that they were subject to a plunging fire. Porter led the
way on board the flagship _Benton_. He had seven ironclads, of
which three were larger vessels and four were gunboats built by
Eads, a naval constructor with orignal ideas and great executive
ability. One ram and three transports followed. Coal barges were
lashed alongside or taken in tow. Some of these were lost and one
transport was sunk. But the rest got through, though not unscathed.
It seemed like a miracle to the tense spectators that any flotilla
should survive this dash down a river of death flowing through a
furnace. But the ironclads, magnificently handled, stood up to
their work unflinchingly, fired back with regulated vigor, and
took their terrific pounding without one vital wound.

Porter presently relieved Farragut, who went back to New Orleans.
From this time, till after the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson,
Porter commanded three flotillas, each with a base of its own:
first, a flotilla remaining north of Vicksburg for work on the
Yazoo; secondly, the main body between Vicksburg and Grand Gulf;
thirdly, the Red River flotilla. This combined naval force commanded
all lines of communication north, south, and west of Vicksburg,
thus enabling Grant to concentrate entirely against the eastern
side.

On the thirtieth of April Grant landed with twenty thousand men at
Bruinsburg, on the east side of the Mississippi, about sixty miles
below Vicksburg. A week later Sherman reinforced him to thirty-three
thousand. Before the fall of Vicksburg his total strength reached
seventy-five thousand. The Confederate total also fluctuated; but
not so much. There were about sixty thousand Confederates in the
whole strategic area between Vicksburg and Jackson (fifty miles
east) when Grant made his first daring move, and about the same when
Vicksburg surrendered. The scene of action was almost triangular;
for it lay between the three lines joining Jackson, Haynes's Bluff,
Rodney, and Jackson again. The respective lengths of these straight
lines are forty, fifty, and seventy miles. But roundabout ways
by land and water multiplied these distances, and much fighting
and many obstacles vastly increased Grant's difficulties.

An army, however, that had managed to reach Bruinsburg from the
north and west was assuredly fit for more hard work of any kind;
while a commander who had left a safe base above Vicksburg and
landed below, to live on (as well as in) an enemy country