until May 18th that he arrived before the immediate defenses of the place. The intervening months had been spent in a series of engagements, minor when compared with the culminating movements and sacrifices of the army, but all contributory to the grand purpose of the commander-the capture of Vicksburg. Perhaps no fortified town in the history of modern warfare presented more difficult approaches to an attacking force. The whole back country-toward the east, north and south, was a maze of almost impenetrable swamps, bayous, shifting streams approaching the magnitude of rivers, and impassable roads. The winter of 1862-3 was one of excessive rains and the vast region comprising the lowlands on the east bank of the Mississippi was flooded. While this natural obstacle defied the Federal engineers, it stimulated them to extraordinary efforts. If Grant could get his army in position on the high bluffs east of the city, its fall must be only a matter of time. To this end he attempted to bring the troops to the place by water, through the bayous from Milliken's Bend, southward, but after most notable engineering feats, and large promise of success, the heavy rains forcing the Mississippi to burst through the levees, the work of the engineers came to naught. This was "the campaign of the bayous."

Though this campaign failed to realize General Grant's plans immediately as to Vicksburg, it brought the Union army well into the interior of Mississippi and enabled it to destroy vast quantities of supplies and thus to cripple the Confederacy; but it did not bring the army to the high land commanding Vicksburg. The failure of these preliminary movements was duly heralded throughout the North by Grant's enemies and strong appeals reached Lincoln to displace him but he had measured Grant correctly and never for a moment relaxed his support. The military centre of this campaign against Grant was General McClernand, whose long continued criticism of his commander culminated in the publication, May 30th, of a self-gratulatory order, which strongly insinuated that in one of the movements he

had not been adequately supported by Grant and that his own services surpassed that of his colleagues, Sherman and McPherson. Grant promptly removed McClernand. The immediate occasion which McClernand had taken to attack Grant was the failure of the general assault against Vicksburg which Grant had ordered on May 22d. When the campaign of the bayous failed, Grant determined upon a bolder and more dangerous one: to concentrate his army at Milliken's Bend, transport it across the Mississippi, march southward, along the western bank, recross the river below Vicksburg and capture the town. To this end he had the co-operation of Admiral Porter, whose fleet and transports, on the night of April 16th, began running the Vicksburg batteries, bringing supplies and transports down the river to the army.

On the 29th, Admiral Porter attacked Grand Gulf, but without serious effect. Grant then marched his forces further down, on the Louisiana side of the river, and amidst the tumult of another attack on Grand Gulf by Porter's fleet, Grant got his army safely across to the eastern bank, landing at Bruinsburg. The landing-place was a dry ground amidst continuous swamps, bayous, and an almost impenetrable wilderness. Grant immediately turned his army northward and fighting began. Port Gibson fell May 2d; Grand Gulf was evacuated and became Grant's base of supplies. There was no delay; the army was in fighting spirits and eager to bring the campaign to a close: its confidence in Grant was implicit. Lincoln was reading military despatches of a new kind: Grant daily reported gains, successes, the high spirits of the army and the discomfiture of the Confederates. He now had about 43,000 men; General Pemberton, within the defenses of Vicksburg, 40,000; General Joseph E. Johnston, at Jackson, had 15,000. The triumph of Grant's army over the natural obstacles in its path is one of the glories of this campaign. Grant had no fear of Johnston; he was prepared to defeat him before he could make an alliance with Pemberton. General Johnston ordered

Pemberton to fall upon the rear of the Union army, with the purpose of cutting off Grant's supplies; had the manœuvre been executed it would have been fruitless, for Grant had cut loose from his base and was depending for supplies upon the country through which he was passing. On May 14th, Grant defeated Johnston and captured Jackson, the State capital. He visited personally some woolen mills where blankets were made for the Confederacy: he ordered them to be destroyed. On the 16th, he defeated Pemberton at Champion's Hill. General Pemberton describes his defeat as a rout. His army took refuge in Vicksburg.

Grant pursued closely, crossed the Big Black River and took position on Walnut Hills and Haynes's Bluff, overlooking Vicksburg. He was on the north side of the fortress and in close communication with Porter's fleet and the North. "In nineteen days," writes the historian Rhodes, "Grant had crossed the great river into the enemy's territory, had marched one hundred and eighty miles, through a difficult country, skirmishing constantly, had fought and won five distinct battles, inflicting a greater loss upon the enemy than he himself sustained and capturing many cannon and fieldpieces, had taken the capital of the State and destroyed its arsenals and military manufactories, and was now in the rear of Vicksburg."

