From "Faces of War," Civil War Times, June 2005, reprinted here with the permission of, and thanks to, the author, Ron Coddington of Arlington, VA. If you would like a digital copy of the uniformed portrait which accompanied the text, please email me offlist with an ALL-CAPS subject line of "Send 21126 Photo." ============================= Attack on the Ceres Capt. Lorenzo Dow Brooks, Company F, Seventh Vermont Infantry Carte de visite by unidentified photographer, about 1861-1862 About six miles below Vicksburg, at a point along the Mississippi where the great river makes a sharp curve and the current runs very strong, gray gunners concealed along the shore watched and waited in darkness as the steamboat Ceres chugged into view. The lights of the ship grew closer as she rounded the bend, and the Confederate battery opened fire. Its trio of big guns erupted, spewing grape, six-pound shot and shells at the flickering lights on the water. The crew of the Ceres swung into action and extinguished the lights. A few hours earlier, her spacious deck was crowded with hundreds of slaves. Now they were gone, returned to their owners. But a small group of Union officers and a detachment of men commanded by Capt. Lorenzo Brooks of the Seventh Vermont Infantry remained. Brooks, the eldest of four children born to a St. Albans Bay innkeeper and his wife, lived an eventful life before the war. In 1856, he left his job as a clerk in his Uncle Asa's general store and ventured into the frenzied entrepreneurial environment in California. How he earned a living there went unrecorded, but he came home three years later with enough cash to become, at age twenty-six, a full partner in his uncle's business. While Brooks was away, his family fell upon hard times. Lorenzo's father had had a difficult time managing his hotel business, which suffered from an economic downtown caused by the burgeoning railroad industry that diverted dollars derived from the water-based commerce on St. Albans Bay and Lake Champlain. Matters were complicated by his father's health, which had failed after a seizure left him with impaired vision, a paralyzed hand, and a lame leg. Lorenzo had sent money from California, and, now back in Vermont, came to the rescue with regular Saturday night deliveries of food and supplies. "The goods were gratuities to his family from him," he told the family housekeeper. She had given up her weekly salary and worked only for room and board. After the Civil War started, he sold his store partnership and enlisted in the Seventh Infantry with his younger brother Delos, who was twelve years his junior at age sixteen. They enrolled in Company F: Lorenzo became captain and company commander, and Delos a drummer. The Seventh joined a new division organized by politician-turned-general Benjamin Butler for duty in the Deep South. According to an historian, "This assignment was not agreeable to the officers and men, who would have preferred to join the Army of the Potomac; but it was accepted with little murmuring." The Seventh landed at Ship Island, off the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi, in April 1862. The regiment relocated to a camp near New Orleans in May. In June the Vermonters moved upriver to Baton Rouge and joined a 3,200-man brigade with orders to capture Vicksburg. The Union force set out on June 20, supported by three warships, ten gunboats and sixteen mortar boats. A weeklong bombardment by the flotilla failed to soften Vicksburg's defenses, and the infantry was not sent in. Instead, it was ordered to dig a mile-long canal designed to divert the Mississippi river away from Vicksburg, leaving the city high, dry, and vulnerable to attack. About 1,200 slaves were drafted from area plantations to help. The canal site was a miserable place. Composed of decaying and decomposing plant and animal matter, its swamplands were dotted by pools of stagnant water thick with green scum. The poisonous environment, combined with fatigue brought on by the backbreaking labor involved in digging a trench four feet deep and five feet wide, broke the health of the troops. Hundreds fell ill, and scores succumbed to malaria and typhoid. The Seventh, which left Baton Rouge with 800 men, could barely muster one hundred for duty a few weeks later. The project, called "Folly Creek" and "Butler's Ditch" by the troops, was abandoned. Capt. Brooks was placed in command of a detachment of soldiers ordered to help evacuate slaves via the Ceres. The ship departed after dark on July 22, 1862, unarmed and without an escort. The regimental historian noted: "It seems the enemy had observed the embarkation of the Ceres." They ran a light battery down the river and waited in ambush. The Ceres dropped off the slaves at midnight, set out on her return, and encountered the masked battery. Thirty-two times the guns were fired in quick succession. Twenty-three shots hit home. The first round missed. The second struck the rail of the cabin deck, glanced upwards, and killed Capt. Brooks. Delos was within three feet of his big brother. He was not hurt. The third shot knocked a rod connected to the starboard engine loose and sent the boat spinning out of control. The crew made a quick repair, and the ship chugged away. Eleven rounds hit the hull, and five of those beneath the water line. The worst leaks were plugged by torn-up mattresses and clothing, and the Ceres made it back to base camp. Brooks was the only casualty, and the first officer in the Seventh to die. A few days later the Union troops were withdrawn. They returned to Baton Rouge, where Brooks was buried. He was twenty-eight. His comrades remembered him as "an efficient and popular officer, and his loss was severely felt." His death "greatly enhanced the general gloom and sorrow" that settled over the men of the Seventh as they struggled to understand why valuable lives had been sacrificed on a mission that many felt should not have been undertaken. His remains were later disinterred and sent home.