138 The American Civil Warsupplies on board. Ellet was under orders to
continue south all the way to the Red River
near the Mississippi-Louisiana state line,disrupting Confederate shipping as he went.
By February, Grant's army had taken up
winter camp at Milliken's Bend, a few miles
north of Vicksburg, where he devised a series
of plans to take the river fortress. The
difficulty of getting his army into a position
to successfully attack the city remained his
nemesis. Throughout the winter and early
spring, he attempted a number of schemes.
He put his soldiers to work constructing a
complex makeshift waterway by connecting
creeks, old river channels, and bayous,A Confederate siege-gun mounted in the river
fortifications at Port Hudson, Louisiana. The Confederates
blasted 20 of these pieces with deadly precision at David
Farragut's fleet throughout the night of 14 March 1863.
(Review of Reviews Company)through which he could send Union vessels
south around Vicksburg. Once the waterway
was completed, Grant thought he would
simply march his army down the river and
the vessels could then ferry troops across to
the eastern bank. But after several long weeks
of arduous labor, he abandoned the
operation. Then he put his army to work
digging an alternative channel bypassing the