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VICKSBURG.
WE reproduce on
page 484
a drawing of the CITY OF
VICKSBURG, Mississippi, which has been bombarded by
Commodore Porter's mortar-fleet, and
Commodore Farragut's gun-boats and ships of
war. The city is thus described:
Vicksburg is the first point at
which the rebels commenced the erection of works for blockading the Mississippi,
and it is quite fitting that she should be the last stronghold to fall. The
Vicksburgians were foremost in the inception of the rebellion, and the vote cast
here for the secession of Mississippi was almost unanimous.
The city made prompt and liberal
appropriations for putting the city in a condition of defense, and it was
solemnly resolved that no boat should be allowed to pass in either direction
that should not first acknowledge the supreme power of the
Davis confederacy.
The city of Vicksburg is situated
on the Walnut Hills; a range of wooded summits about for hundred feet high, and
presents a fine appearance when viewed from below. From the tops of these
elevations the flat, alluvial country around can be seen for a long distance in
every direction, and with its forests of oak and cotton-wood, interspersed with
extensive plantations, forms a picture of great panoramic beauty. The main
portion of the city lies near the water, and above it the hills are crowned with
elegant private residences, or made conspicuous by the high walls of the public
buildings. The Court-house, a huge structure of light gray limestone, crowns the
summit of one of the hills, and is visible for a long distance up and down the
river. The streets rise from the river with an abrupt and difficult ascent, and
are cut with a regular grade, through the bluffs and hills, directly to the edge
of the levee. The town, when viewed from the opposite bank, appears as if the
houses were built upon terraces one above another, and the lower doors of one
habitation are oftentimes visible over the roof of the building in its immediate
front.
Above and below Vicksburg the
hills are crowned with the batteries that the rebels have erected to dispute our
advance, the most of them being placed at the lower end of the town, as if the
most danger were apprehended from that quarter. One tier of batteries is placed
near the top of the bluff and another about half-way from the summit to the
water. A single row of water-batteries, mounting in all some twenty guns, is
located near the brink of the river, and is probably designed to repel all
attacks that might be made at short range. The batteries on the summit of the
hill cause our navy men more trouble than those lower down, as none of our guns
can be elevated sufficiently to reach them, while their shot, with light charges
of powder, can be made to plunge through our decks, and disable whatever boats
or vessels come within their reach. The batteries above the town are mainly
placed on the upper hills, though one mounting four rifled guns is placed almost
at the very water's edge, in position to sweep the river both above and below.
On
page 481
we give an illustration of CUTTING THE CANAL, from a sketch by our artist, Mr.
Theodore R. Davis. The correspondent of the Chicago Tribune thus describes the
work and its progress:
It is not a canal, but simply a
ditch. When we arrived here it had been completed only through that portion of
the neck which is inside of the levee, or embankment, to prevent the river's,
overflow. It was then about fifteen feet wide, and three, or three and a half
feet deep. This, it was supposed, was of sufficient depth to allow the water of
the river to flow through, but when the levee at each end of it was cut through,
it was found to be above the level of the water. The river had fallen some
during the process of digging, but not enough to account for so great a
shortcoming.
The mountain would not come to
Mohammed, and some wiseacre determined to make it come by placing an old
stern-wheel boat at the lower side of the entrance to the canal, to work her
wheel, and so paddle the water up into it, which succeeded in wetting the bottom
of the canal just entomb to make it muddy, but no more. This experiment of me
king water run up hill not proving very successful, it was determined to deepen
the ditch. The bottom being, as I said before, about fifteen feet wide, the one
half of this bottom, longitudinally, was dug five feet deeper, the entire length
of the canal, the earth being thrown up on the other half of the original
bottom, and so that a transverse section of the canal would show like this:
By this means a small thread of
water, about a foot wide, was decoyed into it, where it remains at present,
looking very much bewildered, as though it did not know where to run to. The
entire south side of the canal is now composed of loose earth, thrown up from
the deepening, and should the river rise sufficient to shake a current through
the canal, I think this loose earth would be undermined by the current, and
coming down would soon fill it up sufficiently to stop the current. The labor of
widening the canal would almost be equal to that of digging a new one.
Independent of this, another fact
is to be taken into consideration. The course of the Mississippi is deflected by
the range of the Walnut Hills, upon which Vicksburg is built. In front of
Vicksburg the river is narrower than usual, and consequently deeper. I am told
on good authority that it is 200 feet deep for more than a mile above and below
the steamboat landing at that place. I have also been informed that soundings
were made by the flag-.ship Hartford during her passage on the 26th, with over
100 feet of line, without finding bottom, and where the Hartford is now
anchored. which is above the deepest portion of the bend, and where the river is
much wider, and consequently more shallow, I saw the lead cast myself in
thirteen fathoms of water. Now, even with a free strong current running through
the canal, it certainly must take several months for the river to cut itself a
new channel 200 or 300 feet deep, and for the sediment in the mean time to fill
up the deep channel in front of Vicksburg, and so "leave it out in the cold."
