The record-union., 1896-03-29
REvICTUALING VICKsBURG.
A Great Scheme to Shoot Hard-Tack
Into the ReSiapad City.

A Great Scheme to Shoot Hard-Tack
Into the Besieged City.
Major Thomas @. Farcuhar of Annis-
ton, Ala, on visit to Buffalo recently
told a Buffalo Express reporter hui
morous story of the war. During the
siege of Vicksburg he was in command
of Confederate regiment outside of
General Grants lines. I'VE had plenty
of food" he said. ''It was fertile terri
tory that we had to draw from and
there was no difficulty in getting
enough to eat. We intercepted a poorly
guarded supply train Of the YankS and
had enough to feed a 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 inhabitants of Vicksburg suf-
fered for food and we ransacked our
brains to devise some means to send
them portion of our plenty.
AN old negro who was acting as a
gunner under me was the one to suggest
what looked at first like a feasible plan.
His idea was to load supplies into the
four cannons which we had and fire
them boldly over the heads of theYan-
KEGS into the city itself 1t was a great
idea, and after some study we decided
that it was worth while making the ex-
pertinent The supplies which we had
captured consisted of hard-tack in tins
that would go into the guns like grape
shot, and we calculated that by giving
them plenty of elevation we could send
the food directly into the city, where
even such morsels would be welcome I
was in command of the detachment and
gave my consent to what an older and
more experienced officer 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 hard-tack as would
equal in weight an ordinary cannon
ball, and that was not a great many, I
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 survive
the impact of falling in the city, but it
was worth trying. We pointed the guns
and just before the lanyard of the first
was pulled the old negro gunner ran
few rods down the hill, where he would
| be below the line of smoke and able to
see where our novel shot struck
THE first gun to be fired happened to
be the one we had loaded with tomatoes.
| The gunner pulled the lanyard, there
was roar and puff of smoke that OBJ
scured our sight for an instant, then it
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 soul!' 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 a laugh that would
have walked the dead. It 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 as
sure him that he was still alive and then
ordered him to scrape the tomatoes off
himself. He was the most thoroughly
bedaubed specimen I ever saw You see.
the heat of the discharge of the cannon
| melted the solder in the tomato cans
llty Hdd SlIHply uICppGQ TO pieces
on leaving the gun, while their contents
had been propelled just far enough
down the hill to spatter all over the old
negro" The Major paused and chuck
led again.
How did the hard-tack work?" asked
the reporter.
1--WE didn't get a chance to try it"
was the reply. "The Yanks, thinking
hot oh 70
from the rear, started up the hill after
Us, and as there would have been no use
in making any resistance against so su-
perior a force we spiked the guns and
retreated. What they thought when
they found the hard-tack 1 never
learned, but / suppose it only confirmed
their idea that we were going to attack
them"