John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[212] vindicate his superior authority by relieving the stiff-necked and insubordinate commander of the Thirteenth army corps from further service in the field. That Dana exercised a controlling influence in preparing the mind of the Secretary of War by his despatches for the inevitable end will be made clear in the further course of this narrative.

Let us for the present return to Milliken's Bend whence on April 13th Dana wrote to his friend Huntington an interesting letter, not only defining his new position more clearly, but throwing important light on the course of the Tribune at the outbreak of the war. I quote as follows:

... But you will ask what the deuce I am about away down here with Vicksburg almost in sight, and Grant's big army stretched up and down the river, its white tents affording a new decoration to the natural magnificence of these broad plains. Well, I am here as a “special commissioner” of the War Department, a sort of official spectator and companion to the movements of this part of the campaign, charged particularly with overseeing and regulating the paymasters, and generally with making myself useful. With the generals, big and little, and one or two of them are very rare men-Sherman especially is a man of genius and of the widest intellectual acquisitions — I am on friendly terms, and of course see and know all the interior operations of this toughest of tough jobs, the reopening of the Mississippi. Like all who really know the facts, I feel no sort of doubt that we shall before long get the nut cracked. Probably before this letter reaches New York on its way to you, the telegraph will get ahead of it with the news that Grant, masking Vicksburg, deemed impregnable by its defenders, has carried the bulk of his army down the river through a cut-off, which he had opened without the enemy believing it could be done, has occupied Grand Gulf, taken Port Hudson, and, effecting a junction with the forces of Banks, has returned up the river to threaten Jackson, and compel the enemy to come out