Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-02-18
Revictualing Wick sburg.

Maj. Thomas @. Farquhar of Annis-
ton, Ala, on a visit to Buffalo recently
told Buffalo Express reporter a hui
morous story Of the war. During the
seige of Vicksburg he was in command
Of confederate regiment outside Of
Gen. Grants lines. 1--WE had plenty of
food" he said. at was fertile coun-
try we had to draw from and there was
no difficulty in getting enough to eat.
We intercepted poorly guarded supply
train of the Yanks and had enough to
feed regiment for month stored right
in our little camp. In spite of Yankee
vigilance, spies would now and then
steal out of the city and we saw and
talked with several of them. Each had
pitiful story to tell of how the inhabi-
tants of Vicksburg suffered for food and
we ransacked our brains to devise some
means of sending them portion of our
plenty.
IAN old negro who was acting as a
gunner under me was the one to suggest
what looked at first like feasible plan.
His idea was to load supplies into the
four cannons which we had and fire
them boldly over the heads of the
Yankees into the city itself. 1t was a
great idea and after some study we de-
cded that 1t was worth while making
the experiment. The supplies which we,
had captured consisted of bareback in
cans that would go into the guns like
grapeshot and we calculated that by
living them plenty of elevation we
could send the food directly into the
city, where even such morsels would
be welcome. l was in command of the
detachment and gave my consent to
what an older and more experienced Of
ficer would probably have frowned upon
as being contrary to all rules of war.
Next morning at sunrise we loaded
the guns. We put plentiful charge of
powder in each and then rammed home
as many cans of bareback as would
equal in weight an ordinary cannon
ball, and that was not great many, l
assure you. In one of the guns we put
four cans of tomatoes. This we consid-
cred an experiment, as we had little
hope that such fluid stuff would sur
vive the impact of falling in the city,
but 1t was worth trying. We pointed
the guns and just before the lanyard
Of the first was pulled the old negro
gunner ran a few rods down the hill,
where he would be below the line Of
smoke and able to see where our novel
shot struck.
1.-THE first gun to be fired happened
to be the one we had loaded with toma-
tees. The gunner pulled the lanyard,
there was roar and a puff of smoke
that obscured our sight for an instant,
then 1t blew away and we saw running
up the hill toward us our old negro,
covered from head to foot with what
looked like blood, while he waved his
arms wildly and shrieked: I'm killed!
I'm killed! Oh, Lord, have massy on
my soulv We were alarmed and ran
down toward him. He still screamed
and shrieked and fell down in a faint
as he saw us. We rushed up to him and
then every man of us burst into laugh
that would have walked the dead. 1t
reused old Tom, who opened his eyes
and shrieked the louder when he saw
our apparently inhuman levity. AS
soon as we were able to speak or move
we picked the old negro up, stood him
on his feet to assure him that he was
still alive and then ordered him to
scrape the tomatoes off himself. He
was the most thoroughly bedaubed
specimen ever saw. You see, the heat
of the discharge of the cannon melted
the solder in the tomato cans and they
had simply dropped to pieces on leav-
ing the gun, while their contents had
been propelled just far enough down the