June 10, 1863, The New York Herald
From all the information in our possession, from Union and from rebel sources, we consider the fall of Vicksburg inevitable, that there is no earthly chance of escape for it, and that in all probability before the expiration of the present week we shall have the news of the impending capitulation.
The army of General Grant had been heavily reinforced, and reinforcements were still coming down. His besieging columns are strongly intrenched in a semicircle of only six miles long, enclosing the city and the rebel garrison. The gunboats of Admiral Porter hold the river front, so that nothing can get in and nothing can get out on any side without the consent of the besieging forces. The fifteen days at the end of which Pemberton had been promised assistance from Joe Johnston had expired; but instead of coming to the rescue Johnston was fortifying himself at Jackson City. He is represented as destitute of artillery, which is very likely from the extensive captures of those important engines of war made by our forces in their late victorious march by way of Jackson to Vicksburg. He is fortifying himself because, with the apprehensions of an experienced soldier, he thinks it not improbable that on some fine morning a portion of Grant’s army may be found […..] upon his works.” He knows, too, that, with the fall of Vicksburg, Mobile will be in imminent danger; and so we dare say that as much as for any other purpose, Johnston is mustering an army for the defence of Mobile.
The condition of things at Port Hudson at our last accounts was as encouraging as at Vicksburg. Independently of the other, each of these places is destined to fall; but the fall of either place immediately secures the other. What then? Why, then, with the complete expulsion of the rebels from the Mississippi river, with the loss of their two veteran armies defending Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and all their artillery and materials of war, the results will involve the subjugation of one-half the existing territorial area of the rebellion and such a demoralization of the other half that a draft may not be needed to finish the war. We repeat it, that, from the present aspect of things in the Southwest, a draft may not be needed to finish the war. We may be mistaken; but at length it appears to us that we are near the end of this terrible struggle, and that the peace party will soon absorb all other parties, North and South.
Governor Brown, of Georgia, understands the matter. In a recent call upon the people of that State for the organization of bodies of troops in every county for home defence he says: “If the enemy be successful in overrunning Mississippi and Alabama the State of Georgia can be taken in flank, and we shall be open to serious and dangerous attack. Heretofore the din of battle has been heard in the distance, and has been echoed among us only in the heaving bosoms of the bereaved. Now the thunders are rolling towards our borders, and the storm threatens to burst with fury upon our heads.” He […..] the danger at Vicksburg, the loss of which uncovers, not only the weak flank of Alabama and Georgia, but of every rebellious State, from the Mississippi to the James river. Hence every man capable of bearing arms in Georgia is called to arms, not only to prevent invasions, but roll back the ride of war from her borders.”
But where is the army of Bragg? It is under the eye of Rosecrans. Bragg cannot move to the relief of Pemberton without uncovering East Tennessee and its vital communications with Richmond, and it is some four hundred miles from Tullahoma to Vicksburg, with the only convenient railway lines between broken up or in the possession of the Union force. But has not General Lee, in all probability, sent some assistance to Joe Johnston? On the contrary, a recent passenger form Richmond reports that he saw there twenty regiments passing through towards the Rappahannock. If there be any truth in this report, the design of Lee is evidently the desperate game of a bold dash for the reparation of all losses in the capture of Washington. As matters now stand the prize in view may be deemed by him as worth the experiment. There appears now, if fact, to be no other chance for the safety of Richmond of Jeff. Davis. Let General Halleck, therefore, keep a sharp eye upon General Hooker, or he may find the army of Lee where he least expects it while searching for it on the other side of the river. The country will be satisfied if General Hooker is successful in baffling the movements of Lee until Vicksburg is ours and then a final settlement with the rebel army of Virginia will be a comparatively simple operation: for it is probable that with the fall of Vicksburg the whole fabric of the rebellion, which Colonel Grierson describes as but empty shell, will speedily crumble to pieces. The prospect for the Union cause has never been so encouraging since the beginning of the war.