Such ignorance of the geographic importance of Vicksburg may seem like wilful misleading of the public; but professed British military experts were equally ignorant.

Captain Chesney, Professor of Military History at Sandhurst College, published in 1863, an analysis of American campaigns, centering all attention on the battles in Maryland and Virginia and reaching the conclusion that the South could resist, indefinitely, any Northern attack[1077].

He dismissed the western campaigns as of no real significance.

W.H.Russell, now editor of the _Army and Navy Gazette_, better understood Grant's objectives on the Mississippi but believed Northern reconquest of the South to the point of restoration of the Union to be impossible.

If, however, newspaper comments on the success of Southern armies were to be regarded as favourable to Roebuck's motion for recognition, W.H.Russell was against it.
"If we could perceive the smallest prospect of awaking the North to the truth, or of saving the South from the loss and trials of the contest by recognition, we would vote for it to-morrow.