Consequently, No Roar And Racket Of
Drays And Carriages Tearing Along The Streets; Nothing For Them To Do,
Among That
Handful of non-combatants of exhausted means; at three
o'clock in the morning, silence; silence so dead that the measured
Tramp
of a sentinel can be heard a seemingly impossible distance; out of
hearing of this lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute: all in
a moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery, the sky is
cobwebbed with the crisscrossing red lines streaming from soaring bomb-
shells, and a rain of iron fragments descends upon the city; descends
upon the empty streets: streets which are not empty a moment later, but
mottled with dim figures of frantic women and children scurrying from
home and bed toward the cave dungeons - encouraged by the humorous grim
soldiery, who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh.
The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the iron
rain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops;
silence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues;
by-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder, and
reconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing, bodies follow
heads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group themselves about,
stretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of the grateful fresh
air, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle off
home presently, or take a lounge through the town, if the stillness
continues; and will scurry to the holes again, by-and-bye, when the war-
tempest breaks forth once more.
There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers - merely the
population of a village - would they not come to know each other, after a
week or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or unfortunate
experiences of one would be of interest to all?
Those are the materials furnished by history. From them might not
almost anybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in Vicksburg?
Could you, who did not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to
the imagination of another non-participant than could a Vicksburger who
did experience it? It seems impossible; and yet there are reasons why
it might not really be. When one makes his first voyage in a ship, it
is an experience which multitudinously bristles with striking novelties;
novelties which are in such sharp contrast with all this person's former
experiences that they take a seemingly deathless grip upon his
imagination and memory. By tongue or pen he can make a landsman live
that strange and stirring voyage over with him; make him see it all and
feel it all. But if he wait? If he make ten voyages in succession - what
then? Why, the thing has lost color, snap, surprise; and has become
commonplace. The man would have nothing to tell that would quicken a
landsman's pulse.
Years ago, I talked with a couple of the Vicksburg non-combatants - a man
and his wife.
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