Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[373] rendered bitterer by the recollection of its needlessness. Had they but remained true to their country, these trials had not come. The simple soldier might have been sharing the joys of home with tender wife and prattling child; or the eager youth, telling the oft-told tale to some bashful but lingering girl, in the very haunts where now his dreams were disturbed by the thunder of hostile cannon,--or the horrid scream of the shell—had they only not rebelled.

But the suffering was not all on the side of the besieged. The long marches and exposures, and the bloody battles had been shared by the national troops, as well. They were unused to the dampness of the Southern night and the heats of the Southern day; they were, it is true, inspired by the recollection of their victories, and the confidence of eventual success, which was felt by soldiers as well as commanders, but their labors in the trenches were incessant, their watchings continuous, their hardships not few. Food was plenty, but water scarce; and the men dug wells among the hills. The picket duty was hard, and the sharpshooters were kept constantly on the alert.¹

Nothing, however, wearied the patience or depressed the hope of the commander. On the 23d of May, the day after the unsuccessful assault, he said: ‘There is no doubt of the fall of this place, ultimately;’ and, on the 24th, to Halleck: ‘The enemy are now undoubtedly in our grasp. The fall of Vicksburg, and the capture of most of the garrison, can only be a question of time.’ Without a particle