force in his front, composed largely of troops drawn from the Vicksburg garrison, under command of General J. C. Pemberton, General Grant's advance was not seriously disputed, except at the crossing of the Tallahatchie river, until he reached a point about twenty miles south of Oxford, Mississippi.

In the meantime General Sherman had been placed in command of a force about equal to that under the immediate command of General Grant, which left Memphis, December 19th, 1862, by way of the Mississippi river, under orders to operate against the immediate defenses of Vicksburg, it being assumed that the place would be found weakly garrisoned while General Grant held Pemberton's forces in his front. The fleet conveying Sherman's force had hardly passed beyond hail from its port of departure, before General Grant met with a distaster that so changed conditions as to stamp inevitable failure upon the combinations that seemed to have borne such promise of success. On the 20th of December a large column of Confederate cavalry under General Earl Van Dorn appeared in Grant's rear, captured Holly Springs, his depot of supplies, and after destroying the large accumulation of munitions and stores upon which the Union army depended for maintenance in its farther advance southward, moved north, destroying as it went the railroad and its equipment, which constituted General Grant's means of communication with his base. The dilemma thus created was solved by the suspension. of further offensive operations and the gradual retirement of Grant's army to the line of the Memphis and Charleston railroad. Meanwhile General Sherman, wholly ignorant of Grant's reverse, arrived in the vicinity of Vicksburg, and after reconnoitering the position moved to the Yazoo river and made a spirited assault upon the fortifications fronting Chickasaw bayou, near Haines Bluff, December 29th, 1862. He found, of course, the defenses strongly held, Pemberton's army having returned from confronting General Grant, and in consequence the assault wholly failed of its purpose, General Sherman retiring with a loss of 1,105 men killed and wounded and 743 prisoners.

The Minnesota troops in this campaign were with General Grant's column and as a rule with the advance command, but were required to perform but little serious work beyond the skirmish duty to which nearly all encounters with the enemy were limited.

At this period of the war there was a considerable element in the North that entertained serious doubts of the ability of the government to suppress the rebellion. Many sincere patriots had become discouraged, and the essentially disloyal, of whom there were not a few, were boldly predicting ultimate failure, and by their open treason greatly embarrassed the government and seriously added to its difficulties in dealing with the mighty problem before it. The complete failure of this movement gave added emphasis to the doubts of our friends, and to the doleful predictions of our enemies in the rear. Grant was much criticised for his failure, the administration was assailed, volunteering for the army was checked, and organized movements were promoted for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The Army of the Tennessee, however, maintained its esprit de corps, and its commander his indomitable determination to prosecute the campaign until Vicksburg should be taken.

General Grant now assembled his force along the Mississippi river, initiating various schemes to obtain a foothold from whence he could effectively operate against his defiant enemy. One that gave promise of substantial result was an expedition sent through Yazoo Pass, an old channel much navigated in early days, connecting the Mississippi near Helena with the higher ground east of the river. The building of levees along the river had closed this channel, and since its disuse its bed had shallowed and become obstructed, and its shores to the water's edge had acquired a growth of timber and dense underbrush. The levee was cut and a fleet of light draft steamers conveying a bridge of troops, escorted by a detail of gunboats, was sent on the 24th of February, 1863, through Yazoo Pass on a sort of exploring expedition. Its progress was greatly impeded by the obstructions it met, yet it forced its way to the point where the Tallahatchie and Yallabusha rivers unite and form the Yazoo. Here was encountered a formidable Confederate earthwork mounting heavy guns. This work, named Fort Pemberton, being surrounded by water, could not be assailed by land and was too formidable to be reduced by the gunboats. The expedition was on its return when it was met by a reinforcement under General Quinby, who conducted the combined command back to the vicinity of Fort Pemberton. The conditions there revealed discouraged Quinby, and the fleet worked