Cousin Hicks was some distant relative of their mother. He had lived at Vicksburg about a year and had often visited at their home and had sat many hours chatting with their father in his little store. The boys had gone north with him, so they could squat on some good land, and because Tim was often sick at Vicksburg. As soon as their parents could sell their store, they would also come north, because they had heard and read about the boom in Minnesota lands and what big crops of wheat it would raise. The boys liked it in Minnesota, only Tim got homesick at times. Cousin Hicks was not mean to them, only he didn’t work and didn’t stay at home, but he never worked much in Vicksburg, either.
There had been some trouble and a lawsuit between their two grandfathers in Tennessee and the boys had never been to see them.
That was all the boys knew. It did not help Barker much, but he felt more sure than ever that Hicks was playing some crooked game and he decided to watch things, no matter what might be the outcome.
When fall came, the boys had eaten all the corn in their garden and in order to have something to live on during the winter, they went to a large slough to gather wild rice in the way they had learned of the Indians.
As the winter passed, bad news came for the lads from the South. Their father wrote that the war was getting worse and that on account of it he could not hope to sell his store, but that the boys might as well stay in Minnesota.
The war had indeed, by this time, assumed immense proportions, both in the East and in the West near the Mississippi River. In the West, Grant had captured the important points of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and had fought the terrible two days’ battle of Shiloh. After this battle, most Northerners became convinced that the Confederacy would not suddenly collapse after one or two battles.
By the first of July, 1862, the land forces, under Grant and two fleets of gunboats, the lower under Admiral Farragut, and the upper under Commodore Henry Davis, had obtained control of the Mississippi River, except for a stretch of river between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, a distance of two hundred miles.
By far the most important and strongest point on the river still held by the Confederates was Vicksburg. It is located on the east side of the river on high land with wooded hills about two hundred feet high directly to the east of the city. The cities of St. Louis, Cairo, Memphis, and New Orleans were all held by the Union forces. It was of great importance for the Union forces to capture Vicksburg, because the capture of this city would give them complete control of the great river and would cut the Confederacy in two, cutting off their supply of grain and meat from Arkansas and Texas. If Vicksburg could be taken, the Confederacy would be blockaded on the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Mississippi.
The task of taking this important city fell to General Grant, and it proved a most difficult undertaking. The heavy batteries of guns placed in all favorable positions could not be silenced by the Federal gunboats. The city was also defended by a garrison of several thousand men, and on July 15th, the iron-clad Confederate ram, Arkansas, coming out of the Yazoo River, just above Vicksburg, ran through and practically defeated the whole fleet of Commodore Davis. For several days this one Confederate gunboat held both Admiral Farragut’s fleet and the fleet of Commodore Davis at bay until both withdrew, one up, the other down, the river.
The fight of the Arkansas under its fearless Captain I. N. Brown, is one of the most heroic chapters in naval warfare.