ve in his preparations, so that the assistant adjutant-general
had no very luxurious post just then. We were surrounded with
sloughs. The ground was wet, and the water, although in winter,
was very unwholesome. Many of our men, to this day, have reminders
of the Yazoo in ague, fevers, and diseases of the bowels. Cavalry
was useless. One battalion of Illinois cavalry was strongly
suspected of camping in the timber, until time passed enough to
justify the suspicion of having been somewhere. Really the
strength of Vicksburg was in being out of reach of attack....

"My orders were to learn and report what was going on on the right,
particularly to try and form an idea of the enemy's force in front
of M. L. Smith's division, and at the sand-bar. Leaving my horse
close in the rear of the Sixth Missouri, when the fire became too
heavy for riding, I succeeded, by taking frequent cover, in
reaching unhurt the verge of the bayou among the drift-logs.
There, by concert of action with Lieutenant-Colonel Blood, of the
Sixth Missouri, his regiment, and the Thirteenth Regular Infantry,
kept up a heavy fire on everything that showed along the levee and
earthworks in front. The enemy were behind the embankment, not
over one hundred and fifty yards across the bayou. Several
officers, including Colonel Blood, Colonel Kilby Smith, and myself,
managed, by getting on the piles of drift, to see over the levee
through the cleared fields beyond, even to the foot of the bluff.
The chips and twigs flew around lively enough, but we staid up long
enough to make sure that the enemy had as many men behind the levee
as could get cover. We saw, also, a line of rifle-pits in the
rear, commanding the rear of the levee, and still beyond, winding
along the foot of the bluff, a road worn by long use deep into the
side-hill, and with the side next us strengthened with a good
earthwork, affording a covered line of communication in the rear.
The fire of our men was so well maintained that we were able to see
all these things, say a minute or more. Some of those who ventured
were wounded, but those mentioned and myself escaped unhurt. I
advised that men enough to hold the position, once across--say
three hundred--should make a rush (protected as our lookout had
been by a heavy fire) across the sand-bar, and get a footing under
the other bank of the bayou, as the nucleus of an attacking force,
if General Sherman decided to attack there, or to make