It had taken Grant a whole year to place his army in position on the hills in the rear of Vicksburg, but he had stuck to the campaign with the tenacity of a bulldog.

At first he had tried to move his army south by rail from Memphis, but Van Dorn had destroyed his supplies and cut the railroad.

He had tried to get his army below Vicksburg through various channels and bayous on the west side of the great river, but had found this plan impossible.

He had tried to come down by way of the Yazoo and other water-courses on the east side of the Mississippi, and had had a narrow escape from disaster. The Confederates had felled trees across the narrow channels and had built Fort Pemberton of mud and cotton-bales, which the union men found they could not pass, and in the end they were glad to get out of the maze of water-courses and endless swamps and forests.

Then he had dug a canal across a neck of land below Vicksburg, but the river had risen and had filled the canal with sand and mud.

At last, Admiral Porter’s gunboats and transports had rapidly run the batteries of Vicksburg on a dark night. Grant had marched his army past Vicksburg on the west side of the river. He had crossed the river at Bruinsburg and in a most daring manner he had cut loose from any base of supplies. With five days’ rations in their knapsacks his men had for nearly three weeks lived on the country, had quickly turned from one hostile army upon the other and defeated them in detail. They had driven Pemberton into Vicksburg. They had built two lines of fortifications, one facing west against Pemberton in Vicksburg, and one facing east against Johnston, and since the nineteenth of May they held Pemberton in the wooded hills two miles east of Vicksburg.

Grant’s army, consisting of only about 40,000 men at first, had now been strengthened to more than 70,000 men. Since the middle of June, Vicksburg was so closely besieged that not even a rowboat could get in or out.

On the twenty-second of May, Grant had tried to take the town by assault, but the Confederates put up such a stubborn defense that the attempt failed. Since that time, the union army had carried on a regular siege with the intention of starving Vicksburg and the Confederate army into surrender.

The Northern soldiers had destroyed the railroad east of Vicksburg, so that Johnston could not quickly move upon them and soon the union army was so strong that Grant could have fought Pemberton and Johnston at the same time. The union army had now plenty of food and ammunition and was strongly entrenched, while the fall of Vicksburg and the surrender of Pemberton’s brave army seemed only a matter of time.

By the first of July, it became evident that Johnston would not be able to relieve either the city or the garrison.

Provisions were nearly gone and the men were exhausted by continuous duty and watching and through the incessant bombardments by the union troops.

On the third of July, Generals Pemberton and Grant met between the lines for a brief conference.

On the Fourth, the white flag floated over Vicksburg. The Gibraltar of the Mississippi had surrendered and 31,000 brave Confederate soldiers had become prisoners of war.

Grant treated the prisoners with every consideration. Rations were issued to them by their captors, and the men who for months had faced each other as enemies became friends. The prisoners were not sent north, but men as well as officers were paroled and turned over to Major Watts, Confederate Commissioner for the Exchange of Prisoners.

There was no cheer or taunt from the Federal soldiers, who stood at arms as the prisoners marched out of the city; they seemed to feel sorry for the fate of their late enemies. Haggard from the hardships of the siege, the men marched out in silence. Sad and silent the officers rode away on tired and dispirited horses, that had for weeks fed on nothing but mulberry leaves.

In the city also, friendly relations were at once established between the union soldiers and the inhabitants, nor was there a lack of comic and funny incidents.

A negro servant, overcome by his desire to shine, rode about the city on his master’s silver-mounted saddle. After an hour, he returned with a very long face and a very old saddle.

“George, where is my saddle!” asked his master.

“I met a big Yankee soldier and he says to me, ‘You get off dat horse. I’s gwine to hab dat fine saddle.’

“I wa’n’t gwine to git off, but he pointed his pistol at me, and he says, ‘You black nigger, you git off,’ and I got off, and he gives me dis old saddle.”

The fall of Vicksbur............