would be paroled and allowed to march out of the lines-the officers taking with them their regimental clothing, and the staff, and field, and cavalry officers a horse each. The proposal was accepted, and, on the morning of the Fourth of July, General McPherson met Pemberton half a mile within the lines to receive the surrender. General Grant soon rode up and the trio went together into the town where General Logan established a provost-guard. The enemy's flag was hauled down and the stars and stripes went up over the captured works amid the enthusiastic cheers of the boys in blue. At half past eleven o'clock of that eventful morning our National banner shook out its folds to the breeze from the top of the Court House, while the soldiers, standing beneath its emblematic colors, sang "Rally round the Flag," with a fervor which only a fresh victory for that banner of freedom could lend.

By three o'clock in the afternoon our forces had entire possession of the city and bluff, and the Con federate soldiers, after being paroled, and supplied with three day's rations, were escorted out of the town and across the Big Black, on their way to Jackson. The number of prisoners on parole from the capture of Vicksburg was estimated at twenty-seven thousand, -only fifteen thousand being fit for duty.

The surrender of Vicksburg ended one of the most brilliant and successful campaigns of the war, and the name of Grant, surrounded with a halo which had scarcely reached its zenith of brightness at the close of the rebellion, was already beloved of the nation. This chapter cannot more appropriately close than

with the letter which President Lincoln wrote to the General of our armies after this campaign. It is dated at the

"Major General Grant:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,

July 13th, 1863.

"My dear General:-I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did—march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports and thus go below: and I never had any faith except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below, and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong.

A. LINCOLN.”

CHAPTER XXX.

PORT HUDSON

The Citadel on the Bluffs.-Four Miles of Batteries.-The Pledge of the Northwest.-First Operations against Port Hudson.-The Stronghold Invested.-General Assault.-Repulse and Loss.Bravery of Officers and Men.-Colonel Bartlett.-Heroic Conduct of Colored Troops.-The Siege Carried Forward.-Gloomy Outlook.-Another General Assault.-Heavy Losses.-The Enemy Starving. The Delicacies of a Rat Stew.-Announcement of the Surrender of Vicksburg.-The Council of War in the Camp on the Bluffs.-Unconditional Surrender of Port Hudson.-"Flag of Union and Freedom Wave!"-The Promise of the Northwest Redeemed.

URING the stormy days of the civil war, when Rebellion flaunted its red flag over our fair land, Port Hudson, on the Lower Mississippi, was one of its fastnesses. Situated at a point twenty-five miles north of Baton Rouge in Louisiana, and nearly a hundred and sixty miles by water above New Orleans, Port Hudson, secure behind its strong earthworks, grimly guarded all hostile approach-a very Gibralter of defence.

Along its bluffs, commanding four miles of river distance, a line of death-dealing batteries sentineled the shore. The approach to the little village from the landward side, back of the town, was like ascending the hill Difficulty. Ravines and swamps and other obstructions stubbornly contested every step of the way, while an army of thirteen thousand men gar

risoned its strongly fortified heights. Before the capitulation of Vicksburg, the Confederates had exclusive control of the Mississippi River between that point and Port Hudson-a stretch of two hundred and fifty miles. Across this country, various essential articles of supply were transmitted from Texas, for the benefit of the Rebel armies, and by its occupation the great Northwest was robbed of one of its main avenues of outlet. Port Hudson, with threatening guns, barred the ascent of the river as Vicksburg barred its descent, and it was of the greatest importance to the country at large and to our armies, that this arterial channel should be opened from its source in the far north to its mouth at the gulf; and to this end the patriotic men of the northwest had pledged themselves.

As early as the month of March, 1863, operations against Port Hudson were in progress, and on the thirteenth, General Banks marched his command from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, towards that stronghold, his object being a diversion in favor of Farragut's fleet, then endeavoring to force a passage up the river. Three divisions under Generals Augur, Grover, and Emory bivouacked on the night of the thirteenth within sound of the guns on the bluff. A detachment under Colonel Molineaux, diverging on the Clinton road, encountered a Confederate force at Cypress Bayou Bridge, and a skirmish ensued which resulted in the retirement of the enemy with a loss of eleven killed and wounded. On the fourteenth the boats Hartford and Albatross of the fleet, passed up the river and General Banks ordered a return to Baton

Rouge, having accomplished the object of his movement.

On May twentieth-the day after Vicksburg was invested by Grant's besieging army, the troops under General Banks again marched on Port Hudson and two days afterwards drew their lines closely about it in regular seige.

On the twenty-fifth, Banks sent the Seventh Illinois Cavalry under Colonel Price, to destroy the boats Red Chief and Starlight, which were anchored just above Port Hudson in Big Sandy Creek, near its confluence with the Mississippi.

The object of this order was to cut off the water communication and encircle the place by land forces.

The troops of General Banks took position around this stronghold, beginning at the extreme northwestern end of the town and continuing in a southeasterly direction. General Augur had the center, General Grover the right, and General T. W. Sherman the left wing.

As the first red rays of morning shot athwart the sky on May twenty-seventh, the booming of cannon in a simultaneous burst from the batteries of the entire line, woke the echoes of the river bluffs and announced the assault of Port Hudson begun. The fire did not slacken until one o'clock in the afternoon, at which time an assault on the enemy's left was ordered, in which General Sherman was to co-operate, making an attack at the same time on the Union left. The field through which they were obliged to pass in order to make the attack was thickly strewn with trees recently felled, through whose obstructing