Six weeks into the siege, the situation inside Vicksburg mirrored that of Jamestown’s Starving Time. A young Confederate soldier wrote home to his parents, pleading for provisions because abnormally large “Gallinippers” had pinned him “by the throat” and stolen his “Boots, hat, & 5,000 doll[ars] In Green Backs.” Ravenous civilians and soldiers ate dogs, rats, leather shoes and belts, and a few reports of cannibalism among the 3,000 huddled civilians surfaced after the war.
