Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harvard Memorial Biographies

[392] now and then a shot or shell would come crashing through the trees among us, but none of us happened to get hit. Our men were slowly driven back to the river, and many of them were made prisoners; but when they got to the landing, the gunboats on the river opened fire on the Rebels, and an immense battery of over a hundred guns, it is said, on the bluff assisted, and the enemy's advance was effectually stopped. This was about sundown, and next morning General Buell arrived with fresh troops, another fight took place, and the Rebels were driven back faster than they drove us the day before. We prisoners, however, knew nothing of this; for we were marched off with many of our wounded men, some walking and some in wagons, to a Rebel hospital about five miles from here.

He remained a prisoner but a few days, there being an agreement between the surgeons on both sides that the wounded in the joint hospitals should be allowed to return to their respective camps on recovery, and their hospital attendants with them. After his exchange, he took part in the battle of the Hatchie, in the siege of Vicksburg, and in the expedition into Arkansas, under General Steele. On February 1, 1863, he was promoted to be Assistant Surgeon on the recommendation of his medical superiors, in spite of his want of a diploma. A letter written later in the season, gives some account of the wearisome and exhausting service on which he now entered.

camp at Snyder's Bluff, Mississippi, July 25, 1863.

I wrote you last from the Big Black. We have returned from that interesting country, after staying long enough to more than treble our sick-list, and are back here in the old camp, but expecting every day to leave. I understand our division is ordered to Helena, Arkansas, and will leave as soon as transportation can be furnished us. Helena is not the most eligible place in the world to go to; but we shall be glad to get away from here, for we can hardly go to a worse place, unless it should be Vicksburg. That is now the hottest, dirtiest, most unhealthy, and in every respect the most undesirable place within our lines. The regiment marched back here, but I was put in charge of over a hundred sick and convalescents belonging to our brigade, to bring them around by railroad from the Big Black to Vicksburg, and from there to this place by boat, and a nice time I had of it. The heat was intolerable, and