Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1911 — STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR

BLOWING UP VICKSBURG FORT - ■■ —— ■ . Chicago Man Tells of Attempt to Cap* A ture Fort Hill—Shell* Fired H Every Direction. — Oscar Ludwig, now living in Chicago,: enlisted in the Twentieth Illinois regiment, won his first commission as lleo-j tenant at Vicksburg and left the armjrj after four years of service with thetitle of captain. At the siege of Vicksburg, of which he has told the story, he was sergeant-major. “We were trying to capture a stronghold back of Vicksburg,” he said. “It was at the top of a hill and we knew! it as Fort Hill. Wp couldn’t get up; to it. They surrendered only when* they were starved out. We made an attack on it one day and gained the pits at the foot of the embankment.

We could get no farther and stayed there until night, when we retreated, one by one, under cover'of the darkness. . ; ,•>, “Then we were set to work to dig a tunnel, a ditch was started at some distance from the fort and advanced up the hill under the protection of some cotton bales that were pushed on ahead. In the protection of this trench the men ebuld approach the fort and they also carried up a wooden mortar that tossed shells into the fort wityout needing a large charge of powder. Our tunnel was begun and driven under the walls of the fort. The defenders of the place sank a counter tunnel, ] but they did not come near us. At last, when all was ready gunpowder was carried to the end of the hole under the fort and there it was shot off. The explosion tore a breach in the wall, but we were not able to rush it. Three men were thrown Into the air and fell on the outside of the wan, and so we carried them back to the lines. Two were mortally hurt, but the other, a slave boy, was not “One of the men asked him: ‘What were you doing in there fighting usr “The boy Uras sitting rolling his eyes. “ ‘ I warn’t fighting you,’ he said. “ ’What were you doing, then?’ “ ‘Toting grub for the colonel.’ “ ‘ What colonel Is th/t? “ ‘Colonel ub de Louisiana Tigers.’ “’What were you working for him for?* “‘Colonel told me not to quit till Td toted him grub. 1 set down his dinner an’ den I felt myself a-growih’ wings an’ a-rising up. in ■de went upfpbout to’ miles an? started to come down ag’in, an’ on de way down I met de colonel a-goln* up.’ “There were shells fired at us and at the rebels from every direction. Fort Hill was throwing shells toward Logan’s camp and our boats' in the river were shelling the city. 1 remember seeing eight shells In the air at one time. At night each shell is a ball of blue fire, turning over and over and rising up and up until it seems to stand still, and then whtrllng.down on the curve toward the earth. The shells from the fort came within ‘2OO yards of Logan’s camp. I was sitting there writing the sergeant-major’s report one day when a shell came alofcg and clipped off the branch of the tree above me. At another time I was sitting In a house exiting the report when a shot came through the wall. The other men did.not seem worried about it and I inquired why. One man pointed out to me that all the boles made by shot were in the upper part of the room. The guns of the fort on the hill could not be depressed far enOtigh to send the shot lower and so the only harm done waa to the plaster near the celling.”

“A Ditch Was Started”