itz Lee, were met in mid career by the Union
generals Custer and McIntosh. All four fought, saber in hand, at the
head of their troopers, and every man on each side was put into the
struggle. Custer, his yellow hair flowing, his face aflame with the
eager joy of battle, was in the thick of the fight, rising in his
stirrups as he called to his famous Michigan swordsmen: "Come on, you
Wolverines, come on!" All that the Union infantry, watching eagerly
from their lines, could see, was a vast dust-cloud where flakes of
light shimmered as the sun shone upon the swinging sabers. At last the
Confederate horsemen were beaten back, and they did not come forward
again or seek to renew the combat; for Pickett's charge had failed, and
there was no longer hope of Confederate victory.

When night fell, the Union flags waved in triumph on the field of
Gettysburg; but over thirty thousand men lay dead or wounded, strewn
through wood and meadow, on field and hill, where the three days' fight
had surged.

GENERAL GRANT AND THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN

What flag is this you carry
Along the sea and shore?
The same our grandsires lifted up--
The same our fathers bore.
In many a battle's tempest
It shed the crimson rain--
What God has woven in his loom
Let no man rend in twain.
To Canaan, to Canaan,
The Lord has led us forth,
To plant upon the rebel towers
The banners of the North.
--Holmes.

On January 29, 1863, General Grant took command of the army intended
to operate against Vicksburg, the last place held by the rebels on the
Mississippi, and the only point at which they could cross the river and
keep up communication with their armies and territory in the southwest.
It was the first high ground below Memphis, was very strongly fortified,
and was held by a large army under General Pemberton. The complete
possession of the Mississippi was absolutely essential to the National
Government, because the control of that great river would cut the
Confederacy in two, and do more, probably, than anything else, to make
the overthrow of the Rebellion both speedy and certain.

The natural way to invest and capture so strong a place, defended and
fortified as Vicksburg was, would have been, if the axioms of the art
of war had been adhered to, by a system of gradual approaches. A strong
base should have been established at Memphis, and then the a