Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

1 The streets of Vicksburg are cut through the hills, and houses are often seen far above the street passengers. In the perpendicular banks formed by these cuttings, and composed of clay, caves were dug at the beginning of the siege, some of them sufficiently large to accommodate whole families, and in some instances communicating with each other by corridors. Such was the character of some made on Main Street, opposite the house of Colonel Lyman J. Strong, for the use of his family and others, and of which the writer made the accompanying sketch, in April, 1868. The caves were then in a partially ruined state, as were most of them in and around Vicksburg, for rains had washed the banks away, or had caused the filling of the caves. In this picture the appearance of the caves in their best estate is delineated, with furniture, in accordance with descriptions given to the writer by the inhabitants.

Cave-life in Vicksburg.

A graphic account of events in these crypts is given in a little volume entitled, My Cave-Life in Viceksbur, by a Lady, published in New York in 1864. It was written by the wife of a Confederate officer who was in the besieged city, and lived in one of these caves with her child and servants.

The picture in the text above gives a good idea of the external appearance of these caves, in the suburbs of the city. It is from a sketch made by the writer on the old Jackson road, where the Second Mississippi regiment was stationed during a portion of the siege. In the view the spectator is looking down toward Vicksburg. A plain, and the bluffs on the border of the Mississippi, are seen in the distance.