Battles at Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills and Big Black River

In the meantime, Sherman, who had made another unsuccessful effort to capture the batteries at Haine's Bluff, by order of General Grant, marched down the west side of the Mississippi, crossed it, and joined the main army on the 8th of May. Then the whole force pushed rapidly toward Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, where General Joseph E. Johnston was in command of a Confederate army. After a severe battle at Raymond, on the 12th of May, in which the Confederates were defeated, and another near Jackson, on the 14th, when the insurgents were driven northward, the Nationals seized the State capital, and destroyed a large quantity of public property there. Then the victorious army turned toward Vicksburg, and after defeating the Confederates under Pemberton at Champion Hills on the 16th of May, and at the passage of the Black River on the 17th, the National army swept on and closely invested Vicksburg, in the rear, on the 19th, receiving their supplies from a base on the Yazoo, established by Porter. For a fortnight the army had drawn its subsistence from the country through which it had passed. It now rested for a brief space after a wonderful week's work. Then, after two unsuccessful and disastrous assaults on Vicksburg, Grant began a regular siege of the works there, with the co-operation of Porter's fleet.