The constant shelling did not bother him as much as the loss of his food. As the siege wore on, fewer and fewer horses, mules, and dogs were seen wandering about Vicksburg. Shoe leather became a last resort of sustenance for many adults.
If the graph of a quadratic function has two x-intercepts, then the line of symmetry is the vertical line through the midpoint of the x-intercepts. The x-intercepts of the graph above are at -5 and 3. The line of symmetry goes through -1, which is the average of -5 and 3. (-5 + 3)/2 = -2/2 = -1.
The slope-intercept form is simply the way of writing the equation of a line so that the slope (steepness) and y-intercept (where the line crosses the vertical y-axis) are immediately apparent. Often, this form is called y = mx + b form. This form of a line is one of the most commonly used in algebra classes.