And it is but kindly and fair to say, just here, that no city was ever more heroically defended; and that the gallant force inside of Vicksburg did not yield until starvation stared them in the face. There was nothing to eat in the city. The soldiers had been on short rations for a long time; the citizens were without food. Cattle, horses, mules, dogs, cats, rats, and mice had been devoured. The sick and wounded in the hospitals had been sustained on mule soup for a long while, and the supply of mules was about exhausted. There was no living creature in the shape of dogs and cats and rats to be seen in the streets or about the houses--all had been eaten for food. The United States government issued rations to the starving people at once. I visited the hospitals immediately. I had large supplies of hospital stores, which were sent to me by Mr. Yeateman of St. Louis, President of the Western Sanitary Commission, who was a Southern gentleman, and who, though loyal to the Stars and Stripes, yet felt deep sympathy for the Southerners in their terrible sufferings; and also from Louisville and elsewhere, for I, too, was linked by ties of blood to the people of the South, and the history of Kentucky was interlinked with the history of my ancestors. These immense supplies were sent me, in anticipation of the surrender, for the Confederate Hospital of Vicksburg. Some of the hospitals were in a most wretched condition; the men being without beds or pillows, or any other comforts for the sick. This was especially true of what were called the “field hospitals;” the hospitals immediately in the rear of the fighting force, into which the wounded were carried before being transported to the permanent hospitals.