.ODAy.NTE3MzI

[begin inverted writing] I got several little trinkets in Vicksburg which if I should ever get home should like to keep among other things a blue uniform jacket with sesech [illegible] marked Miss. and a [illegible] [illegible] [inverted writing end] at the commencement of the siege with 600 men, and came out with 400, 86 of them being killed. Gen Green was shot in front of us, in the act of showing his men how to shoot a Yankee. He called them Cowards, and they dared him to get up and shoot at us, he raised up, but never shot, for a ball passed through his head before he could pull the triger, this was told me by one of his men. I suppose the cause of their surrendering on the 4th was that they had found out that we were going to give them a warm reception on