The winter of 1862-3 was a noted one for continuous high water in the Mississippi and for heavy rains along the lower river.  To get dry land, or rather land above the water, to encamp the troops upon, took many miles of river front.  We had to occupy the levees and the ground immediately behind.  This was so limited that one corps, the 17th, under General McPherson, was at Lake Providence, seventy miles above Vicksburg.

It was in January the troops took their position opposite Vicksburg.  The water was very high and the rains were incessant.  There seemed no possibility of a land movement before the end of March or later, and it would not do to lie idle all this time.  The effect would be demoralizing to the troops and injurious to their health.  Friends in the North would have grown more and more discouraged, and enemies in the same section more and more insolent in their gibes and denunciation of the cause and those engaged in it.

I always admired the South, as bad as I thought their cause, for the boldness with which they silenced all opposition and all croaking, by press or by individuals, within their control.  War at all times, whether a civil war between sections of a common country or between nations, ought to be avoided, if possible with honor.  But, once entered into, it is too much for human nature to tolerate an enemy within their ranks to give aid and comfort to the armies of the opposing section or nation.

Vicksburg, as stated before, is on the first high land coming to the river’s edge, below that on which Memphis stands.  The bluff, or high land, follows the left bank of the Yazoo for some distance and continues in a southerly direction to the Mississippi River, thence it runs along the Mississippi to Warrenton, six miles below.  The Yazoo River leaves the high land a short distance below Haines’ Bluff and empties into the Mississippi nine miles above Vicksburg.  Vicksburg is built on this high land where the Mississippi washes the base of the hill.  Haines’ Bluff, eleven miles from Vicksburg, on the Yazoo River, was strongly fortified.  The whole distance from there to Vicksburg and thence to Warrenton was also intrenched, with batteries at suitable distances and rifle-pits connecting them.

From Young’s Point the Mississippi turns in a north-easterly direction to a point just above the city, when it again turns and runs south-westerly, leaving vessels, which might attempt to run the blockade, exposed to the fire of batteries six miles below the city before they were in range of the upper batteries.  Since then the river has made a cut-off, leaving what was the peninsula in front of the city, an island.  North of the Yazoo was all a marsh, heavily timbered, cut up with bayous, and much overflowed.  A front attack was therefore impossible, and was never contemplated; certainly not by me.  The problem then became, how to secure a landing on high ground east of the Mississippi without an apparent retreat.  Then commenced a series of experiments to consume time, and to divert the attention of the enemy, of my troops and of the public generally.  I, myself, never felt great confidence that any of the experiments resorted to would prove successful.  Nevertheless I was always prepared to take advantage of them in case they did.