burg; and the prospect even of making a diversion or opening communi cation with the garrison was uncertain and difficult.

Vicksburg was invested by the enemy on the eastern side: Sherman holding the right of the lines, McPherson the centre, and McClernand the left. A new base of supplies was established, leading from the Yazoo directly to the rear. Guns were planted in opposition to the long, fortified series of works of the Confederates.

On the 19th May, the division of Gen. Blair, and a brigade of Sher man's division assaulted what was thought to be a weak place in the Con federate line of defence. They were severely repulsed. On the 22d a more concerted attack was ordered by Gen. Grant, and the whole line was bombarded by cannon. At an early hour the left, under McClernand, gained a foot-hold at an angle of the works, but was dislodged; and the enemy withdrew from the attack, after having suffered a loss of some twenty-five hundred men disabled. The attempt to take Vicksburg by storm seems to have been abandoned after this; and it was determined to reduce the position by siege and parallel works.

And now commenced a terrible task. Fort was erected against fort, and trench dug against trench. The enemy's sappers constructed their corridors and passages and pits amid a blazing fire of hostile musketry, and the fiercest rays of the summer sun. The Confederates, confined to the narrow limits of the trenches, with their limbs cramped and swollen, never had, by day or by night, the slightest relief. ing suns, drenching rains, damp fogs, and women, and children, prepared caves in the during the almost incessant bombardment. May and June continued the weary siege. in a measure kept up by news received from Johnston's army, by means of messengers who found a way through the swamps and thickets of the Yazoo.

They were exposed to burnheavy dews. The citizens, hill, where they took refugo Thus, through the months of The spirits of the troops were

Although Gen. Johnston was too weak to save Vicksburg, he entertained some hope of extricating the garrison. With this view Gen. Taylor, commanding in the Trans-Mississippi, was ordered to co-operate with Pemberton from the west bank of the Mississippi. But the movement miscarried; Taylor's attack on the Federal camp at Milliken's Bend was repulsed; and all hope of help from the West was ultimately abandoned.

On the 22d June a despatch was received from Pemberton by Gen. Johnston, suggesting that the latter should make to Grant "propositions to pass this army out, with all its arms and equipages," and renewing his (Pemberton's) hope of his being able, by force of arms, to act with Johnston, and expressing the opinion that he could hold out for fifteen days longer. Johnston was moved by the determined spirit of the despatch. He replied: "Something may yet be done to save Vicksburg. Postpone

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SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG.

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Doth of the modes suggested of merely extricating the garrison. Negotiations with Grant for the relief of the garrison, should they become necessary, must be made by you. It would be a confession of weakness on my part, which I ought not to make, to propose them. When it becomes necessary to make terms, they may be considered as made under my authority."

On the 29th June, field transportation and other supplies having been obtained, Johnston's army marched toward the Big Black, and on the evening of July 1st encamped between Brownsville and the river.

Reconnoissances, which occupied the second and third, convinced Gen. Johnston that the attack north of the railroad was impracticable. He determined, therefore, to make the examinations necessary for the attempt south of the railroad-thinking, from what was already known, that the chance for success was much better there, although the consequences of defeat might be more disastrous.

On the night of the 3d July a messenger was sent to Gen. Pemberton with information that an attempt to create a diversion would be made to enable him to cut his way out, and that Johnston hoped to attack the enemy about the 7th.

On the Fourth of July Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg. The explanation has been made in his behalf that he never received Johnston's despatches, encouraging the hope that both Vicksburg and the garrison might be saved; and Gen. Pemberton has declared that had he received these despatches: "I would have lived upon an ounce a day, and have continued to meet the assaults of all Grant's army, rather than have surrendered the city until Gen. Johnston had realized or relinquished that hope."

