Chapter 5:
- Military importance of the Mississippi river -- Grant proposes movement into interior, against Vicksburg -- campaign begun -- McClernand endeavors to obtain command of an expedition against Vicksburg -- Grant moves to Holly Springs -- enemy retreats -- rebels desert their fortifications on the Tallahatchie -- co. Operative movement from Helena -- Grant advances to Oxford -- Sherman sent to Memphis -- McClernand assigned to command of river expedition by the President -- Sherman moves by river against Vicksburg -- Grant's communications cut and Holly Springs captured -- Grant lives off the country -- Reopens his communications -- Sherman's assault on Vicksburg -- repulse of Sherman -- McClernand takes command of river expedition -- capture of Arkansas post -- Grant falls back to Memphis -- extraordinary behavior of Mc-Clernand -- Grant takes command of river expedition -- protest of McClernand.
The transcendent importance of the Mississippi river had been manifest from the beginning of the war, to both belligerents. Fertilizing an area of thirteen hundred thousand square miles, or six times as large as the empire of France, receiving the waters of fifty-seven large, navigable streams, washing the shores of ten different states, to one of which it gives its name, forming at once the boundary and the connecting link between territory both free and slave, the natural outlet through which the products of the Northwest find their way to the sea—in a word, the grandest water-course on either continent—its possession was by far the most magnificent prize for which