October 21, 1862, Peoria Morning Mail (Illinois)
From the Chicago Post.
Our readers will remember some mention made in these columns of Mr. Montgomery, a gentleman connected with the Vicksburg Whig, who endeavored to escape from that place on board a federal boat carrying a flag of truce, but was given up by the officer in command. The wife of Montgomery was formerly a resident of Chicago, and, together with her husband, was anxious to reach their friends in the north. Mr. Montgomery was taken from the federal boat and thrown into jail, but through the intercession of his wife with the rebel commander, was at length liberated and furnished with a pass to leave the city. With his bundle on his back, and wife and two children – one four, the other six years old – bareheaded, he started on his long journey, and, after much hardship and innumerable hair breadth escapes, at last reached the federal lines at Memphis, from which place he proceeded to St. Louis. His statement, which is published in the St. Louis Union, contains much interesting information. We reprint the following, showing the
Effect of the Bombardment of Vicksburg.
Mr. Montgomery and his family were in Vicksburg all the time during the terrible bombardment of that rebel town by our gun boats. The shelling lasted eleven weeks, lacking one day, during which period 25,000 shells were thrown into that doomed city. Every building in town was hit more or less by shells and fragments of shells. The Baptist Church was struck four times and was injured the worst. Yet it is estimated that $50,000 will repair all the damage done to the buildings. The damage done to the streets and pavements by the furrowing shells was repaired in three days, after the shelling ceased. The city being located on a number of small hills, sheltering the buildings from the iron storm, and saved them in a great measure from destruction. The sound of the mortars, the roar of the shells through the air, the terrific report attending the explosion of shells, the whizzing of the broken fragments of shells, the crashing of falling roofs, and the shattering of windows, altogether presented to the eye and ear one of the most terrific scenes ever witnessed in any siege.
During the night the glare of the streaming light from the burning fuses lighted up the heavens and made the scene doubly terrific. Many of the citizens encamped outside the town; those who stayed behind sought shelter behind the hills and in caves dug out in the high banks through which the road was cut. Yet amid all this terrible bombardment but one white person, a Mrs. Gamble, was killed. A negro was killed. Beside some of the soldiers, killed near the batteries, these were all the lives lost during those terrible days.
A memorable day in the history of the siege, was the bombardment on the 28th of June, which opened at 4 o’clock a.m., an hour before daylight. Ten boats of Commodore Farragut’s fleet passed up in front of the city and commenced a terrific shelling. Commodore Porter’s mortar fleet at the same time opened on the city, also the mortars of the upper fleet, and a park of artillery planted on the Louisiana shore, opposite. A continual shower of shot, shell, grape and canister were poured into the city with a fury and rapidity indescribable. It was estimated that 197 missiles of death were hurled per minute. The combined firing lasted two hours. The confusion of the citizens was frantic. Men, women and children in their night clothes were roused from bed and hurried for shelter to the caves outside the city. Gov. Pettis was roused from a warm bed in the Washington House, and skedaddled.
There were, of course, many hair breadth escapes. A shell tore up the earth in the midst of a crowd of citizens, and the dirt thrown up knocked every person down flat, without injuring them in the least. Men carried their fainting wives along in their arms – children screamed. Still, amid all this consternation and danger, it is wonderful that little injury was caused. Yet it is conceded on all hands that the greatest engineering skill was displayed by the besiegers. An engineer on Van Dorn’s staff, who was present at Sebastopol, declared that the bombardment was the most terrific ever known.