The Levee at Vicksburg, February, 1864. For seven months the Federals had
been in possession of the city, and the Mississippi--now open through its
entire course--cut off the struggling Confederacy in the East from the
South and Southwest, the storehouses of their resources and their main
dependence in continuing the struggle. But even such a blow as this,
coming on top of Gettysburg, did not force the brave people of the South
to give up the struggle. In the picture the only remaining warlike signs
are the tents on the opposite shore. But on both sides of the river the
Confederates were still desperately striving to reunite their territory.
In the East another year and more of the hardest kind of fighting was
ahead; another severing in twain of the South was inevitable before peace
could come, and before the muskets could be used to shoot the crows, and
before their horses could plough the neglected fields.