As it was, he determined to surrender Vicksburg on the anniversary of the Fourth of July for the very singular reason that it would gratify the enemy's "vanity" to enter the stronghold of the great river on that particular day, and that such a concession might procure better terms than at any other time. The preliminary note for terms was despatched on the 3d July. Correspondence on the subject continued during the day, and was not concluded until nine o'clock the next morning. Gen. Pemberton afterwards came out, and had a personal interview with Grant, in front of the Federal line, the two sitting for an hour and a half in close communion. A spectator says: "Grant was silent and smoking, while Pemberton, equally cool and careless in manner, was plucking straws and biting them as if in merest chit-chat."

It was a terrible day's work for such a display of sang froid. It was the loss of one of the largest armies which the Confederates had in the field; the decisive event of the Mississippi Valley; the virtual surrender of the great river; and the severance of the Southern Confederacy. The numbers which surrendered at the capitulation of Vicksburg were twenty

three thousand men, with three Major-Generals, and nine Brigadiers, upwards of ninety pieces of artillery, and about forty thousand small-arms. Weakness from fatigue, short rations, and heat, had left thousands of the troops decrepit. Six thousand of them were in the hospitals, and many of them were crawling about in what should be convalescent camps. Four thousand citizens and negroes, besides Pemberton's army, included all the souls within the walls of Vicksburg. When we consider that these people had for a month and a half been in daily terrour of their lives, never being able to sleep a night in their homes, but crawling into caves, unable to move except in the few peaceful intervals in the heat of the day, we may appreciate what a life of horrour was theirs.

The first result of the surrender of Vicksburg, was the fall of Port Hudson, and the consequent supremacy of the Federal arms along the entire length of the Mississippi. Gen. Banks had invested this place; he had made two assaults on the 27th May and on the 14th June; and he had been repulsed by Gen. Gardner, who held the place with about five thousand men. When the news was communicated to Gardner that Vicksburg had surrendered, knowing that all hope of relief was at an end, he deter mined that it was useless to prolong resistance, and on the 9th July surren dered himself and the garrison as prisoners of war.

These events on the Mississippi constituted a reverse, which the resources of the Confederacy, neither in men nor means, could endure without great strain. Across the river the train of disaster appears to have extended. The fall of the strongholds of the Mississippi resulted in the retreat of our army from Little Rock, and the surrender to the enemy of the important valley in which it was situated; while a campaign auspiciously begun in Lower Louisiana was abandoned in consequence of the release of Banks' forces from the siege of Port Hudson. To these events we must now take the reader so as to gather up the several threads of the narrative of the war in the West.

OPERATIONS IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI-BATTLE OF HELENA.

In the month of May it was deemed advisable by Gen. E. Kirby Smith, then commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, that a demonstration should be made on the west side of the river in order that Vicksburg might be relieved. He accordingly directed Gen. Holmes to put the troops in Arkansas in motion to operate against Helena, a place on the west side of the river eighty miles south of Memphis and three hundred miles north of Vicksburg. It was occupied by a garrison of four thousand Federal troops, with a gunboat in the river.

On the morning of May 31st most of the troops in Arkansas were put

in motion for an advance. The weather was very wet, the creeks all full, and the ground covered with water. For the expedition Gen. Holmes had Price's Division of infantry, consisting of Parsons' Missouri Brigade numbering 1,000, and McRay's Arkansas Brigade of 400; Fagan's Brigade of Arkansas infantry, numbering 1,500; and Marmaduke's Division of Arkansas and Missouri cavalry, numbering 2,000; making a total of 4,900. These several commands formed a junction at Jacksonport, and on the morning of 22d June commenced their march in the direction of Helena. It was a toilsome and dangerous march-one of the most extraordinary recorded in the history of the war. The infantry were in water to their waists on two-thirds of the road. Heavy details of worn-out men were employed in dragging the wagons through difficult places. The mules would be unhitched, a long rope fastened to the wagon, and a hundred men pull it through. There was no pontoon train, and over the swollen streams bridges of floating logs would be constructed, which a loaded wagon would sink several feet under water. In making this terrible march, twelve days were consumed, and on the evening of the 3d July the jaded men had reached within four miles of Helena.

