ed, officer and men. Sawing off stumps under
the water, knocking poisonous snakes by scores from the branches, while
the river rose and rose and rose, and the rain crept by inches under
their tent flies, and the enemy walked the parapet of Vicksburg and
laughed. Two gunboats accomplished the feat of running the batteries,
that their smiles might be sobered.

To the young officers who were soiling their uniform with the grease of
saws, whose only fighting was against fever and water snakes, the news of
an expedition into the Vicksburg side of the river was hailed with caps
in the air. To be sure, the saw and axe, and likewise the levee and the
snakes, were to be there, too. But there was likely to be a little
fighting. The rest of the corps that was to stay watched grimly as the
detachment put off in the little 'Diligence' and 'Silver Wave'.

All the night the smoke-pipes were batting against the boughs of oak and
cottonwood, and snapping the trailing vines. Some other regiments went by
another route. The ironclads, followed in hot haste by General Sherman in
a navy tug, had gone ahead, and were even then shoving with their noses
great trunks of trees in their eagerness to get behind the Rebels. The
Missouri regiment spread out along the waters, and were soon waist deep,
hewing a path for the heavier transports to come. Presently the General
came back to a plantation half under water, where Black Bayou joins Deer
Creek, to hurry the work in cleaning out that Bayou. The light transports
meanwhile were bringing up more troops from a second detachment. All
through the Friday the navy great guns were heard booming in the
distance, growing quicker and quicker, until the quivering air shook the
hanging things in that vast jungle. Saws stopped, and axes were poised
over shoulders, and many times that day the General lifted his head
anxiously. As he sat down in the evening in a slave cabin redolent with
corn pone and bacon, the sound still hovered among the trees and rolled
along the still waters.

The General slept lightly. It was three o'clock Saturday morning when the
sharp challenge of a sentry broke the silence. A negro, white eyed,
bedraggled, and muddy, stood in the candle light under the charge of a
young lieutenant. The officer saluted, and handed the General a roll of
tobacco.

"I found this man in the swamp, sir. He has a message from the Admiral--"

The General tore open the roll and took from it a piece of tissu