ls, while we
continued to hold all that we had acquired of their territory, and soon
added more of it to our previous acquisitions. At the same time that
General Meade was disposing of the main Rebel army, General Grant was
taking Vicksburg, and General Banks was triumphing at Port Hudson.
Generals Pemberton and Gardner had defended those Southern strongholds
with a skill and a gallantry that do them great credit, considering them
merely as military operations; but the superior generalship of General
Grant at and near Vicksburg compelled them to surrender, and to place in
Union hands posts the possession of which was necessary to maintain the
integrity of the Confederacy. General Grant's least merit was the taking
of Vicksburg. The operations through the success of which he was enabled
to shut up a large force of brave men in Vicksburg, and to cut them off
from all hope of being relieved, were of the highest order of military
excellence, and justly entitle him to be called a great soldier, and no
man can be only a great soldier, for that intellectual rank implies in
its possessor qualities that fit him for any department of his country's
service. General Grant was admirably seconded and supported by his
lieutenants and their subordinates and men, or he must have failed
before such courageous and stubborn foes. He was also supported by the
naval force commanded by Admiral Porter, whose heroic exploits and
scientific services added new lustre to a name that already stood most
high in our naval history. He commanded men worthy of himself and the
service, and whose deeds must be ever remembered. General Banks and his
associates were not less successful in their undertaking, and had been
as well seconded as General Grant. The Mississippi was placed at our
control, and the enemy were deprived of those supplies, both domestic
and foreign, which they had drawn in so large quantities from the
trans-Mississippi territory. Through Texas, which had contrived to keep
up a great commerce, the supplies of foreign _materiel_ had been very
large; and from the same rich and extensive State came thousands of
beeves, sheep, and hogs, that were consumed by Southern soldiers in
Virginia and the Carolinas. Generals Grant and Banks put an end to this
mode of supplying the Rebels with food and other articles; and at a
later period the success of General Banks near the Rio Grande was hardly
less useful in putting an end to much of the Texan foreig