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

[298] trench or rifle-pit. The works were necessarily irregular, from the shape of the ridges on which they were situated, and, in only one instance, closed at the gorge. They were placed at distances of from seventy-five to five hundred yards from each other. The connecting rifle-pit was simple, and generally about breast-high. The ravines were the only ditches, except in front of the detached works, but no others were needed, trees being felled in front of the whole line, and forming, in many places, entanglements which, under fire, were absolutely impassable. In military parlance, Vicksburg was rather an intrenched camp than a fortified place, owing much of its extraordinary strength to the difficult nature of the ground, which rendered rapidity of movement and unity of effort in an assault, impossible.

North of the Jackson road, the hills are higher, and covered with a denser growth of timber, and here, in consequence, the enemy had been able to make his line exceedingly strong, and difficult of approach. But, from the Jackson road to the river, on the south, the country was cleared and cultivated; the ridges also were lower, and the slopes more gentle, though the ground was still rough and entirely unfitted for any united tactical movement. What the enemy lacked on this side, in natural defences, he had supplied by giving increased strength to his works. The whole aspect of the rugged fastness, bristling with bayonets, and crowned with artillery that swept the narrow defiles in every direction, was calculated to inspire new courage in those who came thronging into its recesses and behind its bulwarks, from their succession of disasters in the open field.