preciated the philosophy of the declaration of | Holy Writ: "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand, for thou knowest not which may prosper, whether this or that." Other plans were already fully matured in his mind. But they could not be consummated until a fall of the water should render it possible for the army to traverse the marshy country on the western banks of the river opposite Vicksburg. In the mean while the measures already attempted, which certainly presented a fair chance of success, served to occupy the army, to engage the thoughts and feed the hopes of the country, always impatient of idleness, and to divert the attention of the enemy from those designs in which General Grant reposed his ultimate hopes. General Sherman's desperate assault had demonstrated that Vicksburg could not be taken by a direct attack from the river. The failure of the Yazoo expedition, and the expedition through Steele's Bayou, proved that the fortress could not be approached for assault from the north. One alternative remained. It was to effect the transportation of the troops to some point south of Vicksburg, cross the river, and thus gain a position in the rear. But how could this be accomplished? Some of the gun-boats STEAMING THROUGH THE BAYOU. might, by chance, run the terrible batteries; but | Carthage below. In this movement General how could the troops be transported down the M'Clernand, with the Eleventh Army Corps, river? The attempt to convey transports around the Vicksburg batteries by the Williams's Canal, and by Lake Providence, had both failed. Audacity attempted and accomplished that which the most skillful engineering could not achieve. As soon as the spring flood had sufficiently fallen to render it possible, General Grant ordered his forces to advance by land through the forest, and threading the edge of the morass on the western shore of the river, entirely concealed from observation, to march from Milliken's Landing above the rebel ramparts to New led the advance. It had been necessary to delay this enterprise until the water in the river and the bayous should recede. Still the road was all but impassable. It lay through a vast bog, intersected with numerous bayous half-flooded with water. The heavy artillery wheels cut through the slime and the mud, rendering the path a perfect mortar-bed, through which the men and horses waded knee-deep, and where the hubs of the wheels often disappeared from sight. The advance of the army was found to be utterly impracticable, except by the building of corduroy roads, cutting outlets for the egress of the water, and bridging the bayous. In fact, the army had to build for itself, under the most difficult circumstances, a military road as it advanced. Twenty miles of levee had to be most carefully guarded lest it should be cut by the enemy, and the whole country flooded. The vigilant foe got some intimation of this movement, notwithstanding it had been most carefully concealed. As the patriot troops approached New Carthage they found that the rebels had cut the levee, and the surrounding country was so flooded that New Carthage was converted into an island. After ineffectual attempts to bridge the rushing waters, or to cross them in boats, it was found necessary to march in search of some point farther down the river. Inspirited rather than discouraged by such obstacles the heroic band pressed on, and after having constructed seventy miles of road, and about two thousand feet of bridging, they reached their final destination. A considerable part of the army was now south of Vicksburg, but on the wrong side of the river, which here rushed along, a wide, deep, turbid torrent. They had no means of son, no transports could be send u to their aid. But without transports the river who was a succ could not be crossed. General Grant was pre-hundred dollars for his place. He hata boy, pared for this emergency. He had resolved to offer, held his post, and passed the batteries in undertake the apparently desperate enterprise safety. Such was the spirit which animated of running the terrific batteries with his steam- the American patriots in this war against reboats. bellion. Three transports and eight gun-boats, in a bend of the river where they were secluded from all observation, were secretly prepared for the trying ordeal. The transports were plain, wooden boats. Speed was essential to their safety, and capaciousness necessary to render them useful should they reach the army below. The boilers were carefully protected by bales of cotton and hay on the side exposed to the batteries. The engines were put in the best possible running order. An ingenious contrivance was adopted to prevent any gleam of the fires from reaching the eyes and guiding the aim of the foe. It was not deemed right to command men to engage in an enterprise so desperate, and volunteers were called for. More came forward than could be accepted, and the eager aspirants agreed to abide the decision of the lot. The excitement was intense to see who would be the favored ones. Pilots, engineers, firemen, deck hands, had eagerly proffered their services for one of the most perilous enterprises in which one could engage. One single regiment furnished one hundred and thirty-two such volunteers. The The plan was for the gun-boats to pass down in single file, and, when opposite the batteries, to open upon them a terrific fire. Under cover of this fire, and sheltered by the gun-boats, the transports were to endeavor to run by unseen. A little before midnight, when most of the lights had disappeared in Vicksburg and silence reigned over both of the camps, the gun-boats, one after another, huge shadowy masses, emerged from their concealment and floated silently down the stream. The patriot army breathlessly watched the movements of these clouds of darkness, from which war's most awful thunders were soon to burst. Three quarters of an hour of silence elapsed, when two flashes from one of the Vicksburg batteries, followed by a roar which shook the hills, announced the opening of the sublime drama. In an instant the whole line of bluffs was ablaze with fire. The three transports, the