the south. With the aid of the fleet, which ran the batteries
successfully, he moved his army down the west bank until he
reached a point beyond the possibility of attack, while a
diversion by Sherman at Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, kept
Pemberton in his fortifications. On April 26, Grant began to move
his men over the river and landed them at Bruinsburg. "When this
was effected," he writes, "I felt a degree of relief scarcely
ever equaled since. Vicksburg was not yet taken, it is true, nor
were its defenders demoralized by any of our previous movements.
I was now in the enemy's country, with a vast river and the
stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base of supplies, but I
was on dry ground, on the same side of the river with the enemy."

The situation was this: The enemy had about sixty thousand men at
Vicksburg, Haines' Bluff, and at Jackson, Mississippi, about
fifty miles east of Vicksburg. Grant, when he started, had about
thirty-three thousand men. It was absolutely necessary for
success that Grant, with inferior numbers, should succeed in.
destroying the smaller forces to the eastward, and thus prevent
their union with Pemberton and the main army at Vicksburg. His
plan, in brief; was to fight and defeat a superior enemy
separately and in detail. He lost no time in putting his plan
into action, and pressing forward quickly, met a detachment of
the enemy at Port Gibson and defeated them. Thence he marched to
Grand Gulf, on the Mississippi, which he took, and which he had
planned to make a base of supply. When he reached Grand Gulf,
however, he found that he would be obliged to wait a month, in
order to obtain the reinforcements which he expected from General
Banks at Port Hudson. He, therefore, gave up the idea of making
Grand Gulf a base, and Sherman having now joined him with his