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Entered according to act of Congress D 1877 by Johnson & Mules, in the clarks office of the district court of the southern district of NY

SEIGE OF VICKSBURG.

From the original painting by Chappel in the possession of the publishers

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CHAP. XIX.

FALL OF VICKSBURG AND PORT HUDSON.

1617

undermined one of the principal forts of the enemy, in the line of the de fences on the land side, and it was blown up with fearful effect. Other m Ines were made ready for the infernal work, when Pemberton, despairing of expected aid from Johnston, made a proposition to Grant to surrender the post and his army. The generals met under the shadow of a live-oak tree in the rear of the town on the 3d of July to arrange the terms of surrender, and on the 4th the stronghold of Vicksburg, with twenty-seven thousand men and a vast amount of ordnance, and other public property, were surrendered to the leader of the National forces.

From the time of the battle at Port Gibson to the fall of Vicksburg, General Grant had captured thirty thousand prisoners (among them fifteen general officers), with arms and ammunition for an army of sixty thousand men; also steamboats, locomotives, railroads, a vast amount of cotton, etc. He had lost, during that time, nine thousand eight hundred and thirty-three men, of whom one thousand two hundred and thirty-three had been killed. By the experience of those few weeks, he had ascertained the real weakness of the Confederacy in that region.

On the night of the 4th of July (1863), the powerful fleet of Vice Admiral Porter was lying quietly at the levee at Vicksburg, and in commemoration of that National holiday, our troops regaled the citizens with a fine display of fireworks more harmless than those which, for more than forty nights, had coursed the heavens above them like malignant meteors.

Galveston had been recaptured by the Confederates on the first of January, 1863; but that victory was rendered almost fruitless by a close blockade of the post by National vessels. From that time General Banks had been co-operating with General Grant, and making efforts to "repossess" Louisiana. An expedition under General Weitzel and Commodore McKean Buchanan took possession of the remarkable Teché country in that State, when Banks concentrated his troops, about twelve thousand in number, at Baton Rouge (which was then held by General Grover), for the purpose of assisting Commodore Farragut in an attempt to pass the formidable batteries at Port Hudson, twenty-five miles up the Mississippi. That attempt was made on the night of the 13th of March, when a terrible contest occurred, in the darkness, between the vessels and the land batteries. Only Farragut's flag-ship (the Hartford) and another succeeded in passing by.

Banks now sent a large portion of his available troops into the interior of Louisiana, where General Richard Taylor was in command of a Confederate force. The Nationals were concentrated at Brashear City, on the Atchafalaya, and from that point they marched triumphantly to the Red

River, accompanied by Banks in person. From Alexandria, early in May, that general wrote to his Government that the Confederate power in northern and centrai Louisiana was broken; and with this impression he moved eastward with his troops, crossed the Mississippi River, and late in May (1863) invested Port Hudson, then in command of the Confederate general, Frank Gardner. For forty days he besieged that post, during which time many gallant deeds were performed on each side. Banks was ably assisted by the squadron of Farragut-the Hartford, Albatross, Monongahela, Richmond, Essex and Tennessee, and some mortar-boats. Finally, at the close of June, the ammunition of the closely invested garrison was almost exhausted. When news of the fall of Vicksburg reached Gardner, he perceived that further attempts at resistance would be futile; and on the 9th of July he surrendered the post to Banks, with much spoil. The National loss during the siege was about three thousand men, and that of the Confederates, exclusive of prisoners, was about eight hundred. The loss of Vicksburg and Port Hudson was a severe calamity for the Confederates. It gave the final blow in the removal of the obstructions to the navigation of the Mississippi River by Confederate batteries, and thenceforth it was free. Powerful portions of the Confederacy were "repossessed" by the National Government, and wise men among the enemies of the Republic clearly perceived that their cause was hopeless.

At the moment when Vicksburg fell, the Army of the Potomac gained an equally important victory on the soil of Pennsylvania. We left that army on the northern side of the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg, in charge of General Joseph Hooker. From January to April (1863), he was engaged in preparing for a vigorous summer campaign. His forces remained in comparative quiet for about three months, during which time they were reorganized and well disciplined; and at the close of April, his army numbered one hundred thousand effective men. General Lee's army, on the other side of the river, had been divided; a large force under General Longstreet being required to watch the movements of the Nationals under General Peck, in the vicinity of Norfolk. Lee had in hand about sixty thousand well-drilled troops, lying behind strong intrenchments extending twenty-five miles along the line of the Rappahannock. For the space of three months some cavalry movements only, disturbed the two armies. General W. H. F. Lee, with a mounted force, attacked National troops at Gloucester, opposite Yorktown, early in February; and at midnight of the 8th of March, Colonel Moseby, at the head of a band of guerrillas, dashed into the village of Fairfax Court-House and carried off the commander of the Union forces there. A little later National cavalry under General

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