General Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War

[208] that both flanks rested upon Pearl River. Colonel C. A. Fuller, of Lieutenant-General Pemberton's staff, arrived from Vicksburg, and informed us of the terms of the capitulation. The garrison was paroled and permitted to return to the Confederacy, officers retaining their side-arms and personal baggage. He stated, also, that, at the time of surrender, about eighteen thousand men were reported fit for duty in the trenches, and about six thousand sick and wounded in the hospitals. And the estimates for rations to be furnished to the troops of the garrison by the United States commissary department were based on a total of thirty-one thousand men.

On the 14th our scouts reported that a large train, loaded with artillery-ammunition, had left Vicksburg by the Jackson road. The enemy was observed to be actively employed in the construction of batteries on all suitable positions. He was evidently preparing to concentrate upon us the fire of about two hundred pieces of ordnance. This made it certain that the abandonment of Jackson could be deferred little longer. General Jackson was directed, however, to endeavor to intercept and destroy the ammunition-train, to postpone at least the necessity of abandoning the place.

In reporting these things to the President by telegraph on the 15th, I said that the enemy would make no assault, but had begun a siege which we could not resist, and that it would be madness on our part to attack him.

Early in the afternoon of the 16th it was ascertained that the attempt by our cavalry to intercept