luff.--Our Repulse.--New
Plans.--Withdrawal from the Yazoo.

On arriving at Memphis, I found General Sherman's expedition was ready
to move toward Vicksburg. A few of the soldiers who escaped from the
raid on Holly Springs had reached Memphis with intelligence of that
disaster. The news caused much excitement, as the strength of the
Rebels was greatly exaggerated. A few of these soldiers thought Van
Dorn's entire division of fifteen or twenty thousand men had
been mounted and was present at the raid. There were rumors of a
contemplated attack upon Memphis, after General Sherman's departure.

Unmilitary men thought the event might delay the movement upon
Vicksburg, but it did not have that effect. General Sherman said he
had no official knowledge that Holly Springs had been captured, and
could do no less than carry out his orders. The expedition sailed, its
various divisions making a rendezvous at Friar's Point, twelve miles
below Helena, on the night of the 22d of December. From this place
to the mouth of the Yazoo, we moved leisurely down the Mississippi,
halting a day near Milliken's Bend, almost in sight of Vicksburg. We
passed a portion of Christmas-Day near the mouth of the Yazoo.

On the morning of the 26th of December, the fleet of sixty transports,
convoyed by several gun-boats, commenced the ascent of the Yazoo. This
stream debouches into the Mississippi, fifteen miles above Vicksburg,
by the course of the current, though the distance in an airline is not
more than six miles. Ten or twelve miles above its mouth, the Yazoo
sweeps the base of the range of hills on which Vicksburg stands, at a
point nearly behind the city. It was therefore considered a feasible
route to the rear of Vicksburg.

In a letter which I wrote on that occasion, I gave the following
description of the country adjoining the river, and the incidents of
a night bivouac before the battle:--"The bottom-land of the Yazoo
is covered with a heavy growth of tall cypress-trees, whose limbs
are everywhere interlaced. In many places the forest has a dense
undergrowth, and in others it is quite clear, and affords easy passage
to mounted men. These huge trees are heavily draped in the 'hanging
moss,' so common in the Southern States, which gives them a most
gloomy appearance. The moss, everywhere pendent from the limbs of the
trees, covers them like a shroud, and in some localities shuts out
the sunlight. In these forests there are numerous bayous