In the East things seemed to go wrong nearly always, and the West they seemed to go right nearly always.

It could not be chance continued so long.

He believed in his soul that it was Grant, the heroic Thomas, and the great fighting powers of the western men, used to all the roughness of life out-of-doors and on the border.
They turned their course toward the Mississippi and that afternoon they met a Union scout who told them that Grant, now in the very heart of the far South, was gathering his forces for a daring attack upon Grand Gulf, a Confederate fortress on the Mississippi.

In the North and at Washington his venture was regarded with alarm.

There was a telegram to him to stop, but it was sent too late.