personally.
I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost
inestimable services you have done the country.

"I wish to say a word further. When you reached the vicinity of
Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did,--march the
troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus
go below; and I never had any faith, except in a general hope that you
knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like would
succeed.

"When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I
thought you should go down the river and join General Banks; and when
you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.
I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I
was wrong."

Immediately after the ceremony of surrender was over Sherman marched
away with a strong force to find and fight Johnston's army. But that
general, shunning the conflict, moved so far southward into Mississippi
that pursuit was imprudent during the hot season.

While Grant was finishing the siege of Vicksburg, General Banks was
besieging Port Hudson, which lay at the southern end of the rebel
section of the river. The fall of the northern post rendered the
southern one untenable, and it was surrendered on July 9. Henceforth the
great river was a safe roadway for unarmed craft flying the stars and
stripes.

It is time now to go back to Tennessee. By the close of the first week
in July, 1863, the Confederate force was established in Chattanooga, and
thus the hostile armies were "placed back in the relative positions
occupied by them prior to Bragg's advance into Kentucky, a little less
than one year previous." But though the Southern general had reached his
present position by a retreat at the end of a disappointing enterprise,
the issue of final success was still an open one between him and
Rosecrans, with many advantages on his side. He had a large army in the
heart of a mountainous region, with the opportunity to post it in
positions which ought to be impregnable. Moreover, he received fresh
troops under Johnston; and later the inaction of Meade in Virginia
encouraged Lee to send to him a considerable force under Longstreet,
himself no small reinforcement. These arrived just on the eve of the
impending battle.

Meantime Mr. Lincoln was sorely exercised at his inability to make his
generals carry out his plans. He desired that Burnside should move do