Vicksburg

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To you this is no new stage. Its remotest confines were once familiar. You looked upon it, front and rear. You stood before its footlights. You knew its comedy—its tragedy. You had honorable and distinguished cast in the great drama that gave it fame in every land beneath the sun and place in the country’s every annal—a drama real as human life in tensest mood—in which every character was a hero, every actor a patriot, and every word a deed—a drama, the memory of which is enduring, fadeless, and the scenes of which take form and color even now and rise before you vivid as a living picture. How clear the outline is: Time: The Nation’s natal day, forty-five years ago. Place: This historic field; yon majestic river; that heroic city there—a beleaguered fortress, girdled with these hills. Scene: The river’s broad expanse; Admiral Porter’s fleet—grim engines of war, with giant guns and floating batteries, facing...

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