It had been thought by some that harm would come from this pa-per, but it did not. It was a wise move, and a bold one, and brought much good.
Great joy was felt at the North, and fresh hope came with the thought that the war might soon be at an end. But there were two more years of sad, sad work, loss, and death on both sides.
The Pres-i-dent had found that it would be best for Mc-Clel-lan to give up his post “for good.” Burn-side took his place, but it was soon seen that he was too rash.
His plan was to cross the Rap-pa-han-nock at Fred-er-icks-burg and strike at the foe on the heights back of the town on Dec. 13, 1862. There was great loss of life and no gain. The foe won.
Gen. Hoo-ker was the next man to take charge of the ar-my in the East, but no moves were made till May, ’63.
In the mean time a great deal was done in the West. Grant once more made a move a-gainst Vicks-burg, one of the two strong points on the Mis-sis-sip-pi Riv-er still held by the foe. The North had, at times, thought Grant “slow” but Lin-coln had great trust in him, and said, “Wait. Give him a chance.”
Vicks-burg is on the east bank of the riv-er. Grant’s aim was to get to his troops and gun-boats be-low the town, and the plan he took was to march his men down the west bank, and let the gun-boats run past the eight miles of bat-ter-ies.
GUNBOATS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
It was a-bout the mid-dle of A-pril, 1863, when the gun-boats passed the bat-ter-ies. The troops marched down the west bank of the riv-er, and then crossed in boats to the east side, at a point where they could reach the foe. On the first of May there was a fight near Port Gib-son with the fore-guard of Gen. Pem-ber-ton’s ar-my. Here the foe soon had more of the South-ern troops come to help him, led by Gen. John-ston. Grant saw a chance to get be-tween these two sets of troops, and on May 14, 1863, he put down John-ston. Then he beat Pem-ber-ton in two more fights at Cham-pi-on Hills and at Black Riv-er. So the foe had to flee, for safe-ty, to Vicks-burg, where Grant had made up his mind to take him, af-ter a while, with all the rest of the foe he could find in that cit-y.