Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[401] known after the capture of Donelson. No such success, indeed, had shone on the national cause in all the weary interval of nearly seventeen months. The rebellion never fully recovered from the blow that was dealt it at Vicksburg; communication thus severed, between the trans-Mississippi region and the eastern bank of the mighty river, was never again uninterrupted or secure. The demoralized and dispirited soldiers who straggled all over the South from the captured stronghold, could not be got together again as one army; they were depressed with their long series of sufferings, diseased and weakened in body and mind, and their depression was contagious. The exulting confidence the rebels once had known did not return, but there came instead a grim determination not to lose all. For the contest lasted long, and many furious battles were fought after Vicksburg fell.