forward at a double quick into a piece of wood on the extreme right of the command; the brigade moved parallel with Logan's general line of battle, charged across the ravines, up the hill, and through an open field, driving the enemy from an important position, where he was about to establish his batteries, capturing seven guns and several hundred prisoners. The main Vicksburg road, after following the ridge in a southerly direction for about a mile, to the point of intersection with the middle Raymond road, turns almost to the west again, running down the hill and across the valley where Logan was now operating, in the rear of the enemy. Unconscious of this immense advantage, Logan swept directly across the road, and absolutely cut off the rebel line of retreat to Edwards Station without being aware of it. At this very juncture, Grant, finding that there was no prospect of McClernand's reaching the field, and that the scales were still balanced at the critical point, thought himself obliged, in order to still further re-enforce Hovey and Crocker in front, to recall Logan from the right, where he was overlapping and outflanking the rebel left. Had the National commander been acquainted with the country, he would of course have ordered Logan to push on in the rear of the enemy, and thus secure the capture or annihilation of the whole rebel army. But the entire region was new to the National troops, and this great opportunity unknown. As it was, however, the moment Logan left the road, the enemy, alarmed for his line of retreat, finding it indeed not only threatened, but almost gone, at once abandoned his position in front; at this crisis a National battery opened from the right, pouring a well-directed fire, and the victorious troops of Hovey and Crocker pressing on, the enemy once more gave way; the rebel line was rolled back for the third time, and the battle decided.

Before the result of the final charge was known, Logan rode eagerly up to Grant, declaring that if one more dash could be made in front, he would advance in the rear, and complete the capture of the rebel army. Grant at once rode forward in person, and found the troops that had been so gallantly engaged for hours withdrawn from their most advanced position, and refilling their cartridge-boxes. Explaining the position of Logan's force, he directed them to use all despatch, and push forward as rapidly as possible. He proceeded himself in haste to what had been Pemberton's line, expecting every moment to come up with the enemy, but found the rebels had already broken and fled from the field. Logan's attack had precipitated the rout, and the battle of Champion Hills was won.

The rout of the rebels was complete.

The enemy's loss at Champion Hills was between three thousand and four thousand in killed and wounded, and nearly three thousand prisoners were captured on the field or in the pursuit. Logan alone captured eleven guns and one thousand three hundred prisoners. Some thirty cannon, numerous stands of colors, and large quantities of smallarms and ammunition were among the spoils of this victory. And besides routing the enemy, one of his divisions (Loring's) was entirely cut off from Pemberton's army and never again rejoined it. The pursuit was kept up until night by the Seventeenth Corps-Logan's division reaching a point within three miles of Black River bridge before going into bivouac. The preceding extract from Badeau's work has been given partly because of the descriptive interest of a sanguinary victory in which General Logan was hotly engaged, but mainly to show that he and his command deserve the credit of it. For brilliant charges and deeds of desperate daring no battle of the war excelled it. But it was by Logan's movement on the right that the battle of Champion Hills was won, and the enemy, with Pemberton at the head, so completely routed and demoralized that he hardly stopped in his retreat until he had reached the protecting walls of his stronghold in Vicksburg. It was a terribly bloody battle. When our troops halted along the slopes of Champion Hills, says the Comte de Paris in his "History of the Civil War in America,” "the dead and wounded were piled together in such vast numbers, that these soldiers, although tried on many a battlefield, called the place The Hill of Death."" The same eminent and impartial authority says:

The battle of Champion Hills, considering the number of troops engaged, could not compare with the great conflicts we have already mentioned, but it produced results far more important than most of those great hecatombs, like Shiloh, Fair Oaks, Murfreesborough, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, which left the two adversaries fronting each other, both unable to resume the fight. It was the most complete defeat

the Confederates had sustained since the commencement of the war. They left on the field of battle from three to four thousand killed and wounded, three thousand able-bodied prisoners, and thirty pieces of artillery. But these figures can convey no idea of the magnitude of the check experienced by Pemberton, from which he could not again recover.

. This battle was the crowning work of the operations conducted by Grant with equal audacity and skill since his landing at Bruinsburg. In outflanking Pemberton's left along the slopes of Champion Hills he had completely cut off the latter from all retreat north. Notwithstanding the very excusable error he had committed in stopping Logan's movement for a short time, the latter had through this manœuvre secured victory to the Federal army.

