But quietude was not what the government wished, and Mr. Lincoln and General Halleck soon fell into much the same relationship with Rosecrans which they had previously occupied towards McClellan.  Whenever Rosecrans had taken the field he had shown himself a skillful strategist and an able commander in battle; but his propensity seemed to be to remain in quarters, and thence to present extravagant exactions, and to conduct endless disputes with the President and the general-in-chief.  He seemed like a restive horse, the more he was whipped and spurred the more immovably he retained his balking attitude.  Mr. Lincoln was sorely tried by this obstinacy, and probably had been pushed nearly to the limits of his patience, when at last Rosecrans stirred.  It was on June 24 that he set his army in motion to settle with Bragg those conclusions which had been left open for half a year.  With this purpose he moved upon Shelbyville, but when he arrived there he found that Bragg had gone back to Tullahoma; and when he pushed on to Tullahoma, Bragg had left there also.  Thus it came to pass that on the same famous Fourth of July on which Lee started to get out of Pennsylvania, Bragg in like manner was getting over the southern boundary line of Tennessee and putting the mountain range between himself and the pursuing Federal commander.  The converging lines of Federal good luck came together on this great day of the nation, in a way that touches the superstitious chord; for still farther west another and a momentous event was taking place.

General Grant, at Corinth, had been pondering a great scheme which he meant to undertake so soon as his scanty army should be sufficiently reinforced.  If Richmond had an artificial value as a token of final triumph, the Mississippi River had scarcely less value of a practical character.  Vicksburg and Port Hudson cut out a mid-section of about 200 miles of the great stream, which section still remained under Confederate control.  Vicksburg was General Grant’s objective point.  Even to conceive the capture of this stronghold seemed in itself evidence of genius; no mere pedant in warfare could have had the conception.  Every difficulty lay in the way of the assailant.  The Confederates had spared no skill, no labor, no expense in fortifying the town; yet after all had been done that military science could do, human achievement counted for little in comparison with the surpassing arrangements of Nature.  If what she intended could be inferred from what she had done, she clearly had designed this town to be through all time a veritable “virgin fortress;” she had made for its resting-place a great bluff, which jutted insolently out into the channel of the Mississippi River, and upon the summit of which the cluster of buildings resembled rather an eyrie of eagles than a place of human habitation; the great stream, as if confounded by the daring obstruction, before it could recover its interrupted course spread itself far over the