and received its surrender, May 1. The troops, without loss, occupied the city. From New Orleans Farragut steamed up the river and successfully took possession of Baton Rouge and Natchez. June 28, having assembled his squadron, including the mortar fleet used in the reduction of the forts below New Orleans, he bombarded the batteries at Vicksburg, but being unable to reduce them, he repeated his previous exploit-ran past them and communicated with the gunboats which had come down from Cairo.

Thus, before the middle of the year 1862, the Navy, that branch of the public defense which has always been national in its organization and training, had the honor of carrying the flag of the Union throughout the length of the Mississippi.

After this success, Rear-Admiral Farragut again ran past the batteries, returned to New Orleans, and thence proceeded to Pensacola. While the fleet was assembling at Vicksburg prepartory to bombarding the batteries, a division of troops under General Thomas Williams had accompanied the expedition, sought to divert the river from its channel by digging a canal across the narrow neck immediately west of the city; the task being too great, the troops returned with the fleet to New Orleans. With the occupation of the latter city but one more movement was necessary to open the Mississippi and sever the Confederacy.

The skillful concentration of the armies of the Ohio, Tennessee, and the Mississippi, with reenforcements from Missouri and Arkansas, gave General Halleck a force of not less than 120,000 bayonets; by drawing other troops from Kentucky and Tennessee the aggregate might further have been increased to 160,000.

Two hundred miles south of Corinth lay the Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad, the only line which now connected the Trans-Mississippi with the east. To defend it, even by calling all the troops from the west of the river, the enemy could not have assembled an army of 80,000 men. As appears since the war, the Confederate force at Corinth numbered but 47,000 men."

According to the probabilities of war, had General Halleck advanced upon Jackson, the Mississippi might have been opened and the Confederacy cut in twain during the fall of 1862, but instead of adhering to the policy of concentration he unfortunately resolved to divide and scatter his army. After pursuing the enemy about 30 miles south of Corinth, General Buell, with the Army of the Ohio, was ordered to move upon Chattanooga, while General Grant, reduced to the defensive, was left in command of the district of West Tennessee.

In June, General Pope was ordered to the East, and the following month General Halleck was summoned to Washington to assume the position of General in Chief. The departure of General Halleck without appointing a successor left the troops in his department under three independent commanders. The months of June, July, and August were consumed by the Army of the Ohio in rebuilding the Memphis and Charleston Railroad and reestablishing the communications in middle Tennessee and north Alabama. After the evacuation of Corinth, General Beauregard was superseded by General Bragg. The latter, as soon as the Army of the Ohio began its march eastward, left Mississippi to the care of Van Dorn and Price, who were withdrawn from Arkansas, and, with the remainder of the army, proceeded to Chattanooga.

a Pollard's Lost Cause, p. 321.

Farther to the East another Confederate force, under Kirby Smith, but subject to the orders of General Bragg, threatened Cumberland Gap. At the end of the first period, our troops in the West were distributed as follows: General Curtis at Helena, Ark.; the Army of the Tennessee in west Tennessee, the right at Memphis, the center at Bolivar and Jackson, the left at Corinth. The Army of the Ohio, the right near Florence, Ala., the center on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, and the left near McMinnville. Further to the left, General Morgan faced Cumberland Gap. From Memphis to McMinnville the distance was 300 miles, traversed by two formidable rivers, the Mississippi and the Tennessee; the front of operation of the western army extending from Helena to Cumberland Gap, exceeded 500 miles. In the two great theaters of war, East and West, our troops under eight independent commanders, occupied at the close of the first period a front of not less than 750 miles.

SECOND PERIOD.

During this period the Government and the Confederates conducted the war on contrary principles. The Government sought to save the Union by fighting as a Confederacy; the Confederates sought to destroy it by fighting as a nation. The Government recognized the States, appealed to them for troops, adhered to voluntary enlistments, gave the governors power to appoint all commissioned officers and encouraged them to organize new regiments. The Confederates abandoned State sovereignty, appealed directly to the people, took away from them the power to appoint commissioned officers, vested their appointment in the Confederate President, refused to organize war regiments, abandoned voluntary enlistments, and, adopting the republican principle that every citizen owes his country military service, called into the army every white man between the ages of 18 and 35.

The effect of this draft, which was inaugurated by Virginia in the month of February and adopted by the Confederate Congress on the 16th of April, was to add to the Virginia contingent during the month of March, nearly 30,000 men. The quotas of other States were increased in the same manner."

As these men poured into the old organizations, three months sufficed to make them efficient.

