alone, who saved him from disgrace and gave to the country the most lustrous record of all the heroes of the war.

I doubt whether Grant ever understood how Lincoln, single and alone, protected him from dishonor in the tempest of popular passion that came upon him after the disaster at Shiloh. Grant never was in Washington until he was summoned there early in 1864 to be commissioned as lieutenantgeneral, and he was entirely without personal acquaintance with Lincoln. After he became commander-in-chief he made his headquarters in the field with the Army of the Potomac, and was very rarely in Washington after he crossed the Rapidan and opened the campaign by the battles of the Wilderness. That he frequently saw Lincoln between February and May, while perfecting his plans for army movements, is well known, but Grant was one of the most silent of men, and most of all reluctant to talk about himself, while Lincoln was equally reserved in all things pertaining to himself personally. Especially where he had rendered any service to another he would be quite unlikely to speak of it himself. Judging the two men from their chief and very marked characteristics, it is entirely reasonable to assume that what Lincoln did to save Grant from disgrace was never discussed or referred to by them in personal conversation. Grant never, in any way known to the public, recognized any such obligation to Lincoln, and no utterance ever came from him indicating anything more than the respect for Lincoln due from a general to his chief.-A. K. MCCLURE.

THE CAPTURE OF VICKsburg.

The city of Vicksburg is situated at the eastern end of a great bend of the Mississippi, and on its eastern bank. Its high bluffs render direct assault from the front an impracticable thing. It is now to be seen that a movement from the east bank of the Mississippi above it, around to its rear, was likewise an impracticable thing. A few miles above Vicksburg the Yazoo river empties into the Mississippi, on the eastern side. The hills which skirt Vicksburg extend northward, forming a good defensive line up to Haines's Bluff on the Yazoo, twelve miles from its confluence with the Mis

sissippi. In front of these hills lay swamps, dense woods, and an old bed of the Yazoo-an uncertain region, neither land nor water, but presenting the obstacles of both, and admirably improved by the rebel commander. The batteries at Haines's Bluff effectually closed the Yazoo to our gunboats; the defensive line thence to Vicksburg barred an advance by the land forces.

Three months had been consumed, and the army that had been expected to storm Vicksburg still lay on the Louisiana shore, with the Mississippi river between it and its goal. It was in good health, for at that season the evils of the climate and of the swamp are not felt; but to the excited apprehensions of the people at home, who knew their sons to be aimlessly crowded on levees or wading through dark morasses, to no successful end, the condition of the troops became a matter of keenest apprehension. Meantime, all that the country knew was that effort after effort had failed; that now seven distinct and successive undertakings against Vicksburg, six of them under General Grant's sole direction, had fallen impotent, and had only aroused the mirth of the enemy, who jeered at the Yankee ditch-diggers. One by one, those wise men of the East, who had followed the rising star from Fort Donelson, fell off. Long since it had been possible to number, with few figures, Grant's friends at the West. "There was a time," said Mr. Lincoln, "when I stood almost alone in supporting him." The clamor for his removal swelled. Even that sturdiest of champions for a friend's cause, the Congressman from Grant's own district, who had already tilted many a parliamentary joust in his favor, grew lukewarm. It was the crisis of Grant's career. One thing, one only, stood between him and a removal, which would have consigned him to the purgatory of broken-down Generals, with a record that, in the light of this final failure, would have been read as one of unbroken blunders and disasters, relieved only by a victory that another had won for him at Donelson. The confidence of Abraham Lincoln, though sadly shaken, did not yet give way; he would "let Grant try once more." And it is to be specially noted that, in so resolving, he resolved likewise that the General thus favored

should be supplied with every reinforcement and appliance for which he asked.

The endangered General himself bore stoutly up. Through all this floundering for a plan of operations, one feature of his character shines clear-he did not see how to take Vicksburg; but without discouragement, or despondency at failures that would have broken down most men, with unabated hope, indeed, he resolutely continued to face the problem.

"All this while," says General Sherman, "the true movement was the original movement,"-that is, the march from Memphis via Holly Springs upon Jackson—and in this verdict that eminent General unquestionably follows the teachings of sound military science. That, at the time, he urged upon General Grant a return to Memphis to undertake the campaign over again on some such route is well understood; that Grant was for a time impressed by the suggestion seems probable. But repeated failures had cleared his vision and inflamed his resolution; till now, determined not to go back, he had wrought himself up to the point of an undertaking, obvious enough to have been talked over among the privates by their campfires, but so hazardous that not the boldest General in all that brave army would have dared it. He decided to march his troops southward on the Louisiana side, to trust for supplies to steamboats that might run the gauntlet of the Vicksburg batteries, to cross the Mississippi below the last post in the chain of defenses, and then, staking everything upon the die, and trusting to the fortune of the cast, to cut loose from supplies, and strike for Vicksburg or ruin. Moreover, there was that in the mind of this most audacious of generals that never permitted him to doubt of success, or to admit, in this wildest flight, the most prudent and judicious precautions.