"The right wing of the Union army," writes John Fiske, "now rested on the long-coveted bluffs above the city, and looked down upon the Mississippi with feelings like those which surged in the bosoms of the Ten Thousand Greeks when from a peak in Asia Minor they caught sight of the friendly sea. Grant was with Sherman this morning, and the two rode together upon the very bluff which five months before the latter had vainly tried to storm. 'Until this moment,' exclaimed Sherman, 'I never thought your movement a success. But this is a campaign! this is a success, if we never take the town.' Grant took out a fresh cigar and lighted it, smiled, and said never a word. Vicksburg was no longer the unapproachable Gibraltar of America.

This wonderful campaign had made her like any other fortress. Grant's lines were drawn about her, and the bluffs which so long had baffled him now guarded his new base of supplies. The soldiers had contrived to live fairly well off the country and had not suffered from hunger, though they had eaten so much poultry with so little bread that the sight of a chicken disgusted them. Never, perhaps, was a campaign carried out so precisely in accordance with its plan."

Grant still had the conviction that he could take the place by storm and ordered a general assault on the 22d; it was a failure and 3,200 were killed and wounded; nothing but a siege could reduce Vicksburg. His despatches to Lincoln must have given the president inexpressible satisfaction: there was no brag, no demand for ceaseless reinforcements, no complaining, no criticism of wind and weather. Grant assured the president that he could withstand a rear attack of 30,000 men and manage the force in Vicksburg at the same time, and he gave the president no cause to believe that any such force could be brought against him by Johnston. But the government saw to reinforcements and Grant, before June closed, had an army of 75,000 under command.

The six weeks' siege of Vicksburg must ever remain an example of persistent Federal aggression and of patient and heroical Confederate defense. Of the nature of the defenses the caves and cellars into which the inhabitants of the town took themselves for safety, of the incredible hardships endured, the story has been often told. There was only one danger-the attempt of General Johnston to relieve the beleaguered town, and this Grant did not fear. Johnston never seriously thought of attacking Grant. The Richmond government, realizing the gravity of impending disaster, strained its powers to relieve the place, but in vain. There was a man before Vicksburg, an army, and a people behind that man and that army, against whom the powers of the Confederacy were helpless. General Johnston

was in one of the most difficult of possible situations: his president, Davis, unfriendly to him personally and long withholding from him what was due him as a great soldier; the Confederacy must hold Tennessee and must not lose Vicksburg-and the Richmond government expecting Johnston to relieve Vicksburg and also to hold Tennessee. Johnston pointedly reported that Vicksburg was hopeless and that the Richmond government must decide which it cared to hold: Tennessee or the State of Mississippi; and might not Mississippi soon mean Georgia and the entire lower South? There was a formidable mind in front of Vicksburg and no man was quicker to recognize his presence than the astute Johnston.

Meanwhile from the heights above Vicksburg, and from the fleet below, night and day, there fell the ceaseless rain of bursting shells, shrapnel, solid shot, and all the varied and destructive projectiles of the bombardment. Flesh and blood might have withstood longer had not the food of the besieged given out; Pemberton's army was demoralized, his officers were demanding the surrender of the place. On the morning of July 4th, General Grant reported to Lincoln: "The enemy surrendered this morning. The only terms allowed is their parole as prisoners of war."

The news reached Lincoln on the 7th. He knew that a Confederate army of 30,000 was taken; 170 cannon, 50,ooo stands of small arms of most improved pattern, recently from Europe through the port at Matamoras, and that General Grant had accomplished the fall of Vicksburg with the loss of less than 10,000 men. The president that day made Grant a major-general in the regular army, and soon after, at Grant's request, Sherman and McPherson, brigadier-generals. Port Hudson, on receipt of the news, surrendered without a blow to General Banks, July 8th, and a week later the steamboat Imperial, from St. Louis, reached New Orleans with its cargo. The Confederacy was divided in twain, and as Lincoln expressed it, "the Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."