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While the Union fleet was thus fighting its way up to Vicksburg, the Confederates were working away at a great ram that they were building in a secluded spot far up the Yazoo River.
Soon after General Sherman commenced his march from Atlanta, two expeditions, one from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and one from Vicksburg, Mississippi, were started by General Canby to cut the enemy's lines of communication with Mobile and detain troops in that field.
This idea had presented itself to my mind earlier, for on the 3d of December I asked Halleck if it would not be well to hold the enemy south of the Yallabusha and move a force from Helena and Memphis on Vicksburg.
He was kept for ten days in an iron dungeon, where no ray of light could penetrate. I have elsewhere alluded to the capture of Messrs. Richardson and Browne, of The Tribune, and Mr. Colburn, of The World, in front of Vicksburg.
Our lines connected, and invested about three-quarters of the land-front of the fortifications of Vicksburg. On the supposition that the garrison of Vicksburg was demoralized by the defeats at Champion Hills and at the railroad crossing of the Big Black, General Grant ordered an assault at our respective fronts on the 19th. My troops reached the top of the parapet, but could not cross over.
General Grant's least merit was the taking of Vicksburg.
The 4th day of July, twelve months before, Pemberton had surrendered twenty-five thousand soldiers, two hundred pieces of artillery, and other munitions of war in proportion, at Vicksburg. The Yankees wanted to celebrate the day.
Holding out for better terms as he did he defeated his aim in the latter particular. At the appointed hour the garrison of Vicksburg marched out of their works and formed line in front, stacked arms and marched back in good order. Our whole army present witnessed this scene without cheering.
In eighteen days Grant had marched 200 miles, defeated the enemy in four engagements, inflicting a loss of 8,000 and taking 88 guns, and shut up a large army in Vicksburg all this upon five days' rations. It is a brilliant record, equalled, if at all, only by some of Napoleon's campaigns. February to July, 1863.
Sherman moved the day of our attack on Grand Gulf, the 29th, with ten regiments of his command and eight gunboats which Porter had left above Vicksburg. He debarked his troops and apparently made every preparation to attack the enemy while the navy bombarded the main forts at Haines' Bluff. This move was made without a single casualty in either branch of the service.
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