William A. Crafts, Life of Ulysses S. Grant: His Boyhood, Campaigns, and Services, Military and Civil.

[66] he and General Smith, who accompanied Grant, should confer together on terms, and report to their superiors. While those two officers conferred together, Grant and Pemberton paced to and fro, conversing. Pemberton, nervous and dispirited, though insolent in manner, plucked straws to gnash his teeth upon; while Grant, quiet, imperturbable, and firm, calmly smoked his cigar, and as calmly spoke, taking no notice of his opponent's ill temper.

The terms proposed by Bowen were so utterly inadmissible as to elicit a smile from Grant, who promptly rejected them, and promised to send his ultimatum in writing, and the conference ended. Grant summoned a council of war, the only one he ever called, and asked the opinions of his officers. Always self-reliant, and ready to assume his proper responsibility, he evidently did not believe that in war there was safety in a multitude of counsel. In this case none of the terms proposed by his subordinates met with his approbation; but without any discussion he immediately dictated his own terms, which were in the main simply such as had been arranged by a cartel between the national and rebel authorities. The rebels were compelled to accept them or fare worse; and that was the position in which Grant always aimed to place the enemy.

On the 4th of July, Vicksburg, with its hundred and seventy cannon, and its thirty thousand rebel troops,¹ was formally surrendered, and a portion of the victorious army entered the city. The Mississippi was opened, for Port Hudson was immediately surrendered,