“This ball is hereby at an end. The enemy are coming down the river, all non-combatants must leave the city!” – C.S. Gen. Martin Luther Smith

Gen. Martin Luther Smith was a Northern career soldier who had married a Southern woman. A military engineer, Smith designed Vicksburg’s defenses. At intervals for nearly 20 miles, guns lined the bluffs.

On December 24, 1862, Smith was attending a Christmas Eve ball at the home of Dr. William T. Balfour.

After midnight, muddy and disheveled, telegraph operator C.S. Col. Phillip H. Fall delivered the message to Smith that eighty-one Federal gun boats and transports were heading downriver to Vicksburg.

The warning gave the Confederates time to prepare for the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, the opening battle of the Vicksburg Campaign.