Precious time had been lost. A council of war was called, in which occurred a remarkable scene. Gen. Holmes explained the strength of the position to be attacked. Helena was surrounded by a range of rough, wooded hills, which shut it into the river, except a narrow bottom next the river, both above and below. The place was defended by three prominent forts, one protecting the approach by the north, one at the south, and the "Grave-Yard" fort, in the rear of the centre of the city.

Gen. Price was not in favour of an attack. He argued that the enemy was doubtless expecting them, and had concentrated as many troops as he deemed sufficient to defend the place, and that, if it had been necessary to call troops from Vicksburg for this purpose, the object of the expedition had already been accomplished, and the only action of the troops should be to operate so as to detain such reinforcements at Helena. He thought this might be done most effectually by surrounding the place, cutting off the enemy's supplies, both from the country and the river, and harassing him by picket-fighting. Even if Helena were taken, he thought it would be a dearly-bought victory; it was untenable; and if any of the garrison escaped, and doubtless they had transports in waiting, their expulsion would but strengthen the enemy at Vicksburg, thereby defeating the very object of the expedition.

Gen. Holmes wanted the éclat of victory. He replied with warmth: “Gen. Price, I intend to attack Helena immediately, and capture the place, if possible. This is my fight. If I succeed, I want the glory; and if I fail, I am willing to bear the odium." Then turning to the other officers, he said: "At twelve o'clock, to-night, we move towards Helena." Gen. Marmaduke, with. his command, was ordered to attack the northern

fort; Gen. Fagan was to attack the southern fort; and Gen. Price was to assault and capture the centre fort—the attack to commence simulta neously at day-light.

About day-break the first gun fired was by' the battalion of sharpshooters belonging to Parsons' brigade, who encountered an outpost of the enemy. Price moved in column of division, the 9th Missouri Infantry in advance. The hills were high, the ravines deep; but the men pressed forward in good order, the enemy shelling them at every step of the march. When the last ridge was reached, the command was halted, and the men rested and closed up, ready for the assault. They were now within two or three hundred yards of the fort. By this time the firing had commenced on the right and left, and it was known that Fagan and Marmaduke were at work. The command was given by Gen. Price to charge with fixed bayonets. The troops moved in gallant style, at the run, over and through fallen timber and roughly constructed abatis, up hills, and into gullies. They were never checked once, and were soon in possession of the fort.

Price's division had done the work assigned it. Heavy guns from the gunboat in the river now commenced playing upon the captured fort. The men sheltered themselves, as well as they could, and awaited further orders. Meanwhile Fagan had moved against the southern fort, and when within two hundred yards of it, had commenced a fire of small-arms, which provoked such a heavy response of artillery, that his men were com pelled to fall back. Twice was the assault repeated, and with the same esult. Marmaduke met with no better success. Gen. Holmes, seeing the ailures of Fagan and Marmaduke, ordered two regiments of Parsons' brigade to attack the southern fort in the rear. The movement was attempted; but under the fire of the gunboat and the cross-fire of the other two forts, and that of the whole infantry force of the enemy, it was impossible to advance. Fagan and Marmaduke having withdrawn their forces, it became necessary to attempt the withdrawal of Price's division. With the whole force of the enemy concentrated upon this division, and separated as it was from any support, its retreat was one of mortal peril at every step. It was accomplished with heavy loss. The battle was lost; six hundred Confederates had been disabled, and about four hundred taken prisoners. Gen. Holmes the next morning commenced his march back to Little Rock. The white flag had been run up at Vicksburg; all hope of the connection of the Trans-Mississippi with the eastern portions of the Confederacy was at an end; and Gen. Holmes had made the first step of the retreat which, at last abandoning Little Rock, was to surrender to the enemy the most valuable portion of Arkansas.*

* An esteemed correspondent writes us these personal incidents of the Battle of Helena: