Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[143] that, by the destruction of the Mississippi Central road and its bridges, and the devastation of the resources of the country, he had sufficiently protected himself against attacks of any importance upon his new line; and the event proved that the rebels were too busy defending themselves, to take any initiative again, during the long campaign and siege that followed. McClernand's assumption of the command of the river expedition was delayed by the break in communication. Grant could not transmit the orders he had received, although he wrote at once to McClernand; but, before the line was reopened, Sherman had embarked at Memphis, with thirty thousand men, and at Helena, was reenforced by twelve thousand more. He arrived at Milliken's bend, on the Arkansas side, and twenty miles above Vicksburg, on the 24th of December; here he spent two or three days, in attempts to cut the Vicksburg and Shreveport railroad (by which reenforcements could have been sent to Vicksburg), and waiting to hear from Banks, who had been ordered to move up the river from New Orleans and cooperate in the attack on Vicksburg. The rebels probably made use of these two or three days to prepare for the attack which they knew must follow. On the 26th, under convoy of Admiral Porter and his fleet of gunboats, Sherman advanced on transports up the Yazoo river, which empties into the Mississippi, about nine miles above the town. He debarked his troops on the 27th, on the south side of the river, near the mouth of the Chickasaw bayou.¹

The long line of hills on which Vicksburg stands, turns off from the Mississippi, just above the town,