the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth corps, and assigned to him the duty of watching the movements of Johnston, who had collected a large army at Jackson, and was apparently about to attack the rear of the investing force, with the design of raising the siege. Our position was a strong one. The Big Black covered us from attack, and would render Johnston's escape in the event of defeat impossible. Nevertheless the condition of affairs with his army was so desperate that he moved from Jackson on the 29th of June; but while he was making reconnoissances to ascertain the best point for crossing the river, on the 4th day of July, 1863, Vicksburg surrendered.

General Grant in his official report of the siege, dated July 6th, thus alludes to Sherman's operations while guarding the rear: "Johnston, however, not attacking, I determined to attack him the moment Vicksburg was in our possession, and accordingly notified Sherman that I should again make an assault on Vicksburg at daylight on the 6th, and for him to have up supplies of all descriptions ready to move upon receipt of orders, if the assault should prove a success. His preparations were immediately made, and when the place surrendered on the 4th, two days earlier than I had fixed for the attack, Sherman was found ready, and moved at once with a force increased by the remainder of both the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Army corps, and is at present investing Jackson, where Johnston has made a stand."

Johnston occupied the lines of rifle-pits covering the front of Jackson with four divisions of Confederate troops, under Major-Generals Loring, Walker, French, and Breckinridge, and a division of cavalry, under Brigadier-General Jackson, observing the fords.

After toiling for nearly two months in the hot and stifling trenches, without pausing to share the general outbreak of joy for the national triumph which crowned their labors, Sherman's men marched fifty miles in the heat and dust through a country almost destitute of water, to meet the enemy.

The advance of his troops appeared before the enemy's

works in front of Jackson on the 9th of July, and on the 12th had invested that place, until both flanks rested upon Pearl River. Constant and vigorous skirmishing was kept up in front, while a cavalry expedition was sent off to the east of Jackson to destroy the railroads, until the night of the 16th of July. Sherman now had all his artillery in position, and a large ammunition train for which he had been waiting had arrived during the day. Learning this fact, and perceiving the impossibility of longer maintaining his position, Johnston having previously removed the greater portion of his stores, marched out of Jackson the same night, and destroyed the floatingbridges over the Pearl River. Early on the morning of the 17th, the evacuation was discovered, and Sherman's troops entered and occupied the city. Johnston continued the retreat to Morton, thirty-five miles east of Jackson. Two divisions of our troops, with the cavalry, followed as far as Brandon, through which place they drove the enemy's cavalry on the 19th. General Sherman at once sent out expeditions in all quarters, to thoroughly and permanently destroy all the bridges, culverts, embankments, water-tanks, rails, ties, and rolling-stock of the railways centring in Jackson. Our loss during the operations before Jackson was about one thousand in all; the enemy's was estimated by General Johnston at 71 killed, 504 wounded, and about 25 stragglers. We took 764 prisoners on entering the city. Leaving a small garrison in Jackson, Sherman returned to the line of the Big Black, to recuperate.

Thus terminated, in one hundred and nine days from its first inception, a campaign which resulted in the surrender of an entire army of thirty-seven thousand prisoners, including fifteen general officers; the discomfiture and partial dispersion of a second large army under a leader of approved skill; the capture of Vicksburg; the opening of the Mississippi River; and the division of the rebellion in twain.

Of Sherman's part in the campaign General Grant remarks : "The siege of Vicksburg and last capture of Jackson and dispersion of Johnston's army entitle General Sherman to

more credit than usually falls to the lot of one man to earn. His demonstration at Haines' Bluff, in April, to hold the eneemy about Vicksburg, while the army was securing a foothold east of the Mississippi; his rapid marches to join the army afterwards; his management at Jackson, Mississippi, in the first attack; his almost unequalled march from Jackson to Bridgeport, and passage of Black River; his securing Walnut Hills on the 18th of May, attest his great merit as a soldier." The army now rested.

CHAPTER X.

THE LULL AFTER VICKSBURG.

IMMEDIATELY after the surrender, while waiting for the movement of his columns, Sherman seized a few moments to write these hasty lines to his friend Admiral Porter :

"I can appreciate the intense satisfaction you must feel at lying before the very monster that has defied us with such deep and malignant hate, and seeing your once disunited fleet again a unit; and better still, the chain that made an inclosed sea of a link in the great river broken forever. In so magnificent a result I stop not to count who did it. It is done, and the day of our nation's birth is consecrated and baptized anew in a victory won by the united Navy and Army of our country. God grant that the harmony and mutual respect that exists between our respective commanders, and shared by all the true men of the joint service, may continue forever and serve to elevate our national character, threatened with shipwreck. Thus I muse as I sit in my solitary camp out in the wood far from the point for which we have justly striven so long and so well, and though personal curiosity would tempt me to go and see the frowning batteries and sunken pits that have defied us so long, and sent to their silent graves so many of our early comrades in the enterprise, I feel that other tasks lie before me, and time must not be lost. Without casting anchor, and despite the heat and the dust and the drought, I must again into the bowels of the land to make the conquest of Vicksburg fulfil all the conditions it should in the progress of this war. Whether success attend my efforts or not, I know that Admiral Porter will ever accord to me the

exhibition of a pure and unselfish zeal in the service of our country.

Though further apart, the navy and army will still act in concert, and I assure you I shall never reach the banks of the river or see a gunboat but I will think of Admiral Porter, Captain Breese, and the many elegant and accomplished gentlemen it has been my good fortune to meet on armed or unarmed decks of the Mississippi Squadron."

There was now a lull in the war. After the great struggles which closed the summer campaign of 1863, the combatants relaxed their grasp for a moment, to breathe. The Army of the Potomac rested upon the Rapidan. The Army of the Cumberland, gathered for the leap, lay in front of Tullahoma. The Army of the Tennessee reposed on the banks of the river it had won. Steele was sent to occupy Little Rock. Ord with the Thirteenth Corps, went to New Orleans. By the remainder of Grant's army the interval was spent in reorganizing and recuperating. The Fifteenth Corps was reorganized so as to consist of four divisions. The First, commanded by Brigadier-General P. J. Osterhaus, was composed of two brigades, led by Brigadier-General C. R. Woods and Colonel J. A. Williamson, of the Fourth Iowa. The Second, commanded by Brigadier-General Morgan L. Smith, comprised the brigades of Brigadier-Generals Giles A. Smith and J. A. D. Lightburn. The Third, commanded by Brigadier-General J. M. Tuttle, consisted of three brigades, under Brigadier-Generals J. A. Mower, and R. P. Buckland, and Colonel J. J. Wood, of the Twelfth Iowa. The Fourth, commanded by Brigadier-General Hugh Ewing, included the brigades led by General J. M. Corse, Colonel Loomis, of the Twenty-sixth Illinois, and Colonel J. R. Cockerell, of the Seventieth Iowa. Major-General Frank P. Blair was temporarily relieved from duty with the corps, and Major-General Steele's division accompanied that officer to Arkansas.

We may now avail ourselves of the lull to glance briefly at General Sherman's correspondence, during this period and the