Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/146

 the Union army under Meade, had raged among the hills and valleys of Gettysburg, while the Nation trembled with suspense. On the third day Lee’s army was shattered, beaten, and in full retreat with a loss of nearly 30,000 men. Next day, Pemberton surrendered his entire army, cannon, small arms, and the city of Vicksburg, with a vast amount of property, to General Grant. The result of this wonderful campaign was the defeat of the Confederates in five battles before Vicksburg was reached; the capture of Jackson, the capital of the State; the fall of Vicksburg, and the opening of the Mississippi River; the surrender of an army of 37,000 after more than 10,000 had fallen in battle. The “History of the American Conflict,” in summing up the results of this campaign says:

“This was the heaviest single blow ever given to the muscular resources of the Rebellion. No other campaign of the war equals in brilliancy of conception and general success in execution that which resulted in the capitulation of Vicksburg.”

It is an undeniable fact that the loss of this entire army, with all its equipment, and the fall of the great stronghold of the Mississippi Valley, was a greater blow to Confederacy than the defeat of Lee at Gettysburg. Although beaten, he had inflicted upon the Union army losses almost equal to his own; he had replenished his scanty army supplies from the granaries and storehouses of Pennsylvania; exchanged his worn-out cavalry horses for the well-fed animals of the northern farmers; had levied forced contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars upon the cities in his line of march; and so slow was Meade’s pursuit that he escaped with nearly all of his plunder, and, taking a defiant position on the Rappahannock, checked Meade’s advance toward Richmond to the end of the year.

The great joy of the eastern people over the first decided victory of the Army of the Potomac, and the relief of the North from danger of invasion; so thoroughly absorbed their attention, that the greater victory in the West