February 2, 1863, The New York Herald
The great, and to all appearance decisive, point of the war is the opening of the Mississippi river. With the exception of some small movements on the coast, all the most important operations of the campaign are now concentrated in that direction. The great Northwest demands the opening of the Mississippi; our government is determined to effect it at any cost, and the rebels are equally resolved to prevent it, in order that by keeping this great channel of water communication closed they may compel the Northwest to disintegrate itself from the Union. It will therefore be seen that the military and naval operations now being carried on at Vicksburg and Port Hudson are of the most vital importance to the crushing out of the rebellion. In one despatch received from Vicksburg it is stated that it will take one hundred and fifty thousand men to capture that place, and by the last rebel accounts we learn that General Johnston was concentrating that number of rebel troops for its defence; so that the battle impending there promises to be more desperately contested and of greater magnitude than any that has been fought since the commencement of the rebellion.
Vicksburg and Port Hudson are the only two great rebel strongholds on the Mississippi which operate as obstacles to the opening of that river. They are of great strength, and their natural advantages for defence have been improved to the utmost by the rebel generals. Besides the ample resources which we possess for reducing Vicksburg by force of arms, we have another means of effecting the object which we have in view by its capture. The operations of Gen. McClernand in opening what is called “Williams cut- off,” or canal across the tongue of land formed by the bend of the river at that place, will, if successful, be made available for the passage of our gunboats in a couple of weeks, thereby destroying all the plans and calculations of the rebels so far as Vicksburg is concerned. The great point of contention for the command of the Mississippi will then become Port Hudson, where the means of a desperate resistance have been accumulating for some months past. Thus, whilst Hooker is effecting his arrangements for a series of fresh operations, having the capture of Richmond in view, and Hunter and Foster and DuPont and Lee, with their iron-clads, are making demonstrations more or less successful against Savannah, Charleston or Wilmington, it is probable that what the English military author Creasy would call […..] decisive battle of the war will be fought on the Mississippi. We have two grounds for hoping for a successful result to the impending struggle on that river: first, in the magnitude of our preparations, and next, in the impossibility, from its distance from the capital, of Washington generalship interfering with and defeating the plans of those in command.