June 3, 1863, The New York Herald
Our latest accounts from Vicksburg are down to the 29th of May (Friday last), at which time the prospects of the siege were […..] encouraging.” We think the issue must be determined now within a very few days; that the garrison is holding out in expectation of a rescue by General Joe Johnston, and that should he fail to come up within the appointed time the city will be surrendered.
When Pemberton was driven in behind his intrenchments Johnston assured him that if he could hold out for fifteen days a hundred thousand men would be brought to his support. On Friday last ten of those fifteen days had expired, and all the efforts of General Grant to penetrate the enemy’s works had been repulsed. Meantime, General Johnston, who, in the sweeping advance of General Grant, had been driven northward from Jackson, with some five or six thousand men, had returned to that city with a force reported at fifteen thousand. Doubtless this increase of his nucleus of an army was made up from the odds and ends of Pemberton’s forces, scattered about to the right and left, and left behind by General Grant in his pursuit of Pemberton to Vicksburg. We may next hear that from Mobile, Charleston, Savannah, and from Bragg’s army in Tennessee, larger accessions have been joining Johnston. But, from the destruction of the enemy’s stores at Jackson and Yazoo City, from the damages done to their lines of communication, and from the exhaustion of their supplies over a great extent of country around Jackson, we think it most likely that Johnston will not get his army or his provisions in season to fulfill his promise to Pemberton.
The result at Vicksburg is evidently now reduced to a question of reinforcements. We know not what the government has been doing to strengthen General Grant; but we know that it has had time enough, men enough within reach and facilities enough to strengthen him to the extent of at least twenty-five thousand men. Should he, in default of reinforcements, be compelled to raise the siege of Vicksburg, the administration will be held to a terrible responsibility. The people of the loyal States believe, and the rebels know, that with the fall of Vicksburg the whole fabric of the rebellion begins to crumble to pieces. The prize is within our grasp, and we can only lose it through the negligence or imbecility of the military authorities at Washington. We rely, however, upon General Grant, from his own resources if necessary, to wind up his glorious Mississippi campaign in the crowning victory of the war.
Our latest intelligence from Port Hudson is to the effect that while General Banks, from the north side, had reached the rear of that stronghold, he had been joined by Colonel Grierson’s cavalry from the south side, after the destruction by that officer of a rebel camp and depot of the enemy supplies along his line of march. We hope next to hear that General Banks and Admiral Farragut have settled their accounts with Port Hudson in season to make another movement which will compel General Joe Johnston to move to the relief of Mobile instead of Vicksburg – for he is charged with the defence of both places – and if the one cannot be saved he must move in time to the defence of the other.