mclernon will say, you made a little progress and it doesn't much, but by the end of the day, on may 22nd, vicksburg still holds fast. now, why does he make this decision? there's several different that grant and i you know, i've discussed this with others and there's some that are of the opinion that grant should not have wasted lives and should not have attempted to take vicksburg and some of these are military folks who might argue with military folks about, you know, wasted lives. i'm certainly not going to do that. but i happen to think grant some pretty good reasons for doing this. first and foremost, he thinks the confederate army is dejected and will basically just roll over and play dead at the first force that is shown against it. remember, in the last two or three days or may, the 16th to champion hill and may the 17th, the big black river bridge, confederate army has taken a thumping, and they're very discouraged. the problem is grant doesn't realize that the troops that his army will encounter in their assaults on both them may the 19th and the 22nd are the two fresh div