June 4, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
LATEST FROM VICKSBURG.
JACKSON, May 30. No fighting at Vicksburg. The enemy has quit the storming process, and is going to try the starving. From reliable authority I learn that GRANT is entrenching in parallel lines with our batteries, but out of reach of our guns, and cutting off communication above and below Vicksburg entirely. He is also entrenching at Big Black Bridge, and the fords above and below.
Information received states that the enemy’s cavalry went to Belton’s Depot, twenty miles from Jackson, on the Southern road, and burnt the depot, a large lot of corn, and 800 or 900 bales of cotton, besides committing other depredations.
The Mississippian of this morning publishes a speech made by Gen. PEMBERTON, after three repulses of the enemy. It is as follows:
‘You have heard that I was incompetent and a traitor, and that it was my intention to sell Vicksburg. Follow me, and you will see the cost at which I will sell Vicksburg. When the last pound of beef, bacon and flour; the last grain of corn, the last cow, and hog, and horse, and dog shall have been consumed, and the last man shall have perished in the trenches, then, and only then, will I sell Vicksburg.
It is said that the tremendous repulse and slaughter of the Yankees at Vicksburg on Sunday, was due to a strategem of Gen. PEMBERTON, who made a feint of evacuating part of his works, when the enemy rushed in, only to be met with immense slaughter from artillery placed so as to take them with a raking fire.
FROM NORTH ALABAMA.
TUSCUMBIA, May 30. The last heard of the enemy, he was at Gravelly Springs, in this (Lauderdale) county, retreating, Colonel RODDY pursuing. They burned all of MARTIN, WEAKLEY & Co’s factories, Masonic Hall, and some other buildings in Florence.
Gravelly Springs is about 17 miles below Florence, on the road to Waterloo on the Tennessee river. The factories burned consume, annually, in manufacturing, about 4000 bales of cotton, we understand.