fifth,
destined indeed to lead to a great and glorious result, yet in
itself conveying hardly more assurance of success than the most
promising of its predecessors, while involving perils greater than
any that had been so far encountered. Of these, the greatest danger
was that the enemy, after allowing him to land on the east bank of
the river and to penetrate, with a portion of his army, into the
heart of Mississippi, might then concentrate all the available
forces of the Confederacy in that region and fall upon him with
vigor at the moment when his supplies should be exhausted and his
communications interrupted. In such an event the fortune of war
might have rendered it imperative for him to retire down the river;
but what would have happened then if Banks, disregarding Port Hudson
in his eagerness to join Grant before Vicksburg, should in his turn
have abandoned his communications? Both armies would have been
caught in a trap of their own making, whence not merit but some
rare stroke of luck could alone have rescued either.

In the strong light of the great and decisive victory of Vicksburg,
it is scarcely possible to reproduce, even in the mind of the most
attentive reader, the exact state of affairs as they existed at
the moment of Grant's landing below Grand Gulf. This phenomenal
success was not foreshadowed by any thing that had gone before it,
and it would have been the height of imprudence to stake upon it
the fate of two armies, the issue of an entire campaign, and the
mastery of the Mississippi River, if not the final result of the
war. Nor should it be forgotten that Grant himself regarded this
movement as experimental, like its forerunners, and that up to the
moment he set foot upon the soil of Mississippi, he had formed no
conception of the brilliant campaign on which he was about presently
to embark. But instead of concentrating and acting with instant
determination upon a single plan with a single idea, at the critical
moment the Confederates became divided in council, distracted in
purpose, and involved in a maze of divergent plans, cross purposes,
and conflicting orders. While events caused the Confederate leaders
to shift from one plan to the other, with the chances of the day,
Grant was prompt to see and quick to profit by his advantage, and
thus the campaign was given into his hands.

But on the 4th of May these great events were as yet hidden in the
unknown future, and when, after waiting