Wild, Beautiful, and Free(82)

Chapter 18


I remembered Vicksburg from Papa’s maps. It was an important shipping port, especially for cotton. I knew a person could take a train from Vicksburg and travel west. Or take a steamboat up and down the Mississippi. Back then it had been a name on the flat paper, written in pretty script. But approaching Vicksburg from the north in the winter of 1862, I could see it was not flat at all. Vicksburg itself was like a fortress that rose up and lorded over the Mississippi from magnificent bluffs. Such high ground, I thought. From what I knew of history, it seemed the longest and toughest battles of any war involved high ground like a hill or a castle. My stomach ached when I saw the city in the distance. I didn’t like thinking about what was to come.

We arrived near the city in December, and the Union men were already planning to attack the rebels by surprise. I wasn’t sure how that would be possible, since the Confederates did have the higher ground and a clear view of all that land around them. But I wasn’t a Union general—it wasn’t any of my business. I went about my own work. We established the field hospital a little north and east of the city near a plantation called Peterson. I recognized the name and knew we weren’t far off from Holloway’s. I wondered right away whether I would see anyone from Holloway’s or whether anyone might recognize me, but I decided I shouldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to be distracted by the looking around and worrying. Besides, I figured, everyone else had a lot more to think about than me, a small and insignificant mixed-race nurse. And if I needed any reminding of that, I had only to see what was already around me. I was surrounded by a sea of soldiers, doctors, nurses, aides. The fight in this area was a massive undertaking, with troops numbering over seventy thousand. I’d never dreamed I’d ever see so many people in one place, bearing down with singular intention.

What I came to understand about the attack was that it was supposed to have an element of distraction. General Sherman and his men, over thirty thousand of them, were approaching Vicksburg from the river and would surprise the Confederates while they were engaged with General Grant’s men from the other side at another river. But there had been problems and miscalculations by both Sherman and Grant. Grant, for his part, simply wasn’t there. Grant had learned that his army’s stockpile of supplies had been raided by the rebels, and they didn’t have the food or the ammunition for a lengthy assault. He’d been forced to retreat to Memphis. Otherwise, his troops would starve. With Grant gone, the Confederates could fully engage with Sherman, something Sherman had not expected. To approach the bluffs, his men would have to cross swamp and bayou—unfamiliar landscape to a Northern army. And they would only emerge from there in open fields that would make them vulnerable to rebel gun batteries positioned on the hills. This was the circumstance I had speculated on when I’d first seen the bluffs. It played out all too well.

One night, right before I went to bed, Mother B. came to my tent and said General Sherman and the regiments had failed. They couldn’t take the city. She told me about General Grant’s men and how they were in full retreat.

“We will be here awhile,” she said. “The generals will have to rethink things. The port is vital. They won’t abandon the effort.”

“How long do you think?”

“Months. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were here well into the spring.”

And that was exactly what happened. The battles continued, and the noise was breathtaking, like the whole sky was going to fall on us. It was a mad dance, with advances, retreats, and circles. Fires too. Though I didn’t see an instance directly, I heard about the troops on both sides burning plantations. The Union soldiers were stripping the homes of all their supplies and valuables and burning the structures to the ground. The Confederates in Vicksburg destroyed them to improve sight lines along their front. I knew the soldiers, like Mr. Colchester, had been in Louisiana for months now, so similar destruction must have been happening there. I thought of what Silas had said and wondered what would be left of Catalpa Valley if I ever made it back.

That January, in 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became official. Finally. Exhilaration came over me, and I was so happy I wanted to do something crazy, like jumping on a horse and riding to the Holloway Plantation so I could spit and stomp on the ground in front of the big house. I know I wasn’t the only one wanting to celebrate, because the generals ordered a barbecue party. But first we had a kind of service where we all gathered together and a Reverend Grisholm prayed a thanksgiving prayer and then read the whole of President Lincoln’s proclamation out loud.





The phrase forever free sent a wonderful shiver across my shoulders. As Reverend Grisholm went on, though, the sensation faded. The language was confusing. It included a list that seemed to be the states in question. But why was the list necessary? Why couldn’t slaves just be free throughout the Union? Since Mississippi was on the list, I was certainly free. Louisiana was, too, but there were parishes excepted from the proclamation. They included New Orleans, so I figured these were the parishes that the Union Army, Mr. Colchester possibly among them, controlled. I didn’t have a chance to consider this, because once the reverend finished reading the proclamation, the celebration began. I suppose it was something, despite the imperfections. And something was better than nothing. We needed to celebrate.