April came, and nothing had been accomplished on the north or west. To try again from the east meant summary removal for the commander. Was an attack from the south, after all, out of the question, as all his lieutenants urged? Grant resolved to try; the river-bank to the west was so far dried that the passage of a column through the swamp-roads became possible. Porter was willing to attempt to run the batteries, though sure that, if once below, he could never return. The night of April 16th was one of wild excitements. The fleet was discovered as soon as it got under way, and conflagrations, blazing right and left, clearly revealed it as it swept down the stream. The Confederate fire could not be concentrated,[235] and hence the injury was small to the armored craft; and even the transports in their company, protected only by baled hay or cotton, escaped with one exception. A few days later transports and barges again passed down.[236] The column, toiling along the swampy road, was met, when at last it reached a point well below the town, by an abundance of supplies and ample means for placing it on the other bank. April 29th, Grand Gulf, the southern outpost of Vicksburg, was cannonaded, with ten thousand men on transports at hand for an assault, if the chance came. High on its bluff, it defied the bombardment, as the main citadel had done. Then it was that Grant turned to his last resource. It requires attention to comprehend how a plan so audacious as that now adopted could succeed. First, the watchful Pemberton was bewildered and misled as to the point of attack. About the time the batteries were run, Grierson, an Illinois officer, starting with seventeen hundred cavalry from La Grange, Tennessee, raided completely through Mississippi, from north to south, so skilfully creating an impression of large numbers, so effectively wrecking railroads and threatening incursion now here and now there, that the back-country was thrown into a panic, and Pemberton thought an attack in force from that direction possible. Following close upon Grierson’s raid, Sherman demonstrated with such noise and parade north of the city that Pemberton sent troops to meet a possible assault there. Meantime, the Thirteenth and Seventeenth corps were ferried rapidly across the river below Grand Gulf, and, a footing on the upland having been obtained unopposed, Grant stood fairly on the left bank. He now sent word to Halleck that he felt this battle was more than half won.[237] [Illustration: SIEGE OF VICKSBURG]