In the Confederate Veteran magazine in February, 1904, C.S.O. Rice wrote the following about his experience at the Vicksburg siege.

“On the 17th of May, 1863, we were ordered inside the fortifications of Vicksburg, and were in the besieged town until the surrender, the following 4th of July. While in Vicksburg we acted as couriers for Gen. Pemberton, and patrol of the city. Rations soon became scarce. Meat was a thing of the past, but great are the resources of a soldier. One day a shell killed one of our mules, and some of the boys cut a bucketful of steaks from the beast, and we were soon enjoying a good repast. All that we did not cook at once we converted into ‘jerked’ meat. This we did by making a cane platform, spreading the meat on it, and building a fire underneath. This, with the aid of the sun above, soon gave us a lot of dry, well-preserved meat. Now some fastidious youths of today will say: ‘O, I could not do that!’ Neither would I now, but then I was hungry. I stood it as long as I could. I was as hollow as a gourd, and when my back began to cave in I thought it about time to eat anything I could get. The Federals had by parallels worked close up to our fortifications and made rifle pits, which they filled with sharpshooters, so that it was about worth a man’s life to raise his head above the fortifications. Our men would show themselves only when rising to repel a charge. We soon learned to protect ourselves from the exploding shells, that at night would look like a rain of fire on the doomed city, by digging holes in the sides of the hills, and when the fire was excessively heavy, we would crawl into our dens. No one can imagine the hardships and suffering our men underwent lying in the trenches continuously day and night, under the burning sun by day and the heavy dews by night, with sufficient force to relieve them and man the works, while during a greater portion of the time they had not bread and meat enough to sustain themselves. No wonder that thirty per cent of them were ‘hors de combat’ when we surrendered. We knew that surrender was inevitable, yet feeling of deep depression came over us when we were ordered to ‘stack arms.’ Being Gen. Pemberton’s escort, were allowed to retain our side arms, but some of our servants who wanted to go out with us were not allowed to do so. Mine came to me and gave me his watch and all the money he had, $2.50 in silver, and told me to keep it for him, and if they would not allow him to pass out with us he would join us the next day outside the lines. How faithful! and how my heart was touched by it! On a former occasion, when I was left in a sick camp, he remained with me; and at night, when everything was still, I heard his voice lifted earnestly in prayer of supplication that his your master might fix his heart on things above, and that a kind Providence would protect and preserve his life. Imagine at this day the close relation and love that existed between master and slave! His contact with the southern white man gave him a moral training that was the wonder of the world. While our men were out in the field of battle, what kept the farm hands growing meat and bread to feed them? Was it fear of his master, who was away in the army? What enabled our refined women to remain at home for four years of the war, surrounded by a throng of blacks, without a thought of fear, but a feeling of protection? My first night out from Vicksburg will long to remember I left the city with three small pieces of jerked mule meat, and a little sugar in my haversack. We camped on a large plantation, and I got an old negro woman to cook me something to eat. She brought me a thick pone of corn break and a panful of clabber, and I then partook of the most sumptuous repast I ever enjoyed. I arrived at home to enjoy for a short time, under my parole, the love and association of family and friends, and above all, the sweet smiles of a rosy-checked, brown-eyed little maid – ‘the girl I left behind me’ – whose picture I carried with me through the hurtling fire and smoke of battle for four years, and ‘who, at the close, linked her fortunes with mine, and has shared with me life’s sunshine and shadows for nearly forty years.”

Charles Stephen Olin Rice is the son of Shadrack Rice and Louisa Elizabeth Linerieux Rice. He and his parents are buried in St. Paul Cemetery.