Profiting by the division of the Union forces, the Confederates began the military operations of the second period in the Shenandoah Valley. Leaving a force to detain General Banks, General Stonewall Jackson, on the 8th of May, defeated at McDowell, W. Va., two brigades of the Mountain Department, commanded by Generals Schenck and Milroy. Next returning to the Department of the Shenandoah he defeated General Banks at Winchester on the 25th of May and compelled him to retreat across the Potomac. Under orders from Richmond he continued his march northward May 28, and on the 29th appeared before Harper's Ferry. Hearing of movements to intercept his retreat, he fell back on the 30th; slipped between the forces of Fremont and Shields, June 1, near Strasburg; repulsed the attack of Fremont at Cross Keys, June 7; and crossing the Shenandoah defeated two brigades of Shields's division at Port Republic on the 9th. June 17, with 16,000 men, he began his march to Richmond."

a Johnston's Narrative of Military Operations, p. 108.
Johnston's Narrative of Military Operations, pp. 108, 145.

Pursuing the policy of concentration, the Confederates called 15,000 men to the same point from North Carolina and 22,000 from South Carolina and Georgia. June 26, the troops of the Mountain Department and the Departments of the Shenandoah and Rappahannock were organized into the Army of Virginia, commanded by Major-General Pope. The concentration at Richmond having been effected, General Lee began the series of battles which resulted in raising the siege of the Confederate capital and in compelling the Army of the Potomac to retreat to the James River, at Harrison's Landing. These battles were: Mechanicsville, June 26; Gaines's Mills, June 27; Savage Station, June 29; White Oaks Swamp and Charles City Cross Roads, June 30, and Malvern Hill, July 1.

At Malvern Hill the enemy was repulsed with the loss of 5,000 men. The total Union losses in the Seven Days' battle were 15,249. The Confederates lost 16,833 killed and wounded and 752 missing; total, 17,583.a

The Army of the Potomac on the 26th of June numbered for duty 115,102. The Confederates approximated 95,000. July 11, General Halleck was appointed General in Chief.

An effort was made to unite the armies of the Potomac and Virginia on the line of the Rappahannock. July 30, General McClellan was ordered to send away the sick of the Army of the Potomac. August 1, General Burnside, who had been withdrawn from North Carolina to Fort Monroe, was ordered to embark for Aquia Creek. August 3, the Army of the Potomac was ordered to withdraw from the Peninsula and embark for the same point. August 14, after sending off its sick and stores, it began the march from Harrison's Landing to Fort Monroe, whence, as fast as transports could be procured, it proceeded to Aquia Creek and Alexandria.

In the meantime the enemy began to move northward. August 9, General Jackson attacked General Banks at Cedar Mountain, and after a severe battle retired across the Rapidan to await the arrival of the main body.

August 29 and 30, the Confederates gained the second battle of Bull Run; September 4, they crossed the Potomac; September 8, General Lee, at Frederick, issued his proclamation inviting the people of Maryland to join the flag of secession.

Their success in the West was no less alarming; By means of conscription, General Bragg's army was increased to 50,000 men; at the head of two corps he crossed the Tennessee River east of Chattanooga on the 24th of August; turned Buell's left flank; threatened Nashville; crossed the Kentucky line September 5; captured Mumfordsville on the 17th, with its garrison of 4,000 men, and thence threatening Louisville, marched to Bardstown and Frankfort. At the same time, Kirby Smith, commanding the Third Corps, passed through Cumberland Gap, defeated the forces of General Nelson (formerly Morgan's), at Richmond, Ky., August 29, inflicting a loss of 1,000 killed and 5,000 prisoners, and thence, via Lexington, moved to Cynthiana, within 50 miles of Cincinnati. From Cynthiana he turned backward and joined the main body at Frankfort. These movements at once neutralized all the summer operations of the Army of the Ohio subsequent to its departure from Corinth.

a Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, p. 1.
Swinton's The Army of the Potomac, p. 151.

Abandoning the railroads and all the positions occupied in north Alabama and southern Tennessee, General Buell, on the 30th of August, ordered his army to concentrate at Mumfordsville. Without halting he next moved to Nashville, where, still compelled to follow the lead of his adversary, he left a sufficient garrison for its defense and then began the series of marches which did not terminate till the 23d of September, when he reached Louisville, on the Ohio River.

The chances of disaster at the beginning of the second period, were apparently greater in the district of west Tennessee than in either Kentucky or Virginia. After the breaking up of the great army at Corinth, General Grant, in the course of the summer, was required to detach four divisions to join the Army of the Ohio. Later, when it began its retreat to the Ohio, he was ordered to send troops by water to defend Louisville, then in imminent danger of capture. These reductions left him with about 42,000 men to hold the fortified posts extending from Memphis to Corinth.

