The National tribune., 1894-10-25
FIGHTING FOR VICkSBURG.
I Comrade Boring Takes Up Some of the
~ Criticisms Of His Articles.

I Comrade Boring Takes Up Some of the
~ Criticisms of His Articles.
EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: In your
issue OF Oct 4, in Picket Shots " column,
under the caption of g Fighting for Vicks-
burg" Comrade j. Ii. Rhoads, Co. II, Both
H., says that / make few mistakes, and
then says himself in the outset that Gen.
Sherman followed the Mobile & Ohio Rail-
road TO Memphis If that statement is not
a mistake / would like TO know why. The
Mobile & Ohio Railroad runs north and
south from Columbus, KY, to Mobile, Ala.
Memphis, Tenn, is at the western terminus
OF the Memphis 81 Charleston Railroad,
which runs east and west between Memphis
and Charleston, s. C.. l would therefore
like to read Comrade Rhoads's explanation
Of how Gen. Sherman got to Memphis over
the Memphis q Ohio Railroad.
1t would also be equally interesting to
me to know how Comrade Rhoads took egg
nog in Memphis on New Years eve, 1868
while | was sleeping on the ground without
blanket at Abbeville, Miss. The 30th
regiment must have been very elastic to ad-
NIT OF that much space between Cos. ID and
III.
Comrade Bedford, 9Th Ind, goes for me in
a two-column article recently, in a defense
of the Thirteenth Corps, when that Corps is
not mentioned in my article. The Thir-
teenth Corps is one thing, and Gen. McCler
nand is quite another.
When | made the blunder that ] did in
saying with Logan instead of McClerDand,
/ was led into the error by knowing that
Logan later commanded the Fifteenth Corps,
and jumped at the conclusion that then was
when he assumed command of it, and that
ha Eiffaapth M.(tIarnanHto I
know, however, that Logan followed Sher-
man DIS corps commander.
/ would kindly cite Comrade Bedford to
the perusal of Comrade Parker's excellent
article on McClernand and his corps in the
issue Of Oct. a, as voicing my sentiments
better than | could do myself
Be charitable and considerable comrades.
Think of the 10Th and 22d OF May, 1868, in
rear of Vicksburg. But it was not Pember-
tons soldiers that kept us out of Wick sburg
on either of those bloody days, neither was it
their breastw0rks nor their masked batteries,
as we had hustled these same fellows twice
before we got to them at Vicksburg, ed
they behind breast works. The balance of the
army did but little more than hold the coats
for Hovey's men while they licked the whole
gang at Champion Hills; while Carr and
Osterhaus did the same thing for them at
Black River Bridge, with the Johnnies be-
hind breastworks at both places.
But it was simply the Wilderness, the
deepness and the steepness of their bitches
that kept US from going right into Vicks-
burg on the 18Th of May, instead of the
Fourth of July. Their bitches being too wide
to leap, and too deep and steep to climb out of,
made the siege necessary instead of an imme-
date and unconditional surrender, as at
Fort DOnelson, for the grand old Ulysses
moved Immediately upon, their works. If
their bitches had been full of water we
could have pontOoned them as we did Big
Black, crossed the Rubcon and the die
would have been cast, and Gaul (gall) in
vaded.-B F. BORING, South Terre Haute,
IT,