CHAPTER XIII

THE MISSISSIPPI CAMPAIGN

HEADED toward Vicksburg in command, at last Grant had the chance he had been looking for, though handicapped by the dispersion of a splendid army and by the dilatory tactics which gave the enemy an opportunity to fortify and man the place. His strategy in following a line of conquest which paralleled the Mississippi, compelling the evacuation of the hostile river strongholds one by one, had cleared the water highway for the fleet of Union gunboats all the way down from Cairo. Paducah, Henry, Donelson, and Shiloh, in giving the Union armies the Tennessee as far south as Nashville and beyond to Corinth, had also transferred to their control Columbus, Memphis, Fort Pillow, and Island No. 10; for though Island No. 10 was seized by Pope while Shiloh was in fight, it would have dropped into his hands without resistance if he had waited a few days.

Farragut had seized New Orleans three weeks after Shiloh and Butler was earning his sobriquet of "Beast" as military governor of the town. Farragut's boats could ply the river as far north as fortified Port Hudson, while those of Davis could convey supplies to feed the Federal armies as far south as

Vicksburg. Thus these two strongholds still in rebel hands were of the utmost value to the Southern cause. Not only did they cut in two the Union navy, but they controlled the gateway to the granary of the South, in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, rich enough in soil to feed the Southern armies and rich enough in men to reinforce them with one hundred thousand fresh recruits. The Red River, running through Texas and Louisiana, emptied into the Mississippi below Vicksburg and above Port Hudson. To close its mouth against the contributions of the territory which it drained and to open up the Mississippi from Cairo to the Gulf was a high stake to play for, and Grant was not the only general who had it in his eye, although no other set such store upon the need of speed in forcing the assault.

Now that he was on the road to the achievement, he chafed with waiting. The enemy had been greatly reinforced while Halleck loitered and were now trying to regain part of the ground which they had lost. Iuka and Corinth were saved by Ord and Rosecrans only after fierce attack by Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn. Vicksburg, which had been lightly manned and thinly fortified in April, had been growing stouter every day till it was now well-nigh impregnable. Nature had guarded it on the north by swamps, bayous, and shallow lakes through which

invading armies could not hope to force their way; on the west by a steep bluff two hundred feet in height, from which its batteries could rain a plunging fire upon the rash fleet which should undertake assault and up to which no ship could hope to train its guns; on the south by the promontories of Port Hudson and Grand Gulf, by this time manned and fortified till they were strongholds in themselves. The sole approach was from the west and there the strengthened Southern armies intervened, Van Dorn for his defeat at Corinth, for which he was not really culpable, having given place to Pemberton, a Pennsylvanian by birth, trained at West Point, a rebel out of friendship for the Confederate President, who gave him rank above his seniors and responsible command unjustified by service or by the event.

Grant's first plan was to parallel the river without approaching it, just as from Paducah to Pittsburg Landing, compelling Vicksburg's fall, as he had forced the fall of all the other strongholds between Vicksburg and Cairo by seizing points of vantage along the Tennessee. He would abandon Corinth as no longer necessary, now that its railroad connections were in his hands and press hard on the rebel forces which protected Vicksburg.

Having in mind the moss-grown axiom of war that a great army in a hostile country should have a base

to which it could fall back in case of need, he fixed Columbus as his base and deserting Corinth marched his force along the Mississippi Central Railroad from Grand Junction to Grenada, while Sherman with Memphis for a base moved down the Mississippi on transports to effect a landing at the bluffs just north of Vicksburg and thus coöperate with Grant, who hoped to keep the enemy engaged while Sherman captured Vicksburg by assault. When he set out, both he and Sherman, with whom he talked it out at Oxford, would have chosen rather to move in full force on Jackson, the Mississippi capital, using Memphis as a base, but the Mississippi Central Railroad, which ran from Memphis to Jackson, had been torn up between Memphis and Grenada, and to wait for its repair would eat up time, already grown too dear. Even as it was the time was wasted. Grant kept getting mystic messages from Washington whose meaning did not dawn on him till after the event. Forrest with his cavalry left Bragg in front of Rosecrans at Murfreesboro, and darting through the State of Tennessee cut Grant's communication with Columbus by spoiling sixty miles of railroad and leveling the telegraph, so that Grant, completely isolated and unable even to tell Sherman of his plight, had to work slowly back living off the country during the eighty miles' retreat, since Holly

Springs, where stores had been accumulated for an emergency, was at that moment surrendered to Van Dorn, who in a quick dash from the rear had found a coward in command. Grant, after three weeks' isolation, again in touch with Memphis on January 8, learned that Sherman ten days before had been beaten back in his assault upon the bluffs near Vicksburg, and that McClernand was in command of the Mississippi River expedition, supplanting Sherman on the strength of Lincoln's order.

It was now midwinter and nothing had been gained since spring except experience, though Grant's offensive had at least diverted Forrest's cavalry from Bragg, likewise ten thousand men whom Bragg sent to help Pemberton, thus weakening his own force and doubtless giving Rosecrans the victory in the closefought battle of Stone River, January 1, which opened up the way for Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga, the possession of Knoxville and Atlanta, and Sherman's march through Georgia.