Grant had reached his objective point, and his success was thorough and complete. He had accomplished all he proposed, and it only remained for him to retire from the field, which was of course as much a part of his original intention as was the attack. As the hour of prosperity is often the most dangerous, so was the moment of victory the most perilous to these gallant troops. Their success seemed to intoxicate them, and instead of pursuing their advantage upon the rebel force, sheltering themselves beneath the bluff of the river, they went about plundering the deserted camp. Their colonels, no better disciplined, indulged their vanity in making Union speeches. General Grant discovered that the enemy was sending steamer loads of troops across the river, to a point above the camp, to intercept his retreat; and he was anxious to get back to his transports before they arrived. He attempted to form his lines again, but the men were too much disorganized to heed orders. The general then directed his staff-officers to set fire to the camp, in order to check the plunder. The smoke attracted the attention of the rebels at Columbus, who opened fire upon the Unionists. Shot and shell brought them to a sense of their duty; the line was formed, and they marched towards the steamers, three miles distant. The defeated rebels, under the bank of the river, having been reënforced by the arrival of three regiments from Columbus, marched to a point which enabled them to intercept the victorious army. An officer, on discovering the fact, dashed furiously up to the cool commander, and in a highly-excited tone cried, "We are surrounded!" "Well, if that is so, we must cut our way out, as we cut our way in," replied Grant, apparently unmoved even by this tremendous circumstance. His troops were brave men, but such a disaster as being surrounded suggested to their inexperience only the alternative of surrender, and, under many commanders, such a result must have been inevitable. What paralyzes the soldier often produces the same effect upon the leader; but Grant was not "demoralized." No apparent reverses could exhaust his unconquerable pluck; he never despaired, and worked up a situation out of which another could make nothing but defeat, until he brought forth victory. "We have whipped them once, and I think we can do it again," added Grant, in the midst of the confusion which the unpleasant prospect caused.