Vicksburg and Saragossa.
Our contemporary of the Whig seems disposed to disparage the defence of Vicksburg, contemptuously, as it seems to us, remarking that Vicksburg "was no Saragossa." True enough Vicksburg was an open town, full of wood and brick houses, whose walls, according to the modern fashion, were not greatly thicker than egg shells, and could be easily penetrated by the smallest piece of artillery. Saragossa was the reverse of all this. Her houses were built of huge blocks of solid stone, and were, each of itself, a fortress capable of withstanding the fire of a twelve pounder. The roofs were flat, the windows all walled up, and the walls all cut into port holes. The squares were so many islands of houses. The streets had been undermined and cut into galleries, so that there was a communication all through. Above, passages were cut through the walls of the houses, so as to permit a communication in that quarter, and when they came to a street they had only to descend and take the underground track. At each corner of the town, which was a quadrangle, stood an enormous convent, one, at least, of which (Santa Engracia) was as strong as any castle in Europe. The Spaniards had been making preparation for the siege for six months. It may well be imagined what a formidable job it was to take such a city, defended as it was by peasants roused to the extremity of fury by the exhortations of their priests, ignorant, fanatical, and believing it to be a duty to stay Frenchmen, even the sick and wounded. It was, in fact, only taken after 54,000 of the inhabitants and peasants from the adjoining country had perished by pestilence or the sword, by destroying the houses one after another, by mining and blowing them up, until at least a third of the city was laid in ruins.Now, our poor boys had no such defences as these. They had nothing but earth works which they raised themselves, and behind these they fought with as much resolution as the Saragossa people until they were starved out. Besides, there were several elements of obstinate resistance wanting in their case which were used with great effect by the Spaniards. They were all fanatics. The priests and a few popular leaders were at the bottom of the defence, and they ruled the populace with a rod of iron. They constructed gibbets all around the city, and hung every man who talked of surrender, or so much as hinted that he was tired of the butcherly work. The principal of these were the bare footed friar, who charged on foot with the Bible in one hand and a drawn sword in the other, and the lemonade seller of the Cosso. As soon as these men were killed the defence began to slacken, and the place shortly after surrendered. Now, our boys were civilized men, not fanatics. They fought from principle, not because they were afraid of the gallows, and they fought with cool courage, not like madmen. Taken upon the whole, we do not know that they did not fully come up to the Saragossans, who, as well as they, yielded at last.
