separated armies, driven apart by Grant, whose
own army soon dug itself in between them and quickly grew stronger
than both.

Grant's lines, facing both opponents, from Haynes's Bluff to Warrenton,
were fifteen miles long, which gave him one man per foot when his
full strength was reached Pemberton's were only seven; and his
position was strong, both towards the river, where the bluffs rose
two hundred feet, and on the landward side, where the slopes were
sharp and well fortified. Grant closed in, however, and pressed
the bombardment home. Except for six 32-pounders and a battery of
big naval guns he had nothing but field artillery. Yet the abundance
of ammunition, the closeness of the range, and the support of his
many excellent snipers, soon gave him the upper hand. Six hundred
yards was the farthest the lines were apart. In some places they
nearly touched.

All ranks worked hard, especially at engineering, in which there
was such a dearth of officers that Grant ordered every West Pointer
to do his turn with the sappers and miners as well as his other
duty. This brought forth a respectful protest from the enormously
fat Chief Commissary, who said he could only be used as a sap-roller
(the big roller sappers shove protectingly before them when snipers
get their range). The real sap-rollers came to grief when an ingenious
Confederate stuffed port-fires with turpentined cotton and shot them
into rollers only a few yards off. But after this the Federals
kept their rollers wet; and sapped and burrowed till the big mine
was fully charged and safe from the Confederate countermine, which
had missed its mark.

While trying to blow each other up the men on both sides exchanged
amenities and chaff like the best of friends. Each side sold its
papers to the other; and the wall-paper newsprint of Vicksburg
made a good war souvenir for both. There was a steady demand for
Federal bread and Confederate tobacco. When market time was over the
Confederates would heave down hand-grenades, which agile Federals,
good at baseball, would heave uphill again before they exploded. And
woe to the man whose head appeared out of hours; for snipers were
always on the watch, especially that prince of snipers, Lieutenant H.
C. Foster, renowned as "Coonskin" from the cap he wore. A wonderful
stalker and dead shot he was a terror to exposed Confederates at
all times; but more particularly towards the end, when (their front
artillery having been si