"
From the moment Johnston reached his field he began to quarrel with his
generals and complain to the Government at Richmond. He made no serious
effort to unite his forces for the defense of Vicksburg and continuously
wrote and telegraphed to the War Department that his authority was
inadequate to really command so extended a territory. He made no effort
to throw the twenty-four thousand men he commanded into a juncture with
Pemberton who was struggling valiantly against Grant's fifty thousand
closing in on the doomed city.
On May eighteenth, Johnston sent a courier to Pemberton and advised him
to evacuate Vicksburg without a fight! Pemberton held a council of war
and refused to give up the Mississippi River without a struggle.
Johnston sat down in his tent and left him to his fate.
Grant closed in on Vicksburg and the struggle began. Pemberton could not
believe that Johnston would not march to his relief.
Women and children stood by their homes amid the roar of guns and the
bursting of shells. Caves were dug in the hills and they took refuge
under the ground.
A shell burst before a group of children hurrying from their homes to
the hills. The dirt thrown up from the explosion knocked three little
fellows down, but luckily no bones were broken.
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