In the first twenty days of May he marched one hundred and eighty miles,
and fought five winning battles--respectively Port Gibson, Raymond,
Jackson, Champion's Hill, and Big Black River--in each of which he
brought his practically united force against the enemy's separated
detachments, capturing altogether eighty-eight guns and over six
thousand prisoners, and shutting up the Confederate General Pemberton in
Vicksburg. By a rigorous siege of six weeks he then compelled his
antagonist to surrender the strongly fortified city with one hundred and
seventy-two cannon, and his army of nearly thirty thousand men. On the
fourth of July, 1863, the day after Meade's crushing defeat of Lee at
Gettysburg, the surrender took place, citizens and Confederate soldiers
doubtless rejoicing that the old national holiday gave them escape from
their caves and bomb-proofs, and full Yankee rations to still their
long-endured hunger.
The splendid victory of Grant brought about a quick and important echo.
About the time that the Union army closed around Vicksburg, General
Banks, on the lower Mississippi, began a close investment and siege of
Port Hudson, which he pushed with determined tenacity. When the rebel
garrison heard the artillery salutes which were fired by order of Banks
to celebrate the surrender of Vicksburg, and the rebel commander was
informed of Pemberton's disaster, he also gave up the defense, and on
July 9 surrendered Port Hudson with six thousand prisoners and fifty-one
guns.
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