But when Grant reached Memphis Sherman had already gone down the river in his transports, accompanied by Porter's gunboats, to a point called Milliken's Bend. There on Christmas day Sherman had landed on both sides of the river, sending the main body of his troops up the Yazoo, which empties from the northeast into the Mississippi near that point. He did this in order to assail the Confederates on the bluffs north of Vicksburg. At this point a little topographical explanation seems necessary. Vicksburg lies on a great easterly bend of the river. It is perched upon high bluffs which extend thence northward to the Yazoo, striking it at a point called Haines's Bluff. From Milliken's Bend above Vicksburg Sherman had sent a brigade down the western side of the river to cut the railroad leading from Shreveport, Louisiana, to that city. Landing his main force under the bluffs on the Yazoo, he hoped to march southward in the rear of Vicksburg, and cut the railroad which leads thence to Jackson, Mississippi, the state capital, about fifty miles away. If he could accomplish this he would have Vicksburg isolated from communication on either side of the river. In all this he was instantly and completely baffled. Low grounds bordered the Yazoo at the point of landing, while the Confederates occupied and had cannon-crowned the bluffs at a little distance from the stream. The flat lands with their marshes were pestilential to the young men of the northwest who constituted Sherman's army. At times of high water the lowlands were often overflowed to a depth of ten feet. They were at all times malarial, and such water as could be had by digging a foot or two into the mucky soil was simply poisonous for human beings to drink. On the other hand, the Southerners on the bluffs above were living in much more salubrious conditions. They had the advantage also of being immune by lifelong use to the miasms which laid so many of the Northern soldiers low. It is scarcely too much to say that the spores of miasmatic disease were at this time more important to the Confederates as a means of defense than their powder and bullets were. Still further, Sherman had been misled and misinformed with regard to the character of the bluffs which he must assail. He had supposed them to be easily accessible to such lithe young fellows as those northwestern boys who constituted the pith and marrow of his army. He found them instead scarcely more accessible than the steeps of Gibraltar itself. And as at Gibraltar, so at this point the men standing upon the defense not only occupied the heights, but held their bases with a bristling row of well-served cannon, strongly supported by an infantry as good as any that ever fought. The approaches across bayous and creeks and broad marshes were narrow and difficult. The Confederates had fully made good their deficiency in numbers by so planting their cannon and their riflemen as to command these approaches completely.