der
Pharaoh--for whom they could have had no greater respect and fear than
their descendants had in New Egypt for Grant or Sherman. Yankees were
there likewise in abundance. And a certain acquaintance of ours
materially added to his fortune by selling in Boston the cotton which
cost him fourteen cents, at thirty cents.

One day the shouting and the swearing and the running to and fro came to
a climax. Those floating freaks which were all top and drew nothing, were
loaded down to the guards with army stores and animals and wood and men,
--men who came from every walk in life.

Whistles bellowed, horses neighed. The gunboats chased hither and
thither, and at length the vast processions paddled down the stream with
naval precision, under the watchful eyes of a real admiral.

Residents of Memphis from the river's bank watched the pillar of smoke
fade to the southward and ruminated on the fate of Vicksburg. The General
paced the deck in thought. A little later he wrote to the
Commander-in-Chief at Washington, "The valley of the Mississippi is
America."

Vicksburg taken, this vast Confederacy would be chopped in two.

Night fell to the music of the paddles, to the scent of the officers'
cigars, to the blood-red vomit of the tall stacks and the smoky flame of
the torches. Then Christmas Day dawned, and there was Vicksburg lifted
two hundred feet above the fever swamps, her court-house shining in the
morning sun. Vicksburg, the well-nigh impregnable key to America's
highway. When old Vick made his plantation on the Walnut Hills, he chose
a site for a fortress of the future Confederacy that Vauban would have
delighted in.

Yes, there were the Walnut Hills, high bluffs separated from the
Mississippi by tangled streams and bayous, and on their crests the
Parrotts scowled. It was a queer Christmas Day indeed, bright and warm;
no snow, no turkeys nor mince pies, no wine, but just hardtack and bacon
and foaming brown water.

On the morrow the ill-assorted fleet struggled up the sluggish Yazoo,
past impenetrable forests where the cypress clutched at the keels, past
long-deserted cotton fields, until it came at last to the black ruins of
a home. In due time the great army was landed. It spread out by brigade
and division and regiment and company, the men splashing and paddling
through the Chickasaw and the swamps toward the bluffs. The Parrotts
began to roar. A certain regiment, boldly led, crossed the bayou at a
narrow place