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hands, but for which, as yet, he found neither a theoretical solution, nor possessed an army sufficiently strong to begin practical work.
Under the most favorable aspects, it was a formidable undertaking.
Union gunboats had full control of the great river from
Cairo as far south as
Vicksburg; and
Farragut's fleet commanded it from New Orleans as far north as
Port Hudson.
But the intervening link of two hundred miles between, these places was in as complete possession of the
Confederates, giving the rebellion uninterrupted access to the immense resources in men and supplies of the trans-
Mississippi country, and effectually barring the free navigation of the river.
Both the cities named were strongly fortified, but
Vicksburg, on the east bank, by its natural situation on a bluff two hundred feet high, rising almost out of the stream, was unassailable from the river front.
Farragut had, indeed, in midsummer passed up and down before it with little damage from its fire; but, in return, his own guns could no more do harm to its batteries than they could have bombarded a fortress in the clouds.
When, by the middle of November, 1862, Grant was able to reunite sufficient reinforcements, he started on a campaign directly southward toward Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and sent Sherman, with an expedition from Memphis, down the river to the mouth of the Yazoo, hoping to unite these forces against Vicksburg.
But before Grant reached Grenada his railroad communications were cut by a Confederate raid, and his great depot of supplies at Holly Springs captured and burned, leaving him for two weeks without other provisions than such as he could gather by foraging.
The costly lesson proved a valuable experience to him, which he soon put to use. Sherman's expedition also met disaster.
Landing at Milliken's Bend,
