leon's maxim, that "a great captain supplies all deficiencies by his courage, and marches boldly to meet the attack." It was a wise order, for it tended to concentration and the union of both detachments of his army; and, if promptly and boldly executed, might have resulted in saving Vicksburg. For if Sherman had been defeated between Clinton and Jackson, Grant could not have invested Vicksburg.

As it was, the fall of Vicksburg had become but a question of time. General Johnston was convinced of the impossibility of collecting a sufficient force to break the investment of the city, should it be completed. He appreciated the difficulty of extricating the garrison. It was with this foresight that, on learning that Pemberton had been driven from the Big Black, he ordered the evacuation of Vicksburg. He wrote: "If Haynes' Bluff be untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and cannot be held. If, therefore, you are invested in Vicksburg, you must ultimately surrender. Under such circumstances, instead of losing both troops and place, you must, if possible, save the troops. If it is not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and its dependencies, and march to the northeast."

It was a grave order. It commanded the surrender of valuable stores and munitions of war; the surrender of the Mississippi river; and the severance of the Confederacy. But Johnston had presented to his mind a given alternative: that of the loss of Vicksburg, and that of the loss of Vicksburg and an army of twenty-five thousand men, and he had the nerve to accept with promptness the lesser of two evils. It required the greatest moral courage to come to such a conclusion; for so deluded were the Confederate people as to the safety of Vicksburg, and so firmly persuaded were they that Grant was a desperate fool "who would butt his brains out against the stockades of Vicksburg," that had this order of Johnston been known at the time it would have produced from one end of the Confederacy to the other an outbreak of indignation, and have probably made him the victim of an incorrigible popular passion and ignorance.

Pemberton received the order with dismay; he called a council of war. It was unanimous for its rejection; but the reason given was peculiar and but little creditable. It was decided that it was impossible to withdraw the army with such

morale and material as to be of future service to the Confederacy; and this, although there were eight thousand fresh troops in Vicksburg. Pemberton replied: "I have decided to hold Vicksburg as long as possible, with the firm hope that the Government may yet be able to assist me in keeping this obstruction to the enemy's free navigation of the Mississippi river. I still conceive it to be the most important point in the Confederacy." While the council of war was assembled, the guns of the enemy opened on the works.

CHAPTER III.

The Defences of Vicksburg.-Pemberton's Force.-His Troops Reinspirited.—A Memorable Appeal.-Grant's Assault on the Works.-Confidence of the Yankees.— Their Repulse and Losses.-Commencement of Siege Operations.-Confidence in Richmond.-Johnston's Secret Anticipation of the Fall of Vicksburg.-His Alleged Inability to Avert it.-Critical Condition of the Confederate Armies in Numbers.— Secret Correspondence of Richmond Officials.-Mr. Seddon's Bait of Flattery.-Sufferings of the Garrison of Vicksburg.-Johnston's Attempt to Extricate them.-Proposed Diversion in the Trans-Mississippi.-Its Failure.-A Message from Pemberton. A Gleam of Hope.-An Important Dispatch Miscarries.-The Garrison Unable to Fight Their Way Out.-But Their Condition not Extreme.-Pemberton's Surrender on the Fourth of July.-Surprise in Richmond-Mendacity of the Telegraph.-The Story of the Rats and Mules.-Pemberton's Statement as to his Supplies.-His Explanation as to the Day of Surrender.-The last Incident of Humiliation.-Behavior of the Vicksburg Population.-A Rival of "The Beast."-Appearance and Manners of the City under Yankee Rule.-Consequences of the Fall of Vicksburg.-The YanKEE REOCCUPATION OF JACKSON.-Johnston's Second Evacuation.-The Enemy's Ravages in Mississippi.-How they Compared with Lee's Civilities in Pennsylvania.— THE FALL OF PORT HUDSON, &c.-Enemy's Capture of Yazoo City.-THE Battle OF HELENA.--THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI.--Repulse of the Confederates.-Abandonment of Little Rock.-The Trials and Sufferings of the Trans-Mississippi Department.Hindman's Memorable Rule.-Military Autocracy.-The Generous and Heroic Spirit of the Trans-Mississippi.

