This effort was met and baffled, as the former one had been, by Confederate obstructions in the streams, and by ceaseless annoyance from the woodlands on the banks. So active were the Confederates that at one time Commodore Porter seriously contemplated the abandonment of all his gunboats and transports. His energy, however, and his wonderful skill in navigation saved him at last from this humiliating necessity. By backing through streams in which there was not room enough to turn around, he managed at last to retreat lobster fashion, through thirty miles of tangled and crooked waterways, under a constant and galling fire from the banks, and in the end to get back into openly navigable waters.
As a wise and discreet commander, it was Grant's habit to adopt those measures which promised success at the smallest cost of human life--these first. But as a man of indomitable courage and determination, it was his habit also, if the less costly method failed, to venture upon more desperate courses with a single-minded determination to accomplish his purposes at whatever hazard and whatever sacrifice. He was convinced now, that in order to conquer the stronghold at Vicksburg he must manage in some way to place his army on the river bank below that city in some position from which he could march into its rear. To do this involved a world of difficulty, incredible hardship, and immeasurable danger. He must somehow get his army past the town, and into a position where it would be hopelessly dependent upon such stores as he could carry with him for the maintenance of his troops from day to day.
In order to reach such a position he must take incredible risks, and, having attained it, he must find himself isolated without communications of any sort, and dependent upon complete and quick success for the very existence of his army. Having once placed himself in that position he must promptly conquer Vicksburg, or ingloriously surrender all his force.
Fortunately, he had for his coadjutor one of the most enterprising and most daring men who ever commanded a ship. David D. Porter, in his personal character, was typical of that all-unfaltering courage which the officers of the American navy have always exacted of each other and of themselves as the measure of a man. Porter was ready for anything. Cool-headed, skilled in navigation, resolute, and thoroughly familiar with the problems of the Mississippi, he responded instantly and eagerly to Grant's demand that he should run his fleet past the Vicksburg batteries at any and every hazard and place it in a position below, where the gunboats might serve as transports to the troops if Grant could manage to get the troops there.