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6o2 Reviews of Books Fall of Vicksburg," in which the author describes how Grant sought to wrest from the Confederates control of the two hundred and fifty miles of the Mississippi between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, whereby they main- tained communication with their territory west of the great river. Any narrative of these operations must furnish a remarkable testi- monial to the skill, resource and extraordinary tenacity of the great captain, and to the patience and endurance of the troops he commanded ; but the story has never before been told so graphically and with such power as Mr. Fiske tells it, and its interest is greatly enhanced by the description of the part taken by the fleet. The conditions, especially topographical, under which the war in the West was conducted, permitted and demanded strategic operations on a grand scale to a greater extent than was possible or necessary in the region wherein the armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia con- fronted each other. The much smaller area in which these armies operated, and the less number of objective points whose seizure promised strategic advantages, limited their capacity in this regard, and required instead skillful, tactical maneuvering which might enable battle to be de- livered at advantage. But in the valley of the Mississippi, penetrated in all directions by Jiavigable streams connecting with each other, traversed centrally by railroad lines affording both means for offensive operations and ready communication over great distances, and full of objective points inviting attack and demanding defense because their capture or loss involved far-reaching consequences — -in this vast field, opportunity was offered for the exercise of strategic ability of the highest order. Mr. Fiske has exhibited, in brief compass, but very clearly, this feature of the conflict. Basil W. Duke. Military Reminiscences of the Civil War. By General J.a.cob D. Cox. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1900. Two vols., pp. xvii, 549 ; xvi, 596.) Few if any volumes pertaining to the Civil War equal these in inter- est. They cover not only the military features of campaigns, but inter- woven with these are incidents and the personal and political features at- tending the movements. The whole flows smoothly on in the scholarly and agreeable style of which General Cox was a master. He had wide experience in the war, having been prominent in the three months' ser- vice in West Virginia, in Pope's campaign, in the Antietam, Knoxville, Atlanta, and Nashville campaigns, and, at last, before Wilmington, and in the final operations against Johnston in North Carolina. His was, therefore, a wide field of observation, and his relations to the leading commanders were such as to give him exceptional advantages. The chapter on the outbreak of the war vividly recalls the rush and the unanimity with which the North, without regard to party, accepted the challenge at Sumter. The details of mobilization at Camp Denni-