characterized the winter of 1862-'63 in the Mississippi Valley made
untenable the ground on which the troops were, and it became necessary
to re-embark them. The transports were then moved out into the
Mississippi, where they were joined by General McClernand, the senior
general officer in the department under Grant himself.

McClernand now decided to attack Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas River,
which enters the Mississippi from the west about two hundred miles above
Vicksburg. The Post was primarily intended to close the Arkansas and the
approach to the capital of the State of the same name; but although
fifty miles from the mouth of the river, it was, by the course of the
stream, but fifteen by land from the Mississippi. The garrison, being
five thousand strong, was thus dangerously placed to threaten the
communications by the latter river, upon which the army was to depend
during the approaching campaign; and it had already given evidence of
the fact by the capture of a valuable transport. This post was reduced
on the 11th of January, and McClernand next day started troops up the
White River, a tributary of the Arkansas. From this ex-centric movement,
which seemed wholly to ignore that Vicksburg and the Mississippi were
the objective of the campaign, McClernand was speedily and peremptorily
recalled by Grant. The latter, having absolutely no confidence in the
capacity of his senior subordinate, could dispossess him of the chief
command only by assuming it himself. This he accordingly did, and on the
30th of January joined the army, which was then encamped on the levees
along the west bank of the river above Vicksburg.

Serious action on the part of the army, directed by a man of whose
vigorous character there could be no doubt, though his conspicuous
ability was not yet fully recognized, was evidently at hand; and this
circumstance, by itself alone, imparted a very different aspect to any
naval enterprises, giving them reasonable prospect of support and of
conducing substantially to the great common end. Never in the history of
combined movements has there been more hearty co-operation between the
army and navy than in the Vicksburg campaign of 1863, under the
leadership of Grant and Porter. From the nature of the enemy's positions
their forcible reduction was necessarily in the main the task of the
land forces; but that the latter were able to exert their full strength,
unweakened, and without anxiety as to their lo