The position of Vicksburg is hard to understand.  The river at this place makes a bend to the north and then turns south again, leaving a delta, or peninsula, on the Louisiana side.  Vicksburg occupies a kind of shoulder on the Mississippi side.  The site is commanding.  The river flows by the bluffs, as if to acknowledge its subjection to them.  From the beginning of the war the Confederate authorities recognized the vast importance of holding this key to the great inland artery, and the Federal Government saw the necessity of clutching it from the enemy.

The mouth of the Mississippi was soon regained by the Government, so that there was no serious obstruction as far north as where the northern border of Louisiana crosses the river.  From the north the Federal fleets and land forces made their way along the Tennessee border, and then the Arkansas border; but in the middle, between the twenty-second and thirty-third parallels, the Confederates got a strong grip on the Father of Waters, and would not relinquish their hold.  Jackson, the capital of the State, was in their power also, and from Jackson eastward the great thoroughfare extended into Alabama, and thence expanded in its connections into all the Confederacy.  From Jackson to Vicksburg reached the same line of communications, so that here, at Vicksburg, the Confederate power, having its seat in Richmond and its energy in the field, reached directly to the Mississippi river, and laid upon that stream a band of iron which the Union must break in order to pass.

Such was the situation at the beginning of 1863.  General Grant, who had been under a cloud since Shiloh, had gradually regained his command, and to him fell the task of breaking the Confederate hold on the great river.  He has himself in his Memoirs told the story of the Vicksburg campaign.  He managed, by herculean exertions, to get his forces below Vicksburg, and then began his campaign from Grand Gulf inland toward the line of communication between Jackson and Vicksburg.  It was some time before the Confederates took the alarm.  When they did become alarmed about Grant’s movements, General J.E.  Johnston, who commanded at Jackson, and General J.C.  Pemberton, who was in command at Vicksburg; made the most unwearied efforts to keep open the line of communications upon which the safety of Jackson and the success of Pemberton depended.

But Grant pressed on in a northwesterly direction until he came upon Pemberton in a position which he had chosen at Champion’s Hill.  Here, without doubt, was fought one of the critical battles of the Union war.  If General Pemberton had been successful, that success would seem to have portended the end of Grant’s military career.  But a different fate was reserved for the combatants.  Grant’s army was strong, and had become seasoned by hardship into the veteran condition.  His under officers—­Logan, McPherson, Hovey, McClernand and A.J.  Smith—­were in full spirit of battle.  The engagement was severely contested.  The Union army, actually engaged, numbered 15,000, and Pemberton’s forces were about equal in number; but the latter were disastrously defeated.  The losses were excessive in proportion to the numbers engaged.