Vicksburg, with the prospect of a long siege before
him, and no way to get past the inexorable lines of blue that
surrounded him. It is true that he had a wonderfully strong position,
and many were the tongues that said Vicksburg could never be taken.
But though stronger than Sebastopol, stronger than the Rock of
Gibraltar, Vicksburg was destined to fall before that mighty army that
encircled it, and was slowly starving the city into subjection.

But the Union soldiers, looking from their camps toward the
Confederate citadel, saw that they had before them some severe work
before that flag that flaunted over the city should be replaced by the
stars and stripes. The city stands on a towering bluff high above the
eastern bank of the Mississippi River. On that frowning height the
busy hands of Pemberton's soldiers had reared mighty batteries, that
commanded the Mississippi for miles up and down stream. To think of
carrying the works by assault, was madness. Sherman had tried, and was
beaten back with terrible loss. Then Grant, with nearly twenty
thousand men, and with the co-operation of the river-flotilla, came
upon the stage, and determined to take the city though it kept him at
bay for months.

All imaginable plans were tried to get the army below the city; for
Grant's command had come down from Cairo, and were at the northern and
most impregnable side of the enemy's works. As at Island No. 10, a
sharp bend in the river made a long peninsula right under the
Confederates' guns. Grant, remembering the plan adopted before, set to
work to cut a canal through the peninsula, so that the gunboats and
transports might get below the forts. Twelve hundred negroes worked
with a will upon this ditch for weeks. Then came a terrible
rain-storm: the swollen, muddy torrent of the river broke in upon the
unfinished canal, and that work was wasted. Then a new plan was
suggested, this time by Commodore David Porter, who all through the
war showed the greatest delight in taking his big gunboats into
ditches where nothing larger than a frog or musk-rat could hope to
navigate, and then bringing them out again safe after all.

The country back of Vicksburg was fairly honeycombed with shallow
lakes, creeks, and those sluggish black streams called in the South
bayous. Porter had been looking over this aqueous territory for some
time, and had sent one of his lieutenants off in a steam-launch to see
what could be done in that network of ditche