September 13, General Price seized Iuka, apparently intending to move into middle Tennessee. September 19, General Ord, under the orders of General Grant, approached Iuka from Corinth, General Rosecrans from Rienzi. The latter successfully attacked Price a little south of luka, who escaped via Fulton, by the only road that was left open. The disposition of troops in the district of west Tennessee on the 1st of October was approximately as follows: Memphis, 6,000 men; Bolivar, 8,000 men; General Grant's headquarters at Jackson, with 3,000 men; Corinth, 19,000 men.

October 4, Generals Van Dorn and Price, with a force estimated at 38,000, attacked General Rosecrans in his entrenchments at Corinth and were defeated with a loss of nearly 5,000 men." The Union loss was 315 killed, 1,812 wounded, and 232 missing. General Rosecrans, in his report, stated the enemy's killed and buried to be 1,424. The wounded he estimated at exceeding 5,000.

b

The Confederates admitted" loss of 594 killed, 2,162 wounded, and 2,102 missing. With the exception of the victories of Iuka and Corinth an unbroken chain of disasters marked the second period of 1862. The withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac from the James River to Washington and Alexandria, the retreat of the Army of Virginia from the Rappahannock to the Potomac, the invasion of Maryland, and the retreat of the Army of the Ohio to Louisville, produced a depression in the public mind nearly as great as that which succeeded the battle of Bull Run.

THIRD PERIOD.

As soon as the Army of Virginia returned to Washington, General Pope, at his own request, was ordered to the West, the command of all the troops around the capital devolving on General McClellan.

Crossing into Maryland, the advance of the Army of the Potomac reached Frederick on the 12th of September. Here General McClellan learned, through a despatch picked up in the enemy's camp, that General Lee, with a view to capturing Harper's Ferry, had divided and

a Rosecrans's report. Pollard gives Rosecrans's force at 15,000, with 8,000 at various outposts from 12 to 15 miles distant. Van Dorn's and Price's forces he estimates at

22,000. (Pollard's Lost Cause, p. 335.)

Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, p. lix. e Draper's History of the American Civil War, vol. 2, p. 317.

scattered his army. Three divisions under General Jackson were sent via Williamsport and Martinsburg, to approach from the rear by Bolivar Heights; another division was ordered to cross the Potomac below Harper's Ferry and seize Loudoun Heights; two more divisions completed the investment from Maryland Heights. The troops from these various locations near Fredericksburg were to begin their movements on the 12th of September. The remainder of the Confederate Army took position in the vicinity of Boonsboro and Hagerstown. Hearing of the approach of the Army of the Potomac, which was hastened by the information conveyed by the captured despatch, General Lee ordered all his available troops back to South Mountain.

September 14, the Army of the Potomac, after a severe engagement, occupied Turner's and Crampton's Gaps. September 15, when the army was in a situation to defeat if not capture most of the Confederate forces north of the Potomac, Harper's Ferry surrendered with 12,000 men. September 17, the two armies joined in battle at Antietam. September 19, the Confederates gave up the invasion and retreated to Virginia. Their losses during the Maryland campaign were 10,291 killed and wounded; their losses in prisoners at the battles of Crampton's Gap, Turner's Gap, and Antietam were 6,000 men. The losses of the Army of the Potomac (Harper's Ferry not included) were, killed, wounded, and missing, 13,794.

a

Between the 26th of October and the 2d of November the Army of the Potomac again crossed into Virginia and directed its march toward Warrenton and Culpeper. November 7, by an order dated November 5, General McClellan was relieved from command and General Burnside named as his successor. After a halt of ten days near Warrenton the army changed its base to Aquia Creek. December 13, it was launched against the enemy's fortified position at Frederick and was repulsed with a loss of 12,321 killed, wounded, and missing. Protected by intrenchments, the Confederate losses were only 5,309.d On reaching Louisville, on the 25th of September, 30,000 troops, composed partly of the new levies of 1862 and partly of veterans drawn from the district of west Tennessee, were added to the Army of the Ohio. This reenforcement increased its strength to nearly 100,000 men. Reorganizing the army into three corps, General Buell left Louisville in pursuit of Bragg on the 1st of October; on the 8th the latter gave battle at Perryville, Ky., and thence retreating via Cum berland Gap to Chattanooga, again advanced and took up position at Murfreesboro, 30 miles south of Nashville.

The Confederate losses in the battle of Perryville were 2,500 killed, wounded, and missing, with 1,000 wounded left on the field. The Union losses were 3,859 killed and wounded, and 489 missing. At London, Ky., the pursuit was relinquished and the army ordered to Nashville. October 30, General Buell was relieved by General Rosecrans; at the same time the designation of the Army of the Ohio was changed to the Army of the Cumberland. December 26, after refitting at Nashville, the time also being employed in disciplining the new levies, the army again moved forward. December 31, while General

a General Lee's report, Swinton's History Army of the Potomac, p. 221. McClellan's Report.

p. lviii.

McClellan's Report and Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, d Swinton, p. 253.