factors in making history. S. S. Prentiss was an orator of national reputation and an eminent lawyer. Others worthy of mention are: Judge W. L. Sharkey, one of the most learned jurists of the Southwest; Governor John J. Guion; Governor McNutt; Walter Brooks; United States Senator George Yerger; a great lawyer, Joseph Holt, in later life Attorney-General of the United States. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, Senator in Congress and a gallant and distinguished soldier, lived the greater part of his life in Warren County, a few miles south of the city.
We now come to that period in the history of Vicksburg, when, during the Civil War, for a time the even current of commercial and business life gave place to a series of events, perhaps the most notable and far-reaching in influence on the shifting fortunes and results of the great conflict. The bluffs at Vicksburg are of pre-eminent importance as a strategic point to the complete control of the great river which almost divides the continent from south to north, penetrates the upper valley nearly to the great chain of lakes, and with its affluents affords about fifteen thousand miles of navigation. No object contributing to the
