Reviewed by Sandra Merville Hart

My Cave Life in Vicksburg, with Letters of Trial and Travel By A Lady.

The anonymous author is Mary Webster Loughborough, who arrived on April 15, 1863, for a pleasant visit to Vicksburg. She became an unwilling guest during the bombardment and siege.

Excellent account of the trials and hardships suffered by the townspeople who endured the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863.

Mary’s husband paid to have a cave dug in the city of Vicksburg for her and their toddler. The Union navy shelled the city, sending the citizens scurrying for the relative safety of the caves. Some died from shells that penetrated the ceilings. Others died when they ventured out during lulls in the shelling.

Parrott shells came directly toward their cave often and danger was everywhere.

Food ran low as the siege continued. There is no sense of time in the book so the days and hours must have run together into a nightmare from which they couldn’t awaken.

I purchased this book to discover the history for the siege. I was researching the background for my book, River of Peril, Book 5 in my Spies of the Civil War Series.

Recommended for readers of American Civil War history and American history.

Amazon