On the 29th of January I arrived at Young’s Point and assumed command the following day.  General McClernand took exception in a most characteristic way—­for him.  His correspondence with me on the subject was more in the nature of a reprimand than a protest.  It was highly insubordinate, but I overlooked it, as I believed, for the good of the service.  General McClernand was a politician of very considerable prominence in his State; he was a member of Congress when the secession war broke out; he belonged to that political party which furnished all the opposition there was to a vigorous prosecution of the war for saving the Union; there was no delay in his declaring himself for the Union at all hazards, and there was no uncertain sound in his declaration of where he stood in the contest before the country.  He also gave up his seat in Congress to take the field in defence of the principles he had proclaimed.

The real work of the campaign and siege of Vicksburg now began.  The problem was to secure a footing upon dry ground on the east side of the river from which the troops could operate against Vicksburg.  The Mississippi River, from Cairo south, runs through a rich alluvial valley of many miles in width, bound on the east by land running from eighty up to two or more hundred feet above the river.  On the west side the highest land, except in a few places, is but little above the highest water.  Through this valley the river meanders in the most tortuous way, varying in direction to all points of the compass.  At places it runs to the very foot of the bluffs.  After leaving Memphis, there are no such highlands coming to the water’s edge on the east shore until Vicksburg is reached.

The intervening land is cut up by bayous filled from the river in high water—­many of them navigable for steamers.  All of them would be, except for overhanging trees, narrowness and tortuous course, making it impossible to turn the bends with vessels of any considerable length.  Marching across this country in the face of an enemy was impossible; navigating it proved equally impracticable.  The strategical way according to the rule, therefore, would have been to go back to Memphis; establish that as a base of supplies; fortify it so that the storehouses could be held by a small garrison, and move from there along the line of railroad, repairing as we advanced, to the Yallabusha, or to Jackson, Mississippi.  At this time the North had become very much discouraged.  Many strong Union men believed that the war must prove a failure.  The elections of 1862 had gone against the party which was for the prosecution of the war to save the Union if it took the last man and the last dollar.  Voluntary enlistments had ceased throughout the greater part of the North, and the draft had been resorted to to fill up our ranks.  It was my judgment at the time that to make a backward movement as long as that from Vicksburg to Memphis, would be interpreted, by many of those yet full of hope for the preservation of the Union, as a defeat, and that the draft would be resisted, desertions ensue and the power to capture and punish deserters lost.  There was nothing left to be done but to go forward to A decisive victory.  This was in my mind from the moment I took command in person at Young’s Point.