River steam-boat men, of whom there are a number here, object to the canal on
still another score. They say that all the wonderful cut-offs that have been
made in the course of the river have begun at a point where the main current of
the river has impinged against the shore of some bend, but the upper end of this
canal is unfortunately located in an eddy, the current striking the shore nearly
half a mile below. As for he number of contrabands at work on the canal, there
are not several thousand, as I see stated in some prints, though the number has
been increased lately, and our soldiers, I am glad to see, have been relieved
from digging, and set to overseeing the work. This is as it should be, only that
the number of contrabands should be increased, and made to do something when
they are at work. Their present number does not exceed 700, but can easily be
doubled or trebled.
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1862.
THE HOPELESSNESS OF THE
REBELLION.
NOW that the progress of
recruiting and the natural elasticity of the American mind have dispelled the
gloom which settled on the spirits of the public after the check before
Richmond, it may be timely to draw attention to
the fact that whatever may occur in Virginia, whatever
checks our arms may encounter in
the prosecution of the campaign in that State, and whether we take Richmond or
no, the fate of the rebellion has been already finally determined, and its
collapse is a mere question of time.
General Scott's plan for the overthrow of the
great insurrection was to shut up the rebels; to close their ports, hold fast
the Potomac and the Ohio, and to leave them to repent at leisure. That eminent
soldier and statesman knew that an independent nation could not survive
confinement within prescribed limits, and that, after a few months trial of
Japanese fare, the Southerners would be thankful for readmission to the world at
any cost.
General McClellan improved upon this plan by
adding to it the bisection of the Confederacy on the line of the Memphis and
Charleston Railroad, from
Memphis on the Mississippi to
Charleston on the Atlantic.
These plans have been measurably
carried out. The coast blockade is so perfect that even the British are learning
to their cost that it is effective. We hold beyond dispute the line of the
Potomac, and further west, we are in force on a line from Cumberland Gap to
Memphis—considerably south of the line traced by General Scott. The Mississippi
River is so far ours that no craft but our own can navigate it, and no bodies of
troops or cargoes of supplies can cross it without permission from our
gun-boats. Finally we have prosecuted the work of bisection from Memphis to
Decatur, and almost within sight of Chattanooga, which, we trust, will soon be
ours likewise.
Let us suppose that we conclude
to stop fighting here, and merely to hold what we have got. The "Southern
Confederacy" will then resemble a fly under an inverted glass, with the
additional comfort of having part of its body under the edge of the glass and
severed from the rest. How long can the fly thrive in this agreeable position?
It is proper that we should
thoroughly beat the rebel army in Virginia and take Richmond, and both of these
things will be done in due time. But if we did neither, the rebel Confederacy
would none the less collapse within a given period. Passion, brutalized fury,
and the dread of negro equality may for a time sustain the rebels in their
present absorbing devotion to the war; but a day must come when every Southerner
will realize that there is something better to be done in the world than
hopelessly fighting and starving. It might take months, or even a year or two;
but at last the absolute necessity of intercourse with the foreign world, and
the impossibility of living without industry, trade, civilization, letters, and
the comforts and luxuries of life, would overpower the wicked impulses of
treason and awaken the South to common sense.
Southern sympathizers lay stress
upon the guerrilla raids in Tennessee,
Kentucky, and Virginia. These are annoying; but
practically they do more harm than good to the rebels. No great cause was ever
helped by guerrilla warfare. It injures the non-combatant more than the soldier;
women and children more than men. It exasperates the people of the country in
which it is carried on. It partakes of the nature of private robbery and murder,
and its authors are naturally classed with robbers and murderers. The raids of
John Morgan and his compeers are converting the
sometime neutrals of Kentucky into violent Northerners: a few more attacks on
peaceful villages, a few more attempts to impede the navigation of the
Mississippi and Ohio, and every man in that region will be, in spirit, a
Parson Brownlow.
THE WORK OF CONGRESS.
CONGRESS adjourned on 17th, after
a session of rather more than seven months, and thus the Cromwell who, according
to Mr. Fernando Wood, was to clear the Halls at the point of the bayonet, has
missed his opportunity.
There were many foolish speeches
made during the session, and some foolish acts or parts of acts passed. Several
members were so nearly allied in sympathy to the rebels that they would have
been more at home at Richmond than at
Washington. And, on the other hand, the
majority comprised a few extreme men, whose unpracticable theories and
unyielding partisanship have undoubtedly done harm to the national cause.
