from a family near, who have a cow they hourly expect to be
killed. I send five dollars to market each morning, and it buys a
small piece of mule-meat. Rice and milk is my main food: I can't eat
the mule-meat. We boil the rice, and eat it cold, with milk, for
supper. Martha runs the gauntlet to buy the meat and milk once a day
in a perfect terror. The shells seem to have many different names. I
hear the soldiers say, 'That's a mortar-shell. There goes a Parrott.
That's a rifle-shell.' They are all equally terrible. A pair of
chimney-swallows have built in the parlor chimney. The concussion of
the house often sends down parts of their nest, which they patiently
pick up and re-ascend with."

Grant's impassable lines about the beleaguered city soon made
starvation more to be feared than even the terrible shells from the
cannon of the gunboats. Necessaries of all sorts became woefully
scarce in Vicksburg. Five dollars could purchase only a little bit of
mule's flesh, hardly enough for a meal for two people. Flour was not
to be had at any price. Bread was made of coarse corn-meal or grated
peas. The ammunition of the soldiers in the trenches soon began to
give out, and the utmost economy was exercised. Many of the soldiers
were armed with muskets that required caps, and it was not many days
before caps were at a great premium. They were generally smuggled into
the city through the Union lines by fleet-footed carriers, who ran a
long gauntlet of Union pickets. Many were shot down in the attempt,
but more succeeded. One man who brought in sixteen thousand caps, was
nine days travelling thirteen miles, and was fired on more than twenty
times.

But, though Grant could have starved the city into subjection by
simply sitting and waiting, he grew tired of this, and determined to
force matters to an issue. The first thing to be done was to get the
gunboats and transports past the batteries. The transports were put
into shape to stand a cannonade by having their weaker parts covered
with cotton-bales; and on one dark night in June, the flotilla started
down the river, with the iron-clad gunboats in advance. Admiral Porter
led in the "Benton." At eleven o'clock the fleet got under way; and,
as the "Benton" came abreast of the first batteries, the alarm was
given in the Confederate camp, and a fierce cannonade began. Huge
fires were lighted on the shores to light up the river, and make the
gunboats visible to the Confederate cannonee