ployment or use of Government teams for hauling private property. All cotton brought to stations or places for shipment in this department by Government teams will be seized by the Quartermaster's Department for the benefit of the Government, and persons claiming such property expelled from the Department. It is made the duty of all officers, and especially of local Provost-Marshals, to see that this order is rigidly enforced. By command of JOHN A. RAWLINGS, A. A.-G. Major-General U. S. GRANT. But, despite the above orders, the Jewish camp followers were found to be continually engaged in an illegal traffic; whereupon General Grant expelled them all from his department. The following is his order of expulsion: HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE, [General Orders, No. 11.] The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order by post commanders. They will see that all this class of people are furnished with passes and required to leave; and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permits from these head-quarters. No passes will be given these people to visit head-quarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.* By order of Major-General GRANT. An anecdote is told of General Grant, relative to his refusal to engage in or authorize any movements for the reopening of trade with the rebellious States. On one occasion, especially, after his protests and orders suppressing such traffic, he was eagerly entreated by the agents of the Treasury Department to authorize some system of trade. *This order was afterwards moderated and the Jews allowed to trade under certain regulations. For a long time he refused, for the reason that he could not successfully conduct his military operations while such persons were moving around him; but at last he conceded, that a certain amount of trade in the recaptured districts of the South would be safe, proper, and even highly useful to the Union-provided it could be conducted through honest, ummpeachable Union hands. He was asked to name the persons to whom he would be willing to trust. "I will do no such thing," was Grant's reply; "for if I did, it would appear in less than a week that I was partner of every one of the persons trading under my au thority." CHAPTER XV. ADVANCE INTO MISSISSIPPI.-A RETROSPECT. THE object of the advance of General Grant's army into the State of Mississippi was to reduce Vicksburg, and open the Mississippi River from its source to the Gulf. The river had been blockaded at different times, by the fortification of certain points, which had all been subdued by the gunboats, with the exception of Vicksburg; but in consequence of the natural, as well as artificial strength of that position, it could not be taken from the water-front. It became, therefore, necessary that the land forces should co-operate in the movement for the conquest of the rebels at this point. It will be needful, for a clear understanding of the posi tion of affairs when General Grant first undertook this responsible duty, to go back to the time when the great river of the West was first blockaded at Vicksburg by the rebels, and show how every previous effort had failed to reduce the stronghold which had been styled by the enemy, the "Gibraltar of the Mississippi." On the 12th day of January, 1861, the Governor of the State of Mississippi first sent artillery to fortify Vicksburg, then supposed to be the strongest defensive position on the river, commanding as it did, from an important elevation, the channel for some miles, both above and below the city. When it was found that the gunboat fleet had, with the assistance of the army, reduced the strong position at Island No. 10, and had pushed down past the works constructed to blockade the river above Memphis, the rebels at once, under skilful engineers, began strengthening the fortifications at Vicksburg, until they were considered incapable of being stronger, and sufficient to resist the advance of any enemy either by land or from the water. Vicksburg, in fact, became a series of forts, inclosed and connected, as it were, within a larger fortress. The operations of the army and the naval forces in the West up to May, 1862, had principally been for two grand objects-the reopening of the Mississippi River to the Gulf, and the suppression of the rebels in arms. The movements were therefore general in their character up to this date, and had not been directed to any one particular point, until the advance upon Corinth, under General Halleck. About June, 1862, the reduction of Vicksburg and its neighboring batteries became a subject of more direct im- * portance, and a special object to be accomplished; and on the 1st of that month, Commodore Farragut's fleet, which had taken New Orleans, and the other points of the Lower Mississippi, arrived off Grand Gulf, where it attacked a rebel battery of rified guns. After a brief engagement the fleet passed up the river, without reducing the battery. It was the approach of this fleet from below and of the gunboat fleet from above, that warned General Beauregard that his army was in great danger, if he should remain too long at Corinth. As before stated, Memphis was reduced on June 6th, and the next day, Farragut's fleet arrived off Vicksburg. On June 8th, a portion of the fleet returned to Grand Gulf, and for the time, silenced the rebel battery at that point. The gunboat fleet having cleared the river to Vicksburg from above, after reaching that place returned north, to operate on the rivers of Arkansas. The movements of the Union army under General Grant, after the evacuation of Corinth, and the arrival of Farra gut's fleet before Vicksburg, had such an effect upon the rebel inhabitants of the State of Mississippi, that they, on June 16th, 1862, removed their state archives from their capital-Jackson-to a more remote position. On the 27th of June, 1862, the fleet began bombarding Vicksburg, and with the aid of Porter's mortar fleet, kept shelling the rebel position at intervals, until the end of July, when the river was found to be so low, that the fleet had to retire to New Orleans, to prevent the larger vessels from becoming aground. About twelve miles north of Vicksburg is the mouth of the Yazoo River, the waters of which stream are deep enough to float an ordinary river vessel, at almost any season of the year. Up this river, the rebels had established an improvised navy-yard; had there constructed a powerful iron-clad ram, which they had named the "Arkansas ;" and, to prevent an enemy from passing up the Yazoo River to destroy this ship-building, the rebels had fortified Haines's Bluff, a strong elevation, a short distance above the point where the Yazoo falls into the Mississippi River. On July 15th, 1862, this ram came down the Yazoo, ran by the fleet, and laid up before the city of Vicksburg, adding thereby a floating battery to the works of that place. The gunboat "Essex" and the ram "Queen of the West," however, subsequently inflicted such injuries on this rebel vessel, that in a short time she was completely destroyed. At this time, Vicksburg and its vicinity formed a portion of the Union Department of the Gulf, therefore, all military operations had to be made by troops having their base at New Orleans. While the United States vessels were en |