But, on the whole, the work of
Congress has been thorough and wholesome. No Congress since the Revolution has
borne so weighty a responsibility; it must be admitted that, in the main, it has
been faithfully discharged.
The most important acts of
Congress—its fiscal measures—were referred to in our last number. Experience
alone can decide upon their merits, but we think they will stand the test. They
certainly provide the Government with money to carry on the war, and, if
efficiently administered, will secure a revenue which will protect the national
credit from disgrace.
Next to these in immediate
importance, and superior to them in their ultimate influence upon the destiny of
the nation, are the various measures referring to
slavery. That institution has been assailed at
every point. In the first place, it has been entirely abolished in the District
of
Columbia. Next, it has been
prohibited in the Territories of the United States, present and future. Finally,
a resolution of Congress tenders to any State which proposes to
abolish slavery
an indemnity sufficient to recompense slave-owners for the loss of their slaves.
Besides these sweeping enactments, the Senate has ratified a new treaty with
Great Britain concerning the
slave-trade, by which that iniquitous traffic
will at last be thoroughly suppressed. Last of all, our army has been directed
to receive within its lines all fugitive slaves, and not to surrender them to
their owners; the President has been authorized to employ, in any capacity he
chooses, either in the military or naval service, all such fugitive slaves; and
the slaves of all open rebels have been declared forfeit, and the President has
been directed to set them free. The opponents of slavery—the cause and
mainspring of the rebellion—can not complain that Congress has been
overindulgent to the institution.
An important complement to the
anti-slavery legislation of the last session has been the reorganization of the
Supreme Court. Under the late pro-slavery Administrations the Supreme Court was
the most reliable instrument of the slaveholders. Their influence at Washington
always prevented the North from obtaining a fair representation therein; and
when they needed assistance the Supreme Court was always ready to render it—as
in the famous Dred Scott case. Congress has remedied this by reapportioning the
United States Judicial Districts according to population; giving to the free
North six of the nine Justices who will now constitute the Supreme Bench. If any
of the anti-slavery measures of Congress are charged with unconstitutionality,
they will now obtain a hearing from a tribunal not hopelessly biased against
their spirit and their purpose.
Most ample powers have been
placed in the hands of the President for the prosecution of the war. There is,
practically, no limit to the number of volunteers which he may call into the
field, and to the number of vessels of war which he may equip and send to sea;
and, besides this, a new Militia Act empowers him, in case of need, to call out
the entire militia of the North—amounting, in round numbers, to four millions of
men. If, therefore, in future contests with the rebels we should be outnumbered
the responsibility will rest upon the President. The new Militia Act will
probably have the effect of convincing the few remaining partisans of
intervention in Europe that they had better give up the idea.
The Confiscation Act defines the
crime of treason against the United States, and pronounces various penalties for
those adjudged guilty—from death to a fine. It likewise declares that their
movable property and their life-interest in their real estate shall be forfeit
to the United States. As the President, however, is empowered to pardon convicts
and release the penalties of the Act, it will not probably be very rigorously
executed. As soon as the rebel armies are thoroughly beaten a general
amnesty—excepting the ringleaders—will be a matter of course.
Other important measures passed
at the late session are the Homestead Law and the Pacific Railroad Act. The
first will exercise a powerful influence upon the increase of our population,
and will have a tendency still further to shift the seat of empire toward the
Northwest. The latter will unite us still closer to our Pacific States, and will
obviate the risk we now run of being at some time or other obliged to seize the
Isthmus of Panama in order to preserve our communication with California. Many
years will elapse before the railroad is built. But that it will be built no one
who has studied the stupendous railway enterprises of the West can doubt.
Congress did not pass a Bankrupt
Bill, which was much desired by merchants; and
Mr. Chase's new Banking Law was likewise left
over, we think wisely. A new banking system can not well be introduced in time
of war. When peace has been restored it will be time enough to reform our banks.
We can not say, either, that we regret the failure of the bill to admit the new
State of Western Virginia. To say nothing of the constitutional difficulties, it
is quite possible that, by the time Congress again meets, the whole of Virginia
may be in the Union, and her people may be ready to adopt the Constitution now
offered by the western portion of the State.
THE
LOUNGER.
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
THERE are many who think these
are the darkest days of the war. Very well; may we never see any darker! We are
as strong as ever, and the rebellion is no stronger. The change is in our
perception of its magnitude. It is not a riot, as we half thought—it is a
revolution.