In the last days of March, the troops moved across the little peninsula opposite Vicksburg, and came out on the Mississippi below New Carthage. Gunboats and transports next ran past the batteries,-a fearful ordeal, from which they emerged, battered, shattered, some in flames, while others had gone down beneath the pitiless rain of shells. Then, with gunboats leading the way, and transports bearing down store

of provisions, the army marched on, till it came opposite the last rebel fort, that at Grand Gulf. Here the gunboats were expected to reduce the hostile works, but they failed. Grant then hastened twelve miles further down; the gunboats and transports followed.

The movement had now consumed a month; and the rebels were still incredulous or blind as to its real purpose. For Sherman had been left above, with his corps; and, when Grant was ready to cross to the eastern side of the river and at last launch his army upon the enemy's rear, he had skillfully arranged that Sherman should be making a feint of attacking them in force above. And so it came about that, while, on the first of May, Pemberton was watching Sherman, at Haines's Bluff, Grant was fairly across, far below the city, and moving rapidly in the rear of Grand Gulf.

From this moment there was in the mind of the great strategist, now at the head of all the Confederate armies in the West, no doubt of the course to be pursued. Comprehending instantly the menace, recognizing that the fate of Vicksburg was now to be settled by the fate of this army that was so suddenly rushing without a base into the enemy's country, General Jos. E. Johnston ordered Pemberton out of Vicksburg, to concentrate everything, fall upon Grant and crush him. But not less clear was the vision of the general with whom Johnston was contending. From the hour that he set foot on the east side of the Mississippi, below Vicksburg, he persistently addressed himself to one clearly defined, distinct object, from which no raids upon his rear, no question of communications, no dubious manoeuvres of the enemy were to swerve him. Herein lay the great generalship of his movement. He at last knew precisely what he wanted. Interposing between Pemberton's forces near Vicksburg, and any troops to the eastward which Johnston might collect for the emergency, he struck straight along the most eligible route for the rear of Vicksburg, whence, bursting off instantaneously, by attack in reverse, the fortifications on the Yazoo, he might open communication with the fleet, and sit down at his leisure to the siege.

Accordingly, no sooner had the advance corps landed on

the east side of the river and drawn four days' rations than it was pushed out on the road to Port Gibson-a point, the possession of which necessarily menaced the rebel fortifications at Grand Gulf. The garrison here understood well enough the nature of such movement, and four miles in front of Port Gibson strove desperately to check the advance. The battle raged along the narrow ridge on which ran the road of the National army throughout the day, and cost a thousand of Grant's troops. But the end was inevitable; the rebels were defeated and forced back toward their fortifications. Grant pushed instantly on, and the Grand Gulf garrison found itself on the point of being cut off from Vicksburg. In all haste, therefore, it evacuated and fled, leaving Grant to move up the transports from Bruinsburg, and make his temporary base of supplies at the point he had originally selected.

A little above Grand Gulf, the Big Black, after flowing a few miles to the rear of Vicksburg, and thence almost parallel with the Mississippi southward, empties into the Great River. Crossing it at the bridge which the Grand Gulf garrison took, there lay before the army a straight road, only twenty miles long, directly to Vicksburg. But it was no part of Grant's plan to move square in the teeth of his foe. Yet he sent a column along this road to pursue the flying garrison, and thus creating the impression that the whole National army was rushing straight upon him, held Pemberton near Vicksburg. Then, pushing his army along the eastern bank of the Big Black, he protected by that stream his left flank, while he hastened to plant himself upon the line by which Johnston and Pemberton communicated-the short forty-five mile railroad connecting Vicksburg with Jackson, the capital of the State. Assured by this skillful interposition of the Big Black, of his safety from Pemberton, he even stretched his right, under McPherson, miles away to the eastward, to strike Jackson itself, destroy the rebel stores, and discover what force Johnston might be gathering for Pemberton's relief.

Meantime it was the fate of that able but unfortunate commander to be cursed with subordinates who fancied they knew more than their chief. Troops for the emergency were collecting at Jackson. He had already ordered Pemberton to