of the river at Bruinsburg.  From this point, with an improvised train of country vehicles to carry his ammunition, and living meanwhile entirely upon the country, as he had learned to do in his baffled Grenada expedition, he made one of the most rapid and brilliant campaigns in military history.  In the first twenty days of May he marched one hundred and eighty miles, and fought five winning battles—­respectively Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion’s Hill, and Big Black River—­in each of which he brought his practically united force against the enemy’s separated detachments, capturing altogether eighty-eight guns and over six thousand prisoners, and shutting up the Confederate General Pemberton in Vicksburg.  By a rigorous siege of six weeks he then compelled his antagonist to surrender the strongly fortified city with one hundred and seventy-two cannon, and his army of nearly thirty thousand men.  On the fourth of July, 1863, the day after Meade’s crushing defeat of Lee at Gettysburg, the surrender took place, citizens and Confederate soldiers doubtless rejoicing that the old national holiday gave them escape from their caves and bomb-proofs, and full Yankee rations to still their long-endured hunger.

The splendid victory of Grant brought about a quick and important echo.  About the time that the Union army closed around Vicksburg, General Banks, on the lower Mississippi, began a close investment and siege of Port Hudson, which he pushed with determined tenacity.  When the rebel garrison heard the artillery salutes which were fired by order of Banks to celebrate the surrender of Vicksburg, and the rebel commander was informed of Pemberton’s disaster, he also gave up the defense, and on July 9 surrendered Port Hudson with six thousand prisoners and fifty-one guns.

Great national rejoicing followed this double success of the Union arms on the Mississippi, which, added to Gettysburg, formed the turning tide in the war of the rebellion; and no one was more elated over these Western victories, which fully restored the free navigation of the Mississippi, than President Lincoln.  Like that of the whole country, his patience had been severely tried by the long and ineffectual experiments of Grant.  But from first to last Mr. Lincoln had given him firm and undeviating confidence and support.  He not only gave the general quick promotion, but crowned the official reward with the following generous letter: 

“My Dear General:  I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.  I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country.  I wish to say a word further.  When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did—­march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed.  When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.  I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong.”