The few lines I shall devote to Sherman's unsuccessful assault of the 27th, 28th, and 29th of December demands from me no elaborate sketch, either of the topography or defences of the rebels' stronghold. I have merely to notice, that, although the Mississippi River bends sharply to the east at Vicksburg, the line of bluffs upon which it stands, and which are essential elements of its strength, do not participate in the deflections of the stream, but continue along on their course parallel to the western bank of the Yazoo, where they become, and are called, "Walnut Hills." The Yazoo enters the Mississippi River nine miles above Vicksburg. Between the Yazoo and these bluffs prolonged, there is a kind of delta, half-inundated, commanded by them, penetrated by bayous, besprinkled with swamps, a tangled thicket of water-loving plants, which flourish so wildly at the mouths of tropical rivers, — where artillery cannot operate at all, and infantry move only on the narrow embankments, which are in these submerged fields what cow-paths are in our Northern woods.

Sherman went up the Yazoo, disembarked his troops in the forlorn and dismal slough which I have just etched, penetrated it with his infantry, against the artillery on the Walnut Hills, and rifle-pits also, as he approached the Vicksburg bluffs, and succeeded in reaching the solid declivities of the Vicksburg hill, and established himself within the rebel lines under the superior fortifications upon the eminence! What more could mortal soldier do? His failure to carry the town resulted from no want of men, for he could not use half of his force; from no want of batteries,

because he could not use them at all; from no want of judgment in selecting the point of attack, for he chose the only point assailable; from no want either of pluck or of will, in officers or men, because they achieved all that human resolution or courage can do ; but simply because Vicksburg is just as impregnable to mere assault as the rock of Gibraltar. The fault,

if any fault there be, lies at their door who expected impossibilities throughout this war: the blame, if blame there be, lay in that infatuation and maze of the public mind, which, at this juncture of our affairs, exacted from "bipeds without feathers" the feats of birds. After withdrawing his column in good order and in good spirits, the command of the president reached Sherman, superseding him by McClernand. He receives it with the serene brow of a Belisarius. Although the order had been issued months prior to the assault, it was construed by the charitable homeguards as a rebuke to Sherman.

While the command was waiting for additional orders from Grant, Sherman induced his superior, McClernand, to attack Arkansas Post, far up the Arkansas River. With the assistance of a bombardment from Porter's fleet, the attack proved successful; and the fort, with five thousand prisoners and seventeen guns, capitulated.

On the 4th of January, 1862, Grant receives the information of Sherman's failure to carry Vicksburg. The controlling reasons which instigated the advance by the Mississippi Central no longer exist. Pember ton evinces only a disposition to draw him from his base; and, as Grant moves forward, he falls back to

the safe citadel upon the bluffs. "His army is not to be annihilated in the field," but must be captured in garrison. Diversion in Sherman's favor is no longer needed, for Sherman has reported that Vicksburg can only be mastered by siege. Grant, therefore, gives the order to withdraw from the Tallahatchie. The enormous mounds of stores of every description are moved with the army, and it was not until the 10th of January that Grant again established himself at Memphis.

Both the land and river expeditions are failures! Vicksburg, on the bluff, still stands in grim and majestic defiance of our flag, barricading the natural highway to the sea of an area of territory so immense that it can only be measured by the great circles of the globe, paralyzing in a measure its fiftyseven navigable tributaries, preserving the territorial cohesion of the Gulf and trans-Mississippi States of the Confederacy, constraining the grandest watercourse on the continent to be the accomplice of treason, and forcing its mighty channel to contribute to the martial and financial strength of Rebellion. In this view the campaign was a failure, but in another view it was a success. "Out of the nettle danger, we plucked the flower safety." It planted the seeds of victory, and pointed out the way in which it could be won. It strangled all expedients to carry Vicksburg by mere storm; it demonstrated that the regular approaches of a siege were the only road to its conquest, and inspired one man with strength and volume enough of will to travel that road to the end. While Pemberton is jubilant over our defeat both

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upon river and upon land, the parallels, bastions, and batteries which will demolish it are already erected and planted in the mind of Grant. While McClernand is wailing over failure, Grant is writing him, "If there are men enough in the West, Vicksburg will fall."

SUMMARY.

I have eliminated from four operations against the enemy, through which I have already traced Grant, four maxims, which his experience in this war had inculcated respecting the mode in which it should be fought; and, as these maxims essentially control and illustrate his future military policy, I will here recapitulate them :

BELMONT.

I. When both belligerents are undisciplined, nothing is gained by a procrastinating drill; because the enemy improves as fast as yourself, and the manifold advantages of promptness are sacrificed.

DONELSON AND SHILOH.

II. In a hotly-contested action, when it appears that both parties are shocked, the one which first attacks vigorously is sure to win.

AFTER SHILOH.

III. Campaigns in this war should be addressed chiefly to the annihilation of the enemy's army, rather than to the mere capture of his strongholds, or the mere occupation of his territory.

HOLLY SPRINGS.

IV. The "movable column "

can be safely and

successfully employed.

S

CHAPTER X.

HE BESIEGES VICKSBURG.

[JANUARY TO MAY, 1864.]

As you descend the Mississippi from Memphis in А

the season of the spring freshet, you are at every step impressed with the idea, that the mighty stream is too big for its basin, and that its pent-up current is continually struggling for relief. You are also seized with the thought, that the alluvial region through which it flows is favoring this effort; for it has been described with poetic license, but with much truth, as "neither sea nor strand." The unsubstantial soil presents but a feeble obstacle to the tortuous inclination of the torrent. It therefore winds through the yielding morass wherever it listeth, abandoning its old channels for new, breaking out into innumerable side reservoirs and bayous, and, as it approaches its mouth, incessantly seeking additional outlets to the gulf.

As

s you approach its junction with the Yazoo, you become aware that the river is about to indulge in one of its serpentine freaks. The channel reverses its southerly course, and, turning suddenly to the north-east, forms an elongated horseshoe; and, after