General Grant, in his report of this battle, uses the following language:

Logan rode up at this time, and told me that if Hovey could make another dash at the enemy he could come up from where he then was and capture the greater part of their force, which suggestions were acted upon and fully realized.

Thus, as we have seen, the enemy was driven in confusion and rout from Champion Hills and across the Big Black River, until he found a brief respite within his intrenchments around the city of Vicksburg, with the besieging lines of the Union army around him.

THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG, 'THE GIBRALTAR OF THE SOUTH LOGAN AT THE CENTRE-BOMBARDMENT BY LAND AND WATER --THE TWO DESPERATE AND BLOODY ASSAULTS.

When we consider the wonderful natural strength of that position-truly one of Nature's fastnesses-fortified by a horseshoe-like line of hills, the points of the shoe touching the Mississippi River above and below the city, and remember that every available means at the command of the Confederacy had been brought to bear to make it invulnerable; that their most powerful cannon bristled from every hill-top; that the frowning bluffs were "studded with batteries and

seamed with rifle-pits;" that their best soldiery manned their guns; and when we remember further that the country immediately outside and for miles around was one vast swamp, heavily forested with trees, interwoven with semitropical vines and rank parasitic vegetation, not unlike the tropical growth along the Amazon and other South American rivers, we are amazed at the result of this famous siege, and feel that our soldiers must have been aided by some supernatural power.

"On the morning of the 18th," says the Comte de Paris, in his History, "Pemberton, with all his troops, shut himself up inside of the vast fortifications constructed around Vicksburg. His forces, including the sick and a very small number of wounded-for those of Champion Hills had all remained on the battlefield-amounted to thirty-three thousand men. On the morning of the 19th the investment of Vicksburg was complete. McClernand on the left, McPherson on the centre, and Sherman on the right surrounded the place from the Mississippi on the south, to the Yazoo at the north. Pemberton had abandoned all the outer works without a fight. Grant's army, reduced by fighting and rapid marching, did not reach forty thousand

men.'

Says Badeau: "The ground on which the city of Vicksburg stands is supposed by some to have been originally a plateau, four or five miles long and about two miles wide, and two or three hundred feet above the Mississippi River. This plateau has been gradually washed away by rains and storms, until it is transformed into a labyrinth of sharp edges and deep irregular ravines. The soil is fine, and when cut vertically by the action of the water remains in a perpendicular position for years; and the smaller and newer ravines are often so deep that their ascent is difficult to a footman, unless he aids himself with his hands. The sides of the declivities are thickly wooded, and the bottoms of the ravines nearly

level, except when the streams that formed them have been unusually large."

"The whole line was between seven and eight miles long, exclusive of the four miles of rifle-trench and heavy batteries on the water-front. It consisted of a series of detached works, on prominent and commanding points, connected by a continuous line of trench or rifle-pit. The works were necessarily irregular, from the shape of the ridges on which they were situated, and in only one instance closed at the gorge. They were placed at distances of from seventyfive to five hundred yards from one another. The connecting rifle-pit was simple, and generally about breast-high. The ravines were the only ditches, except in front of the detached works, but no others were needed, trees being felled in front of the whole line, and forming in many places entanglements, which under fire were absolutely impassable. The whole aspect of the rugged fastness, bristling with bayonets and crowned with artillery that swept the narrow defiles in every direction, was calculated to inspire new courage in those who came thronging into its recesses and behind its bulwarks, from their succession of disasters in the open field."

It was on the morning of the 19th, as has been seen, that Grant's forces, in the order named, completed the investment of Vicksburg, forming his line across these "wooded cliffs and rugged chasms," and it was at 2 P.M. of that day that a concerted and simultaneous assault along the whole line was made upon the enemy's fortifications. In the meantime, the enemy had recovered his spirits, and met the assault with such spirit and energy at all points, that our troops failed to get a footing within his works. It enabled the Union forces, however, to take and hold advanced positions, unveiled the tremendous difficulties that opposed them, developed the enemy's plan of defence, and at the expense of Federal losses