THE line of defence around the city of Vicksburg consisted of a system of detached works (redans, lunettes, and redoubts) on the prominent and commanding points, with the usual profile of raised field works, connected, in most cases, by rifle-pits. The strength of the city towards the land was equally as strong as on the river side. The country was broken, to a degree affording excellent defensive positions. In addition to this, the ravines intervening the ridges and knolls, which the Confederates had fortified, were covered with a tangled growth of cane, wild grape, &c., making it impossible for the enemy to move his troops in well-dressed lines.

To man the entire line of fortifications, General Pemberton was able to bring into the trenches about eighteen thousand five hundred muskets; but it was absolutely necessary to keep a reserve always ready to reinforce any point heavily threatened. It became indispensable, therefore, to reduce the number in the trenches to the minimum capable of holding them

until a reserve could come to their aid. It was also necessary that the reserve should be composed of troops among the best and most reliable. Accordingly, Bowen's division (about twenty-four hundred) and some other forces were designated for that purpose, reducing the forces in the trenches to little over fifteen thousand five hundred men.

Fortunately, the army of Vicksburg had speedily recovered from its demoralization, reassured, as the troops were, of a prospect of Johnston's co-operation, and inspired by a remarkable appeal from Pemberton. This unfortunate commander appeased the clamor against himself by an apparently noble candor and memorable words of heroism. He said that it had been declared that he would sell Vicksburg, and exhorted his soldiers to witness the price at which he would sell it, for it would not be less than his own life, and that of every man in his command. Those words deserve to be commemorated in relation to the sequel.

The stirring words of Pemberton were circulated through the Confederacy, and satisfied the public that either Vicksburg was safe, or that the catastrophe would be glorious. They called to mind Leyden and Genoa, Londonderry and Saragossa, and the people of the Confederacy expected that a name not less glorious would be added to the list of cities made immortal by heroism, endurance, suffering, and, as they hoped, triumph. Much of this elation, it is true, was from ignorance of the true situation; but even the intelligent refused to entertain a sequel so humiliating and disastrous to the South as that which was

to ensue.

The troops of Grant were flushed with victory, and had proposed to finish their work by a single assault. The events of the 19th, 20th, and 21st of May, wearied those who imagined that they saw in their grasp the palm of the Mississippi. So fully assured were they of victory, that they postponed it from day to day. To storm the works was to take Vicksburg, in their opinion, and when it was known on the morning of the 21st, that at ten o'clock next morning the whole line of Confederate works would be assaulted, the credulous and vain enemy accounted success so certain, that it was already given to the wings of the telegraph.

On the 22d, the fire from the enemy's artillery and sharp

shooters in the rear was heavy and incessant until noon, when his gunboats opened upon the city, while a determined assault was made along Moore's, Hebert's, and Lee's lines. At about one o'clock P. M., a heavy force moved out to the assault on the lines of General Lee, making a gallant charge. They were allowed to approach unmolested to within good musket range, when every available gun was opened upon them with grape and canister, and the men, rising in the trenches, poured into their ranks volley after volley, with so deadly an effect that, leaving the ground literally covered in some places with their dead and wounded, they precipitately retreated. The angle of one of our redoubts having been breached by their artillery previous to the assault, when the repulse occurred, a party of about sixty of the enemy, under the command of a Lieutenantcolonel, made a rush, succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the ditch at the foot of the redoubt, and planted two colors on the parapet. It was of vital importance to drive them out, and, upon a call for volunteers for that purpose, two companies of Waul's Texas legion, commanded respectively by Captain Bradley and Lieutenant Hogue, accompanied by the gallant and chivalrous Colonel E. W. Pettus, of the Twentieth Alabama regiment, musket in hand, promptly presented themselves for the hazardous service. The preparations were quietly and quickly made, but the enemy seemed at once to divine the purpose, and opened upon the angle a terrific fire of shot, shell, and musketry. Undaunted, this little band, its chivalrous commander at its head, rushed upon the work, and, in less time than it requires to describe it, it and the flags were in our possession. Preparations were then quickly made for the use of our hand-grenades, when the enemy in the ditch, being informed of the purpose, immediately surrendered.

On other parts of our lines the enemy was repulsed, although he succeeded in getting a few men into our exterior ditches at each point of attack, from which they were, however, driven before night. Our entire loss in this successful day was comparatively very small, and might be counted in a few hundreds. So accustomed had the population of Vicksburg become to the fire and rage of battle, that the circumstance is no less true than curious that throughout the day stores in the city were open, and women and children walked the streets, as if no missiles