t to capture Port Hudson.

The time, the patience, the infinite labor, and enormous expense of
these several projects were utterly wasted. Early in April, Grant began
an entirely new plan, which was opposed by all his ablest generals, and,
tested by the accepted rules of military science, looked like a headlong
venture of rash desperation. During the month of April he caused Admiral
Porter to prepare fifteen or twenty vessels--ironclads, steam
transports, and provision barges--and run them boldly by night past the
Vicksburg and, later, past the Grand Gulf batteries, which the admiral
happily accomplished with very little loss. Meanwhile, the general, by a
very circuitous route of seventy miles, marched an army of thirty-five
thousand down the west bank of the Mississippi and, with Porter's
vessels and transports, crossed them to the east side of the river at
Bruinsburg. From this point, with an improvised train of country
vehicles to carry his ammunition, and living meanwhile entirely upon the
country, as he had learned to do in his baffled Grenada expedition, he
made one of the most rapid and brilliant campaigns in military history.
In the first twenty days of May he marched one hundred and eighty miles,
and fought five winning battles--respectively Port Gibson, Raymond,
Jackson, Champion's Hill, and Big Black River--in each of which he
brought his practically united force against the enemy's separated
detachments, capturing altogether eighty-eight guns and over six
thousand prisoners, and shutting up the Confederate General Pemberton in
Vicksburg. By a rigorous siege of six weeks he then compelled his
antagonist to surrender the strongly fortified city with one hundred and
seventy-two cannon, and his army of nearly thirty thousand men. On the
fourth of July, 1863, the day after Meade's crushing defeat of Lee at
Gettysburg, the surrender took place, citizens and Confederate soldiers
doubtless rejoicing that the old national holiday gave them escape from
their caves and bomb-proofs, and full Yankee rations to still their
long-endured hunger.

The splendid victory of Grant brought about a quick and important echo.
About the time that the Union army closed around Vicksburg, General
Banks, on the lower Mississippi, began a close investment and siege of
Port Hudson, which he pushed with determined tenacity. When the rebel
garrison heard the artillery salutes which were fired by order of Banks
to celebrate the surrender of