Forest Queen, Henry Clay, and Silver Ware, were now on the most impetuous rush down the stream. The iron-clad gun-boats lay squarely before the city, from twenty-five guns pouring their storm of shell, grape, and shrapnell direct No ly into its streets. Suddenly a gleam of light | huge billows of smoke, and the majestic fabric The crew took to their boats and escaped on the The injuries which the boats received in run ning the batteries were speedily repaired by vol- [ General Grant himself was the first man to step unteer mechanics, who came forth from the upon the bank. ranks, ready for any work in wood or iron, and who were skillful artisans in all the most difficult departments of mechanics. "It is a striking feature," says General Grant, "so far as my observation goes, of the present volunteer army of the United States, that there is nothing which men are called upon to do, mechanical or professional, that accomplished adepts can not be found for the duty required in almost every regiment." The success of this experiment was so gratifying that on the 22d of April six more transports were sent down the stream, towing twelve barges loaded with forage. One of these transports, the Tigress, received a shot below the water-line, and sank on the Louisiana shore. The rest, with one-half of the barges, got through with but trifling damage. On the 29th of April the fleet and army were ready for action. A little below Vicksburg, and on the same side of the river, is the town of Grand Gulf. Here General Grant had expected to effect a landing, and make it, for the time being, the base of his operations against Vicksburg. But the rebels, anticipating the danger, had planted batteries there and dug rifle-pits. It was not, however, supposed that these works were very formidable, but that, under protection of the gun-boats, General Grant would be able to land a sufficient force to carry them by assault. Admiral Porter, with the gun-boats, opened fire on the 29th, and continued the bombardment for five hours. General Grant, who witnessed the battle from a tug in the middle of the stream, says, "Many times it seemed to me that the gunboats were within pistol-shot of the enemy's batteries." The attempt, however, proved unsuccessful. The gun-boats, having exhausted all the energies of valor and of skill, were, a little after noon, compelled to withdraw, leaving the principal battery of the rebels apparently uninjured. During all the time this bombardment was raging the army had been impatiently waiting upon the transports the moment when their advance would be ordered. The withdrawal of the fleet filled them with disappointment, for it seemed that the whole expedition had proved a failure. General Grant, however, was prepared for this emergency, as he had been for all others. A previous reconnoissance had disclosed a good landing at a point a short distance below, called Bruinsburg. He immediately disembarked his troops, and ordered them to continue their march down the western banks of the river about three miles. Their movement was buried in the forest, so that the foe could not perceive it. That night he ran the Grand Gulf batteries with his transports, and the next morning but one, on the 30th of April, triumphantly, and without the loss of a man, landed the whole force he had with him on the eastern shore of the river. One of the ever-friendly negroes was at hand to guide him through this unknown land by a good road from Bruinsburg to Port Gibson, a small town situated back from the river, in a southeasterly direction from Grand Gulf. This movement, in landing one corps of his army. the Thirteenth, under General M'Clernand, on the eastern banks of the river, was bold even to audacity. The enemy were strongly intrenched just above him, in superior force, commanding the river. General Sherman was still left with one corps above Vicksburg, for a purpose which will soon appear. Grant's line of communication was long and liable to attack. All the provisions of his army had to be conveyed by wagons down the western banks of the river, by the military road which he had constructed. The country through which he was to advance was wild, entirely unknown, very sparsely inhabited, full of hills and gloomy ravines, most admirably adapted for defensive warfare. Every thing now depended upon celerity of movement and almost reckless bravery. General Grant ordered his troops to march with as little baggage as possible. He set them the example. "He took with him," says the Hon. Mr. Washburne, of Illinois, who accompanied the expedition, "neither a horse, nor an orderly, nor a camp chest, nor an over-coat, nor a blanket, nor even a clean shirt. His entire baggage for six days was a tooth-brush. He fared like the commonest soldier in his command, partaking of his rations and sleeping upon the ground with no covering but the canopy of heaven." The attention of the main rebel army at Vicksburg was successfully diverted from these operations by the feint of an attack upon their works by the Fifteenth Corps, left behind under the impetuous Sherman. In co-operation with the fleet under Admiral Porter, a vigorous assault was made upon the rebel works at Haines's Bluff, on the 29th and 30th of April, just at the time when General Grant was landing at Bruinsburg. While the fleet opened a fierce bombardment on the batteries, the troops landed under cover of the fire, and made preparations as though to attempt to carry the works by storm. By this ruse the rebels were prevented from sending a combined force to crush General Grant, now advancing from the south. This object being accomplished, General Sherman re-embarked his troops, and following General Grant, marched them rapidly across the peninsula from Milliken's Landing, and down the western banks of the river to the transports. He effected a junction with Grant's main army about the 8th of May. But General Grant, aware of the importance of the utmost possible celerity in such a movement as he had undertaken, did not wait for the arrival of General Sherman's corps. "I deemed it a matter of vast importance," he said, "that the highlands should be reached without resistance." |