Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[371] Mississippi had to be brought to the troops in barrels. Their rations were insufficient and of bad quality. The salt pork which constitutes the staple food of American armies fell short toward the middle of the siege: this want was supplied for some time by the cattle that had been collected a few days before the investment, together with such animals as could be found in the city: at a later period this lean meat had to be replaced by the flesh of mules, which many people preferred. As is the case in all sieges, cats and rats figured largely at the mess-tables, and the accounts given by the besieged show that the Louisiana soldiers, the inheritors of the traditions of French cookery, were alone able to find means to disguise the character of the least appetizing meats. Horses being scarce and necessary to the army, they were only eaten when they fell victims to the ravages of the siege. For instance, back of a portion of the line there was a pleasant green hill covered with the richest kind of grass, but incessantly ploughed by the projectiles of the Federals. Almost daily some unfortunate animal which had been left free would climb the slope step by step, nibbling at the fresh grass, but it had scarcely reached the summit when it fell down wounded or slain. In the night the Confederate soldiers would go to pick up their meal among these slaughtered animals, and occasionally a fortunate chance would throw a fine stray cow in their way instead of an emaciated horse. These, however, were but trifling resources. The bread and biscuit rations were reduced to the smallest quantity: at the end of the siege, as it appears, there was only half a biscuit distributed daily to each man. The defenders of Vicksburg had large supplies of sugar, salt, and chewing tobacco—that comforter for so many ills in the New World—but they had neither tea, coffee, spirituous liquors, nor any other kind of stimulant. Consequently, the sick soon filled the principal dwellings of Vicksburg, which had been converted into hospitals.

Alongside of the soldiers there was a civic population of three thousand five hundred inhabitants or refugees, whom the love of country, that sentiment so deep seated and so legitimate, had kept at home and doomed to all the horrors of the siege, or who had been driven into Vicksburg in spite of themselves from fear of the enemy. These unfortunate people knew nothing of the war except