Authors: Andrea Warren
Under Siege!
Also by Andrea Warren
Escape from Saigon:
How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy
Orphan Train Rider: One Boy’s True Story
Pioneer Girl: Growing Up on the Prairie
Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps
We Rode the Orphan Trains
BY ANDREA WARREN
MELANIE KROUPA BOOKS
FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX
NEW YORK
A Note to Readers
In writing this book I have made every attempt to verify information. My sources include what people wrote about themselves and their experiences, and what others who knew them wrote of them. I also interviewed several experts on the Vicksburg campaign and studied the works of Civil War historians.
Copyright © 2009 by Andrea Warren
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Robbin Gourley
First edition, 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Warren, Andrea.
Under siege! : three children at the Civil War battle for Vicksburg / by Andrea Warren.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-374-31255-8
ISBN-10: 0-374-31255-9
1. Vicksburg (Miss.)—History—Siege, 1863-Juvenile literature. 2. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Children—Juvenile literature. 3. Children—Mississippi—Vicksburg—History—19th century-Juvenile literature. I. Title.
E475.27.W37 2009
973.7’344-dc22
2008001136
For Jay,
in loving memory
“Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought
to a close until that key is in our pocket.
We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can
defy us from Vicksburg.”
—President Abraham Lincoln
Chapter One
War Comes to Vicksburg: December 1862
Chapter Two
The Christmas Eve Ball: December 24, 1862
Chapter Three
The General’s Boy Goes to War: Spring 1863
Chapter Four
Burying the Family Silver: Late Spring 1863
Chapter Five
At the Battle Front: Late Spring 1863
Chapter Six
The Yankees Are Coming! May 1863
Chapter Seven
The Road to Vicksburg: May 15-19, 1863
Chapter Eight
Enemy at the Gates: May 17-25, 1863
Chapter Nine
Into the Caves: Late May and Early June 1863
Chapter Ten
Dangerous Days: Early June 1863
Chapter Eleven
Growing Desperation: Mid June 1863
Chapter Twelve
Empty Stomachs: Late June 1863
Chapter Thirteen
Surrender! July 4, 1863
This map of the Confederate States, created in 1862, shows how the Mississippi River (shown in white) ran through the center of the Confederacy (the states outlined in dark gray), providing a great water highway. Once the North had seized New Orleans in April 1862 and Memphis two months later, only the guns at Vicksburg kept it from controlling the river. Silencing those guns was key to a Northern victory.
T
he first time I read about Vicksburg’s role in the Civil War, I was amazed to learn that this American city had been under siege for forty-seven days. What happened at Vicksburg was not only important to the outcome of the war—it was also a great human story, for inside that besieged city were 5,000 townspeople, including an estimated 1,000 children.
I am interested in the Civil War, in part because my great-grandfather, John Wesley Forest, fought in it. He was a Yankee from Vermont, and thankfully he was not injured. Though he could not have known it at the time, the war he participated in would be
the
pivotal event in the history of America, determining whether we would become one country or two. Amazingly, perhaps miraculously, we managed to emerge as one.
But the price paid by both sides was appalling, and it wasn’t just soldiers like my great-grandfather who paid it. Civilians often sacrificed as much or more. Families lost their soldier fathers, uncles, and brothers who died from injury and disease. In the South, where much of the war was fought, countless people lost their homes and businesses and were plunged into poverty. Wherever there was fighting, civilians were in danger, and
many died. In the forty-seven-day siege of Vicksburg, everyone, including the children, endured tremendous hardships. To escape the shells raining down on them day and night, many lived in caves. Starvation threatened to kill them if the explosions did not.
I have always had a special interest in the stories of children in war because my adopted daughter was orphaned by the Vietnam War. In tribute to her and to all children caught up in the chaos of war, I wanted to tell the story of Vicksburg, as much as possible, through the eyes of children who were there. You will meet three of them: Lucy McRae, the ten-year-old daughter of a well-to-do Vicksburg merchant; Willie Lord, the eleven-year-old son of an Episcopal minister; and Frederick Grant, the twelve-year-old son of the Union general, Ulysses S. Grant, who was with his father during much of the Vicksburg campaign. Lucy and Willie endured hunger, fear, desperation, and brushes with death. Fred saw the horrors of war firsthand, suffering from illness and a bullet wound.
All three wrote or spoke about their experiences. Lucy said, “Although I was only a little girl, many striking incidents were indelibly impressed upon my mind. I have often had the question asked me, ‘How do you remember so much about the siege?’ My answer is that, being shut up in the place, living in a cave under the ground for six weeks…I do not think a child could have passed through what I did and have forgotten it.”
I wish all three children had told us more about themselves, or that I could travel back in time to talk to them, for I have many unanswered questions. I have supplemented their testimony with information from others who were present during the campaign for Vicksburg—townspeople, and soldiers and generals from both sides. I went to Vicksburg and interviewed local experts about what life was like for children back then. I walked where Lucy, Willie, Fred, and all the others in this story walked. I explored the military park and experienced the intense Mississippi summer weather and wondered how they did it—how the Northerners, in their heavy wool uniforms, endured the sweltering heat and humidity of the swamps and bogs, and how the Southerners, terrorized by the shelling and with food supplies dwindling, survived at all.
You are about to be transported back to 1862 and 1863, to a little city on the banks of the Mississippi River. What happened there, what the armies of the North and South, the townspeople and children, experienced there, helped determine the course of the war and the shape of what we have become today: an imperfect, often racist, freedom-loving nation, but with one government, one constitution, and one flag—the
United
States of America.
As shown in this 1862 drawing, Vicksburg was a prosperous little city on the banks of the Mississippi River (far right).
WAR COMES TO VICKSBURGDecember 1862
F
rom the top of Sky Parlor Hill, ten-year-old Lucy McRae closed one eye and peered through her spyglass at the Mississippi River. She looked as far as she could see in both directions.