There have indeed been plenty of
people who said that it was much more formidable than was supposed. When the
75,000 men were called for in April a year ago
General Banks, for instance, said that there
should have been a summons for 500,000. He thought so, because he had lived with
the rebel leaders in Washington, and he knew what manner of men they were. He
knew that their plans were profound, and that their programme at
that time, when the actual temper
of the North was unknown, had a certain promise of success. Fernando Wood
thought so, too, when he suggested that the city of New York should secede from
the State, and when he insisted that arms should be sent to the South. The 14th
of April, 1861, was the darkest day this country will ever know, for all that
Sunday it groped in doubt whether it was a country. The consciousness of its own
unity and purpose which the next week revealed was the grandest of
discoveries—it was the rehearsal of ultimate victory.
Well, neither that consciousness
nor that purpose have changed; but the conception of the means necessary to
attain that purpose has been enlarged. That is all. We thought at first that the
appearance of resolution might do a great deal. Then that the recapture of forts
and navy-yards would answer. Then that more ships would settle the matter by
blockading the rebels into starvation. Then, after
Bull Run, that we must have more men. Then that
there might be foreign interference. Then that there must be a policy which
struck at the very root and secret of the difficulty. Then came approaches to
that policy. The Message of the President; the debates upon confiscation and
emancipation; the modification of
Hunter's order. Then a general conviction that
the rebellion was waning, and that a vigorous blow at Corinth and Richmond would
virtually end it. Then came the alarm in the Shenandoah, and at last the delay
at Richmond. And then—what? Weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth? Not a
bit of it. But a grimmer vow that we would conquer at any cost, and that if in
saving our country and its Government we happened to do a great act of justice,
we would not cry very bitterly.
If there were any where the least
disposition to yield, except among those who have never had any serious
conviction either of the necessity or the character of the war, we might truly
call the day dark. And if delay, or disaster even, could fatally dispirit us, we
ought to submit at once to the degradation and national annihilation which
attend compromise and defeat. But if in a war with a foreign power we could show
the great results of our arms which the last year shows against the rebellion,
what should we think of him who doubted or despaired?
The year has revealed a character
in the nation of which it is idle to anticipate any thing but a steadier purpose
and a stronger blow until the great work is accomplished.
THE
GENTLEMEN OF THE BORDER.
THERE are a great many friends of
the President, and loyal supporters of the Government, who are and have been
exceedingly troubled by what is called his Border State policy. If the Border
men are loyal, these persons have said, let them support the Union at any cost;
if they are not, the sooner we are rid of them the better.
The argument is apparently
conclusive; but how if they are not wholly loyal but may be made so? how if
there are loyal men enough in those States to save them to the Union, provided
that the matter is wisely managed? Are those States not worth saving; and if so,
must there not be some consideration of their actual position? They are between
the two sections. Their prejudices draw them one way, their interests another.
Their heads turn Northward, their hearts Southward. Are they not worth saving?
They have been the battle-ground.
Do we prefer to have it moved from Virginia into Pennsylvania, from Kentucky
into Ohio, from Missouri into the Northwest? With the Border States partly with
us our hands have been pretty full; how if they had been unitedly against us?
And if we can hold them fast, not by the arms of our soldiers but by the will of
their own citizens, have we done nothing toward the final subjugation of the
rebellion?
"Oh! then you would sacrifice the
country and liberty to the testy whim-whams of the Border States!" No; perhaps
not. To beg a question is not to argue it. Nor, because a man may be willing to
say thank you for an article, does it follow that he is ready to pay a million
of dollars for it. The question is not whether the country is to be given over
to the Border States, but, simply, on what honorable common ground can all loyal
citizens in all the States stand, and which will secure the adhesion of those
States to the Union. If there is no such ground—amen; they must do what seems
wisest. If there is, what is wisest for us?
The President thinks there may be
such aground. He thinks that a system of compensated emancipation is the
security of the loyalty of the Border States; and if those States will assent,
there is no question that the President is right. If Kentucky so strongly, and
Tennessee so lightly, lean to us now, for what conceivable reason should they
lean to the rebels when their slave system is gone? It is the social sympathy,
and common political action, and partial identity of civilization and interest
which make them doubtful now. Take those away, and why should they be doubtful
any longer?
If they decline, they know the
ground that the President and the country will take. The President is reported
to have said, "You must fish, cut bait, or go ashore." He will do for them all
that can fairly be done. If they want more they must take their chance. And if
they call this coercion, the reply is short and clear: "It is coercion, to
prevent your coercing the country into ruin." It is the business of this nation
to coerce all opposition to its unity and existence, just as it is its duty to
subjugate the Davis rebels; and if the Border States say there are some measures
for the maintenance of the Union to which, although strictly military, they will
never consent, the war—will be greatly prolonged.
THE ADJOURNMENT.
CONGRESS has adjourned, and every
loyal man ought to be gratified with the work it has done. (Next
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