Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. C. PEMBERTON, Lieutenant-General.
Of the terms of the surrender, General Grant thus speaks in his report: “These terms I regarded more favorable to the Government than an unconditional surrender. It saved us the transportation of them north, which, at that time, would have been very difficult, owing to the limited amount of river transportation on hand, and the expense of subsisting them. It left our army free to operate against Johnston, who was threatening us from the direction of Jackson; and our river transportation to be used for the movement of troops to any point the exigency of the service might require.”
At ten o’clock on the 4th, the Confederate forces marched out and stacked arms in front of their works, while General Pemberton appeared for a moment with his staff upon the parapet of the central front. The city was immediately after occupied by the divisions of Generals Logan, J. E. Smith and Herron.
The result of his operations is thus summed up by General Grant: “The result of this campaign has been the defeat of the enemy in five different battles outside of Vicksburg; the occupation of Jackson, the capital of the State of Mississippi, and the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison and munitions of war; a loss to the enemy of thirty-seven thousand prisoners, among whom were fifteen general officers; at least ten thousand killed and wounded, and among the killed, Generals Tracy, Tilghman, and Green; and hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of stragglers, who can never be collected and reorganized. Arms and munitions of war for an army of sixty thousand men have fallen into our hands, besides a large amount of other public property, consisting of railroads, locomotives, cars, steamboats, cotton, etc., and much was destroyed to prevent our capturing it.
“Our loss in the series of battles may be summed up as follows:
| Killed. | Wounded. | Missing. | |
| Port Gibson | 130 | 718 | |
| Fourteen Mile Creek | 4 | 24 | 5 |
| Raymond | 69 | 341 | 32 |
| Jackson | 40 | 240 | 6 |
| Champion’s Hill | 426 | 1,842 | 189 |
| Big Black railroad bridge | 29 | 242 | 2 |
| Vicksburg | 545 | 3,688 | 303 |
“Of the wounded, many were but slightly wounded, and continued on duty; many more required but a few days or weeks for their recovery. Not more than one-half of the wounded were permanently disabled.”
We will now turn our attention to a brilliant engagement which occurred simultaneously with the fall of Vicksburg. The town of Helena, in Arkansas, had been garrisoned by a small force under General Prentiss, a gallant officer, who had been captured at Pittsburg Landing with a large portion of his division, after bravely contending for more than half a day with a foe quadruple his own force.