By the first of July, all evidence showed Grant that Vicksburg couldn't hold out much longer. Artillery bombardment and sharpshooter fire were picking off the defenders, and those that remained were slowly starving.

Pemberton had tried to coordinate food distribution, but once reserves of livestock were gone there wasn't much left for soldiers and citizens to eat. They turned to horses and mules, then dogs and cats, and gathered blackberries and weeds to eat. They made a wretched bread of ground peas. Even water was in short supply, since the Mississippi was too dirty to drink and there were few wells in Vicksburg. Pemberton's men were emaciated, weak, and covered with parasites. They could not hold out indefinitely.

Grant was aware of all of this. He planned a final assault for July 6. Johnston, in the meanwhile, had finally decided that he had to attack Grant's positions to help Pemberton's army escape, and scheduled his attack for July 7. That wasn't soon enough to help Pemberton, who knew his defense of the city was on its last legs. On July 1, he consulted his division commanders to learn the condition of their troops. The response was that the men were too exhausted to even break out the city.

On July 3, Pemberton sent General John Bowen over to the Union lines under a flag of truce to discuss surrender. Bowen was dying of dysentery, but he had been friends with Grant before the war, and hopefully that might count for something in the negotiations. Grant told Bowen that the only thing he wanted was "unconditional surrender", but agreed to further discussions. That afternoon, Pemberton and several of his officers came across the lines and met with Grant and a handful of his generals.

Grant insisted that Pemberton surrender unconditionally. Pemberton was not cowed by this in the least, and the meeting did not go well. After the Confederates had returned to their lines that evening, Grant sent over final terms that were surprisingly lenient, in particular indicating that all of Pemberton's men would be paroled. This was done for practical reasons. Grant did not want to deal with 30,000 prisoners when he could better use his resources to keep up the pressure on the Confederacy. Furthermore, it was likely very few of the rebels were in any physical condition to do much fighting for the Confederacy any time soon, and most were too discouraged to want any more of the war.

Sometime after midnight, Pemberton sent a message to Grant. Grant, sitting in his tent with his son Fred, read the note and said to the boy: "Vicksburg has surrendered." It was the 4th of July, 1863.

The Federals quickly moved into the city. There was little gloating and Union soldiers brought sacks of food to help the famished Confederates. One Federal outfit raised a cheer for "the gallant defenders of Vicksburg." There was a degree of fraternization between the soldiers of the two sides as well, and even some edged joking. One Confederate called out to a Union engineering officer named Major Lockett, who had been on the move a great deal while working on Federal siegeworks: "See here, mister, you man on the little white horse! Danged if you ain't the hardest feller to hit I ever saw. I've shot at you more'n a hundred times!" Lockett took it in good humor.

Porter sent a fast steamer up the Mississippi to Cairo, the nearest place where news could be wired to Washington, and on July 7, Navy Secretary Welles dashed into Lincoln's office with a telegram signed by Porter:

I HAVE THE HONOR TO INFORM YOU THAT VICKSBURG HAS
SURRENDERED TO THE US FORCES ON THIS 4TH DAY OF JULY.


The President, who had been close to despair over Meade's reluctance to follow up his victory at Gettysburg, was elated at the news and immediately had it wired to Meade in hopes of encouraging him to greater efforts. Lincoln did stop to put an arm around Gideon Welles' shoulders and say: "What can we do for the Secretary of the Navy for this glorious intelligence? He is always giving us good news. I cannot in words tell you my joy over this result. It is great, Mr. Welles, it is great!"

Lincoln wasn't alone in his joy. There was celebration throughout the North. Churches rang bells and cities fired off cannon salutes. There was depression in the South over the defeat, as the perceptive among the Confederate leadership realized that their hopes of winning the war had just greatly faded. In hindsight, in fact, the Confederacy had just all but lost the war.

"It is now too late, I hope, for the enemy to attack the army here with any chance of success. The troops are in good spirits and everyone seems confident." Major General McClellan advised President Lincoln that "Captain Rodgers is doing all in his power in the kindest and most efficient manner." General Robert E. Lee came to the same conclusion in a letter to Confederate President Davis: ''The enemy is strongly posted in the neck formed by Herring creek and James River. . . The enemy's batteries occupy the ridge along which the Charles City road runs, north to the creek, and his gunboats lying below the mouth of the creek sweep the ground in front of his batteries Above his encampments which lie on the river, his gunboats also extend; where the ground is more favorable to be searched by their cannon. As far as I can now see there is no way to attack him to advantage; nor do I wish to expose the men to the destructive missiles of his gunboats . . . I fear he is too secure under cover of his boats to be driven from his position."

