Blue and Gray Weekly, No. 29

Blue and Gray Weekly, No. 29, February 24, 1905 This issue features "Up the Yazoo; or, the Boys in Blue with Sherman," by Lieutenant Harry Lee, a serialized military adventure. The Fairdale Blues, a company of young New York volunteers, serve on a Union gunboat under Admiral Porter and General Grant during the Mississippi campaign of 1863. When Captain Jack Clark's orderly company boards the same vessel as the rougher "Tiger Tails" unit, tensions erupt. The Tiger Tails' captain, the brutish Larry Legree, deliberately provokes the Blues. After Legree trips Jack, they agree to a bare-knuckled fight to determine discipline aboard ship. Despite Legree's greater muscle mass, Jack defeats him through superior boxing technique and speed. The Blues establish order. As tensions resolve, orders arrive to advance up the Yazoo River toward Vicksburg. The gunboat proceeds cautiously upriver while distant cannon fire signals approaching combat.