Imma drag Vicksburg into it just to cross-check for bias.
Let's see how Professor Simpson does on Vicksburg:
Page 172: "Absent a major blunder by McClernand, the only way Grant could nullify him would be by taking Vicksburg" [No, Grant nullified him thru a mere technicality and not even a minor blunder, and it was before taking Vicksburg. In fact, Halleck gave him authority to nullify McClernand without reason.]
Page 173: On the Vicksburg canal, "Grant thought little of this particular effort ...." [The fact is that Grant acted as if he expected important results from this. ("Work on the canal is progressing as rapidly as possible.")]
Page 174: "Soon reports circulated that Grant's men, exposed to the swamps, were sick and dying at an alarming rate. These stories had a slim foundation in fact." [Statistics on illness and death contradict this. See U.S. Army,
Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.]
The next several pages are mostly on non-campaign issues, such as Grant's drinking, but include Simpson's egregious misquotation that "Halstead was blunt: 'How is it that Grant who was behind at Ft. Henry, drunk at Donelson, surprised and whipped at Shiloh and driven back from Oxford, Miss. , is still in command?' he thundered." on Page 177.
On the same page Simpson wrote that, "It had been Rosecrans who had whispered tales of an intoxicated Grant to another Commercial reporter the previous fall." [Evidence in PUSG and elsewhere does not confirm this. Long ago, online, I asked for his proof and he offered none. It's a hugely serious allegation, with apparently no documentation, besides Legget's thinking it might have been Rosey.]
Page 181: "Grant sent McPherson and a combined army-navy force to Yazoo Pass with orders to clear out the river and create a passage for transports and ironclads" [McPherson didn't go to Yazoo Pass.]
Page 189: On the second passage, "Although Vicksburg's cannon succeeded in disabling only one steamer, the Tigress (of Shiloh fame), the loss was serious because it was carrying the medical stores that would be so sorely needed after a battle." [Tigress was more than disabled. Grant to Meigs: "This will probably be forwarded to you with the papers intended to secure payment for the Steamer 'Tigress,' lost in running the Vicksburg Batteries." Grant tried to get increased compensation for his friend, the owner.]
Page 202: ""Just as Lawler led his men forward, an officer rode up to Grant. It was General William Dwight, one of Banks's staff officers, with a copy of a message from Halleck to Banks, also dated May 11, urging Banks to take the same course of action Halleck had recommended to Grant, adding that united action would render success "almost certain." Dwight, interpreting these messages as orders, implored Grant to break off his campaign and comply with Halleck's wishes. Grant declined. No one was going to stop him from taking Vicksburg. In later years he would confuse the arrival of Halleck's dispatch to him with that carried by the staff officer, and report that he had chosen to ignore what he termed an 'order.'" [Grant wasn't the only one confused. As opposed to Simpson's suppositions, Dwight's contemporary letter shows that he did not even get to the Champion Hill until 10 pm of the day of the battle, so he could not have been at Big Black River Bridge. He did not implore Grant "to break off his campaign." In fact, he wrote that so impressed was he with Grant's brilliant success up to that point, "I withheld these views from all but Genl Grant, and in a private conversation with him I only hinted at that plan of campaign as the one which had seemed to Genl Banks the most probable." He even offered his services to Grant.]
203: Simpson described the "rolling terrain and bluffs east of the city" [Really, it's deeply incised loess, which is not a "rolling" landscape.]
I'll stop here, but will note that Simpson's whole description of Grant's drunkenness on the trip up the Yazoo is an exercise of rank apologism.
Bringing the