On July 4, the Confederate gunboat CSS Teaser, commanded by Lt. Hunter Davidson, was on the James River. It was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. It was sailing near Haxall's Landing, just north of City Point, when it encountered the side-wheel gunboat USS Maratanza. The Maratanza was commanded by Lt. Thomas H. Stevens.

A brief battle ensued between the two boats. Near the end of fight, the Maratanza fired a shot that hit and exploded in the Teaser's boiler. This effectively ended the naval battle. The Teaser was soon captured after being disabled. The Federals were surprised when they discovered the Teaser's mission.

On the first day of the 37th Congress, July 4, President Lincoln addressed the body in a joint session. The president listed the actions he had taken on his own authority: he had called up the militia; declared a blockade of the Confederacy; increased the regular military forces; suspended the writ habeas corpus; and committed the government to great expenditures. All this had been done without Congressional approval, and Lincoln needed that approval to proceed further.

He justified his actions by citing recent events: secession; seizure of Federal property; attacks on Fort Sumter, Harper's Ferry, and Norfolk; and the creation of an "insurrectionary government"; all events intended to destroy Federal authority. Lincoln expressed his intent to deal with the rebel government, as well as to recognize the new Unionist state government in western Virginia as the legitimate authority for that state. He denied the right of secession, and denied that the border states had a right to be neutral. This, he said, was "treason in effect", just another exercise in state defiance of the Federal government. This last remark clearly meant Kentucky. Lincoln was not being as cautious as he had been, since Congressional elections in that state on June 30 had revealed clear Unionist support among the Kentuckians.

Then the president dropped his bombshell: he requested 400,000 soldiers and $400,000,000 in funds to prosecute the conflict. Lincoln clearly expected a hard war. Finally, Lincoln expressed his hope that the Unionist majorities he believed, though the evidence in support was so far lacking, were lying quietly in the South would assert themselves, and spoke his belief that the Union could be reconstructed into an order directed by the Constitution and no different than that which existed before hostilities.

Reconciliation was unlikely; the mood of Congress was for war. The body did pass by an overwhelming majority a resolution proposed by Senator Andrew Johnson, a tough east Tennessee Unionist who had stayed in the Senate even though his state had left the Union, the only senator from a secessionist state to do so. Johnson's resolution stated that the war had been forced by Southern secessionists, and that the Federal government would prosecute the war simply to restore the Union and uphold the Constitution. The resolution stated there was no intent to either subjugate the South or to interfere with slavery. However, Congress still supported the drastic steps Lincoln had taken, voting him the resources he requested, and resolutions providing reassurances to the South were meaningless in the face of measures taken towards making war on it. The polarization was irreversible.

Despite the weakness of the pro-Southern antiwar faction, the dominance of the Republicans, and the hot rhetoric of the pro-war radicals, a bill to allow the government to seize the property of rebels led to intense dispute. At issue was one section in the bill that stated that slaves used in the Confederate war effort should be declared free. The border-state Congressmen protested angrily, calling this measure unconstitutional and a de facto proclamation of general emancipation in the rebel states. Republicans replied that it was simply a practical measure against rebels themselves, a formal endorsement of Ben Butler's policy concerning contrabands. The radicals used the opportunity to blast their opponents, Thaddeus Stevens angrily responding:

Who pleads the Constitution against our proposed action? Who says the Constitution must come in, in bar of our action? It is the advocates of rebels, of rebels who have sought to overthrow the Constitution and trample it in the dust ... I deny that they have any right to invoke this Constitution ... I deny that they can be permitted to come here and tell us we must be loyal to the Constitution.

The measure was adopted.

Walt Whitman's first edition of the self-published Leaves of Grass is printed, containing a dozen poems. Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, and raised in Brooklyn. He left school at the age of 14 to become a journeyman printer and later worked as a teacher, journalist, editor, and carpenter to support his writing. In 1855, he self-publishes Leaves of Grass, which carried his picture but not his name. He revised the book many times, constantly adding and rewriting poems.

The second edition, in 1856, included his "Sundown Poem," later called "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," one of his most beloved pieces. Whitman sometimes took long ferry and coach rides as an excuse to talk with people, and was also fond of long walks and cultural events in Manhattan.

In 1862, Whitman's brother was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Whitman went to care for him. He spent the rest of the war comforting both Union and Confederate soldiers. After the war, Whitman worked for several government departments until 1873, when he suffered a stroke. He spent the rest of his life in Camden, New Jersey, and continued to issue revised editions of Leaves of Grass until shortly before his death in 1892.