estment of the places, or at least made their loss
of small moment.

After wasting three months in ineffectual attempts to divert the channel
of the Mississippi, General Grant ran gunboats and transports by the
batteries, and crossed the river below. Instead of meeting this movement
with every available man, Pemberton detached General Bowen with a weak
division, who successfully resisted the Federal advance for many hours,
vainly calling the while for reenforcements. Pemberton then illustrated
the art of war by committing every possible blunder. He fought a series
of actions with fractions against the enemy's masses, and finished by
taking his defeated fragments into the Vicksburg trap. It may be stated,
however, that, had he acted wisely and kept out of Vicksburg, he would
have been quite as much hounded as he subsequently was.

Grant's error in undertaking an impossible work cost him three months'
time and the loss by disease of many thousands of his men. The event
showed that he could as readily have crossed the river below Vicksburg
at first as at last; but, once over, he is entitled to credit for
promptly availing himself of his adversary's mistakes and vigorously
following him. The same may be said of his first success at Fort
Donelson on the Cumberland. The terror inspired by gunboats in the first
year of the war has been alluded to; and at Fort Donelson General Grant
had another potent ally. The two senior Confederate generals,
politicians rather than warriors, retired from command on the approach
of the enemy. One can imagine the effect of such conduct, unique in war,
on the raw troops left behind. General Buckner, an educated soldier, was
too heavily handicapped by his worthy superiors to make a successful
defense, and General Grant secured an easy victory. "Among the blind,
the one-eyed are kings."

General Grant's first essay at Belmont failed, and at Shiloh he was
out-manoeuvred and out-fought by Sidney Johnston, and, indeed, he was
saved from destruction by Johnston's death. Before he moved against
Bragg at Missionary Ridge, the latter had detached Longstreet with a
third of his force, while he (Grant) reenforced Thomas with most of the
Vicksburg army and two strong corps under Hooker from the east. The
historian of the Federal Army of the Potomac states that, in reply to a
question of General Meade, Grant said: "I never manoeuvre"; and one
has but to study the Virginia campaign of 1864, and imagine an e