourge which Vicksburgh has felt. We predict the love of these few remaining people will be all the more ardent for the Union that they have so long defied its army and navy, and have suffered so profound a humiliation. A few of them pretend to see a five
