NEAR VICKSBURG, MISS., June 8, 1863.
Maj. Gen. H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief:
Vicksburg is closely invested. I have a spare force of about 30,000 men with which to repel anything from the rear. This includes all I have ordered from West Tennessee. Johnston is concentrating a force at Canton, and now has a portion of it west of Big Black River. My troops have been north as far as Satartia, and on the ridge back of that point there is no force yet. I will make a waste of all the country I can between the two rivers. I am fortifying Haynes' Bluff, and will defend the line from here to that point at all hazards.
U.S. GRANT,
Major-general.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 1
(Serial No. 36), p. 41
