"An assault on the enemy's works at first, had proven a failure, and now the wonderful siege began. For forty-six days the digging and mining went patiently forward, while screaming shells and booming shot produced a reign of terror in the city, until at last, Pemberton could hold out no longer and surrendered his starving garrison to the superior prowess and strategy of Grant. It was the morning of the fourth of July when our troops took possession of Vicksburg, and ran up the stars and stripes from the top of the court-house. The soldiers, standing beneath it, sang 'Rally round the Flag,' and Grant became more than ever the popular hero. On the thirteenth of July, Lincoln wrote him a letter of 'grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service' he had rendered the country. In September he was placed in command of the 'Departments of the Ohio, of the Cumberland, and of the Tennessee, constituting the Military Division of the Mississippi.' * * * * * "Grant assumed the duties of his high office [the lieutenant-generalship of the army] without flourish of any sort, and proceeded to inaugurate the successive steps of his last great campaign. The military resources which centered in his hand were stupendous, but had they fallen under the control of a man less great than he, their very immensity would have rendered them powerless. The splendid army of the Potomac was on the move by May third, and the last march to Richmond had begun. Then came the three-days' battle of the Wilderness, on the south bank of the Rapidan, bloody and terrible and strange, during which some of our troops were fighting continuously for forty-eight hours; and following close after came also Spottsylvania, which was the result of an endeavor to cut off Lee's retreat. This, too, was a desperate conflict, where precious blood flowed in rivers. Then followed the race between the two opposing armies, for the North Anna. After crossing this river, and finding the Confederates occupying a fortified position on the South Anna, Grant 'swung his army around to the Pamunky, and pitched his head-quarters at Hanover Court House,' These masterly flank movements, in which he manoeuvred his vast army with such ease, exhibited his marvelous genius in stronger light than ever before. From the Pamunky he advanced to the Chickahominy, and, after the battle of Cold Harbor, made a rapid but quiet change of front on the night of the twelfth of June, and two days afterwards crossed the James and advanced against Petersburg and Richmond. The attack, at first a success, failed through a blunder, not Grant's; and then began the long siege which ended at last in the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond. Nowhere was the joy more heartfelt over these results than among the released captives of Libby Prison.