that he should send his final terms to Pemberton before ten o'clock that night, hostilities not to be resumed till the correspondence terminated.

The General sent for all his corps and division generals then on the city front, and for the first time in his life held what might be called a formal council of war. Their opinions, with the exception of Steele's, did not meet his views, and he sent the following as his ultimatum:

"I submit the following for the surrender of Vicksburg, public stores, etc. On your accepting, I will march in one division as a guard, and take possession at 8 A. M. to-morrow. As soon as the rolls can be made and paroles signed by officers and men, you will be allowed to march out of your lines, the officers bearing side arms and clothing, and the field, staff and cavalry officers taking one horse each. The rank and file will be allowed their clothing, but no other property. You may take along any amount of rations you deem necessary from your stores and sufficient cooking utensils. Thirty wagons will be allowed for the transport of such articles as cannot be carried. Same conditions to all sick and wounded as fast as they become able to travel, their paroles to be signed while the proper officers are present."

To this Pemberton replied at midnight, accepting it in the main, but proposing some amendments, which were not accepted, except that the men were permitted to march to the front of their respective lines, stack arms at 10 A. M. of the 4th of July, and then remain as prisoners till paroled. The following from Pemberton concluded the correspondence: "I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this day (now the 4th), and in reply to say that the terms proposed by you are accepted."

At ten o'clock on the morning of Saturday, July 4th, 1863, the anniversary of American Independence, the Confederate garrison of "The Gibraltar of America" marched out of the

GRANT'S INTERVIEW WITH PEMBERTON.

lines it had defended so long and valiantly and stacked its arms in front of the victors. It then returned, empty handed and silent, within the works as prisoners of war. Thirty-one thousand six hundred men surrendered, two thousand one hundred and fifty-three of whom were officers, and fifteen of the rank of general. One hundred and seventy-two cannon also fell to the victors, which, with those previously taken at Grand Gulf and Hayne's Bluff, made two hundred and fortysix in all. This ranks as the largest capture of men and material ever made in war, that of Ulm being next, where thirty thousand men, with sixty pieces of cannon, fell into the hands of the adversary by surrender.

Logan's division had the honor of first entering the city, at whose head Grant rode. A request by Pemberton for an issue of rations to his troops, which he said numbered thirty-two thousand men, was the first intimation that Grant had of the extent of his victory. He had never credited the Confederate general with a force of over twenty thousand. After riding to the river front and congratulating Admiral Porter, he dispatched the glorious news of the surrender and the terms to Washington. Banks was notified of the success and was offered a corps of "as good troops as ever trod American soil; no better are found on any other." Sherman and McPherson were ordered to close up in front of Johnston and “drive him from the line of the Mississippi Central Railroad, destroy the bridges as far north as Grenada, and do the enemy all the harm possible. I will support you to the last man that can be spared." And he did. Sherman drove Johnston out of Clinton and into Jackson. By July 9th the place was invested, while the work of destroying railroads according to Grant's orders went on. On the 16th the investment was so close that Johnston, fearing assault, withdrew across the Pearl river, burning the bridges behind him. Pursuit was kept up for fifty miles, when it was withdrawn, and Sherman returned to Vicks

burg, having lost less then a thousand men. There was no longer an enemy in the rear.

Herron's division was sent immediately from Vicksburg to Banks at Port Hudson, which stronghold surrendered on July 8th, yielding ten thousand more prisoners and fifty guns, another fruit, indirectly at least, of the campaign which Grant

had conceived and pushed to such a triumphant conclusion. Victory had not made him unmindful of details. He swept the field everywhere with his wonderful vision, and delivered orders as promptly and calmly as if the responsibilities of an aggressive campaign were still upon him.

What did Vicksburg mean? It meant the fulfilled dream,

the crowned central hope, the completed solemn resolution of the great Northwest. An unvexed Mississippi was not a greater strategic than commercial necessity. It now ran free to the sea, an outlet for every form of produce, an artery for the flow of peaceful or armed craft, industrial bargemen or uniformed cohorts. "The possession of the Mississippi river is the possession of America, and I say that had the Confederacy held with a grip sufficiently strong the lower part of the Mississippi river we would have been a subjugated people; and they would have dictated to us had we given up the possession of the lower Mississippi. It was vital to us, and we fought for it and won it." This is the language of Grant's warmest friend and most trusted lieutenant, Major-General W. T. Sherman. It is no more significant than that of President Jefferson Davis at Jackson when Grant's purposes became known. He urged the citizens "to assist in preserving the Mississippi river, that great artery of the country, and thus conduce, more than in any other way, to the perpetuation of the Confederacy, and the success of the cause"

The fall of Vicksburg meant the severance of the Confederacy, and the establishment of an armed line directly through its great Western Zone. Vicksburg and Port Hudson, two hundred miles apart, right and left wing of all that was left of a water front to the Confederacy, were sufficiently wide apart to serve as a means of communication between the East and Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana on the West. On this line. the well-nigh exhausted East depended for its beef and other supplies from the less impoverished West. It was now cut off from herded plain and well-stored granary, and had therefore received a blow which was harder to bear than the loss of munitions and men.

Vicksburg meant the elimination of the entire army of the Confederacy on whose shoulders the defence of the Southwest depended. The major part of that army had surrendered, the