Under Siege! by Andrea Warren Page B

eleven-year-old Willie quickly realized that shells were falling everywhere, including on the hospital. Another Vicksburg hospital took a direct hit from a shell, killing eight and wounding fourteen. A surgeon buried under the rubble saved himself from bleeding to death by tying off an artery. His leg was later amputated. In spite of the constant danger, the women of Vicksburg continued to volunteer in the hospitals.
    Willie’s mother and youngest sister had a very close call one day when two large shells fell nearby and exploded simultaneously, filling the air with flames and smoke. Willie’s mother tried to soothe her four-year-old daughter, saying, “Don’t cry, my darling. God will protect us.” To which the girl replied that she was afraid that God had already been killed.
    In spite of the danger, Margaret Lord was much happier in this privatecave, which was shaped like the letter L and had two entrances, allowing some circulation of air inside. She wrote, “In this cave we sleep and live literally under ground. I have a little closet dug for provisions, and niches for flowers, lights and books. Just by the little walk is our eating table with an arbor over it, and back of that our fireplace and kitchen with table … This is quite picturesque and attractive to look at but Oh! How wearisome to live!”
    Her children, she said, “bear themselves like little heroes.” Her husband also did his part. Every day Dr. Lord opened Christ Episcopal Church and, according to Willie, he “rang the bell, robed himself in priestly garb, and … with the deep boom of cannon taking the place of organ notes and the shells of the besieging fleet bursting around the sacred edifice, he preached the gospel of eternal peace.”
    With his ability to calm, Dr. Lord served as comfort to the townspeople and soldiers who risked shells and bullets to attend his services. During the first few weeks of the siege, Emma Balfour often attended Dr. Lord’s services and noted in her diary, “The church has been considerably damaged and was so filled with bricks, mortar and glass that it was difficult to find a place to sit.” The Catholic church continued to host daily mass. The few churches that remained open usually had people sleeping in their pews at night because they felt safer there than in caves.

    E MMA B ALFOUR STILL REFUSED to move her household into a cave. She took shelter in one when the shelling was heavy, but she always felt like she was suffocating when she was underground. At home, she kept an eye on the river, concerned that the Federals would launch an all-out attack. Sometimes she and a friend or two would brave the shelling and go to Sky Parlor Hill for a better view. Ten days into the siege, she had seen the sinking of a Union gunboat, the
Cincinnati,
considered one of the finest in the Union fleet, when it was hit by the Vicksburg waterfront cannon.“We are again victorious on water!” she had declared. A Confederate soldier said that hundreds of women watched from Sky Parlor Hill. “There were loud cheers, the waving of handkerchiefs, amid general exultation, as the vessel went down,” he said.
    As the siege wore on, some Union soldiers expressed concern for the townspeople. They did not take lightly to starving and shelling old people, women, and children. One soldier said, “I can’t pity the rebels themselves but it does seem too bad for the women and children in the city.” Another wrote, “I suppose [the women] are determined to brave it out. Their sacrifices and privations are worthy of a better cause, and were they but on our side, how we would worship them.”
    Emma surmised why the Federals bombarded Vicksburg so ruthlessly. “The general impression is that they fire at this city, in that way thinking that they will wear out the women and children and sick, and General Pemberton will be impatient to surrender the place on that account, but they little know the spirit of the Vicksburg women and children