are upon you, with the full confidence that you will act, and with
the sentiment that it were better to fail nobly daring, than through
prudence even to be inactive. I rely on you for all possible to save
Vicksburg."

On June twenty-seventh, Grant telegraphed Washington:

"Joe Johnston has postponed his attack until he can receive ten
thousand reenforcements from Bragg's army. They are expected early
next week. I feel strong enough against this increase and do not
despair of having Vicksburg before they arrive."

Pemberton's army held Vicksburg practically without food for forty-seven
days. His brave men were exposed to blistering suns and drenching rains
and confined to their trenches through every hour of the night. They had
reached the limit of human endurance and were now physically too weak to
attempt a sortie. Johnston still sat in his tent writing letters and
telegrams to Richmond.

Pemberton surrendered his garrison to General Grant on July fourth, and
the Mississippi was opened to the Federal fleet from its mouth to its
source.

Grant telegraphed to Washington:

"The enemy surrendered this morning, General Sherman will face
immediately on Johnston and drive him from the State."

But the great letter writer did not wait for Sherman to face him. He
immediately abandoned the Capital of Mississippi and retreated into the
interior.

In the fall of Vicksburg, the Confederacy had suffered a most appalling
calamity--not only had the Mississippi River been opened to the Federal
gunboats, but Grant had captured twenty-four thousand prisoners of war,
including three Major Generals and nine Brigadiers, ninety pieces of
artillery and forty thousand small arms.

The Johnston clique at Richmond made this disaster the occasion of
fierce assaults on Jefferson Davis and fresh complaints of the treatment
of their favorite General. The dogged persistence with which this group
of soreheads proclaimed the infallibility of the genius of the weakest
and most ineffective general of the Confederacy was phenomenal. The more
miserable Johnston's failures the louder these men shouted his praises.
The yellow journals of the South continued to praise this sulking old
man until half the people of the Confederacy were hoodwinked into
believing in his greatness.

The results of this Johnston delusion were destined to bear fatal fruit
in the hour of the South's supreme trial.