ld have given way; but they seemed only to give him greater strength
of will and purpose.... I myself had the misfortune, after months of
watching, to see the Oreto run out the first night after I had been
relieved of the command of the Oneida and ordered to report to the
admiral as his fleet-captain. I had to bear him these bad tidings.
Though no stoic, he bore the news as one accustomed to misfortune." It
may seem, indeed, that these events, considered individually, were but
instances of the hard knocks to be looked for in war, of which every
general officer in every campaign must expect to have his share; and
this view is undoubtedly true. Nevertheless, occurring in such rapid
succession, and all in that part of his extensive command, the blockade,
to which at that moment it seemed impossible to give his principal
attention, the effect was naturally staggering. His first impulse was to
leave the river and repair in person to the scene of disaster in Texas;
but reflection soon convinced him that, however unfortunate the
occurrences that had taken place there and elsewhere on the coast, they
had not the same vital bearing on the issues of the war as the control
of the Mississippi, and therefore not an equal claim upon the
commander-in-chief.

At the same time, the effect was to intensify the desire to act--to
redeem by success the blot which failures had brought upon his command;
and the state of affairs elsewhere on the river was becoming such as to
justify enterprise by the reasonable hope of substantial results. A
series of circumstances which have been often narrated, and nowhere in a
more interesting manner than by General Grant in his personal memoirs,
had led to the abandonment of the movement by land upon Vicksburg by the
Army of the Tennessee, following the Mississippi Central Railroad.
Instead of this original plan of campaign, the Mississippi River was now
adopted as the line of advance and of communications. The first move
along this new line had been made by General Sherman, who brought with
him 32,000 troops, and on the 26th of December, 1862, had landed on the
low ground between the mouth of the Yazoo and Vicksburg. On the 29th the
army assaulted the works on the hills before them, but were repulsed.
Sherman, satisfied that the position there was too strong to be carried,
had determined to change his point of attack to the extreme right of the
enemy's line, higher up the Yazoo; but the heavy rains which