the waters
are ours."

"And the Mississippi has become a Union river, splitting apart the
Confederacy."

"Right you are, Dick, and we're already in touch with our fleet there.
The boats do more than fight for us. They're unloading supplies in vast
quantities from Chickasaw Bayou. We'll have good food, blankets, tents
to shelter us from the rain, and unlimited ammunition to batter the
enemy's works."

The investment of Vicksburg had been so rapid and complete that
Johnston, the man whom Grant had the most cause to fear, could not unite
with Pemberton, and he had retired toward Jackson, hoping to form a new
army. Only three days after Champion Hill Grant had drawn his semicircle
of steel around Vicksburg and its thirty thousand men, and the navy in
the rivers completed the dead line.

Dick rode with Colonel Winchester and took the best view they could get
of Vicksburg, the little city which had suddenly become of such vast
military importance.

Now and then on the long, lower course of the Mississippi, bluffs rise,
although at far intervals. Memphis stands on one group and hundreds
of miles south Vicksburg stands on another. The Vicksburg plateau runs
southward to the Big Bayou, which curves around them on the south and
east, and the eastern slope of the uplift has been cut and gulleyed by
many torrents. So strong has been the effect of the rushing water upon
the soft soil that these cuts have become deep winding ravines, often
with perpendicular banks. One of the ravines is ten miles long. Another
cuts the plateau itself for six miles, and a permanent stream flows
through it.

The colonel and Dick saw everywhere rivers, brooks, bayous, hills,
marshes and thickets, the whole turned by the Southern engineers into
a vast and most difficult line of intrenchments. Grant now had forty
thousand men for the attack or siege, but he and his generals did
not yet know that most of the scattered Confederate army had gathered
together again, and was inside. They believed that Vicksburg was held by
fifteen thousand men at the utmost.

"What do you think of it, Colonel?" asked Dick, as they sat horseback on
one of the highest hills.

"It will be hard to take, despite the help of the navy. Did you ever see
another country cut up so much by nature and offering such natural help
to defenders?"

"I've heard a lot of Vicksburg. I remember, Colonel, that, despite its
smallness, it is one of the great river towns of the South."