“Vicksburg is ours. Glory! Glory! Glory! I have just returned from the city and actually saw the heads, hides and entrails of mules which the rebels have been subsisting on for days. We all feel so joyful today. Even the poor sickly soldiers in the hospitals seem to revive, and look well again. Congress, at its next session, must be petitioned to add 24 hours to the 4th of July, making it 48 hours long, because hereafter we cannot possibly get done celebrating the day in 24 hours.” (Wisconsin State Journal, July 1863)