It is safe to say that three-fourths of those who have professed any knowledge of the campaigns which resulted in the opening of the Mississippi have generally given undue prominence to minor events, and almost wholly ignored the essentially important; indeed, this campaign calls up in most minds a confused jumble of gunboats and batteries, bayous and swamps. We know that Vicksburg was taken and the river opened, and that is about all. This book, however, is a properly proportioned narrative of the series of operations, and its perusal gives a complete exposition of the difficulties and the solution of the problem." -- The Century, vol. 25, issue 4 (Feb 1883).

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