in their official reports at about 600 killed and wounded." After the battle Curtis fell back to Missouri, while Price and Van Dorn were ordered east of the Mississippi. March 11, the Army of the Ohio was added to the command of General Halleck, who directed all military operations from his headquarters at St. Louis. The Army of the Ohio at this time numbered, present and absent, 94.783 men; present for duty, 73,472 men. Of the latter number General Halleck designated 36,000, who besides protecting Kentucky and middle Tennessee were to be organized into two expeditions-one under Brigadier-General G. W. Morgan to move upon Cumberland Gap and if possible occupy East Tennessee; the other, under General Ò. M. Mitchell, was to advance into north Alabama and operate against the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. After the capture of Fort Donelson, an expedition, under the command of General C. F. Smith, was fitted out from the Army of the Tennessee and sent up the river to Eastport, Miss., to strike the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, but heavy rains having made the roads impassable the troops fell back and disembarked on the west bank at Pittsburg Landing, 25 miles from Corinth. March 17, General Grant resumed command at Savannah, and immediately ordered to Pittsburg Landing all his available troops. The Confederates in the meantime were not idle. Recognizing Corinth, the intersection of the two great lines of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio railroads, as the next objective point of the Union forces, General Albert Sidney Johnston summoned to its defense troops from Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Florida, until by the end of March he found himself at the head of an effective force of 40,000 men. March 15, General Buell, with the main body of the Army of the Ohio, composed of five divisions, numbering 37,000 men for duty, left Nashville via Columbia, to unite with General Grant at Savannah on the Tennessee River, 9 miles below Pittsburg Landing. Determined, if possible, to destroy the Army of the Tennessee before the impending junction could be effected, General Johnston left Corinth April 3, and on the 6th assaulted the Union lines at Shiloh. After a furious battle, lasting nearly a day, the last desperate charge was repulsed just as the leading division of Buell's army succeeded in crossing the river. Two more divisions coming up during the night the combined armies took the offensive in the morning, and after a severe engagement drove the enemy in disorder from the field. The five divisions of the Army of the Tennessee present at the beginning of the battle numbered 32,000. The subsequent arrival of the remaining division, which was on the right, at Crumps Landing, with the three divisions of Buell's army, increased the Union forces on the morning of the 7th to 59,000 men. The Confederate loss in killed and wounded and missing was 10,699. Among the killed was their commander, General Johnston. The Union loss was 1,700 killed, 7,495 wounded, and 3,022 missing, aggregate, 12,217. The losses in killed and wounded of the five divisions of the Army of the Tennessee, which bore the brunt of the battle, were 7,032, a Their loss is given in Medical History of War at 3,600 killed and 1,600 missing. b Sherman's Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 247. < General Beauregard's official report. or nearly one-fourth of the force engaged." At the same time General Beauregard was leading his shattered troops back to Corinth, victory again declared for the Union. Descending the Mississippi with an army of about 25,000 men, General Pope on the 7th and 8th of April in cooperation with the Navy, captured Island No. 10 with 6,700 prisoners. April 11, General Halleck took the field in person at Shiloh. April 13, General Pope appeared before Fort Pillow and made preparations to attack, but before they could be completed he received orders to march across to the Tennessee River. On his arrival at Shiloh, General Halleck reorganized the three armies into one; the right wing commanded by Major-General Thomas; the left wing by Major-General Buell; the center by Major-General Pope. General Grant held the nominal position of second in command. From the first to the middle of May, General Mitchel advancing from middle Tennessee destroyed about 100 miles of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, extending from Tuscumbia on the right, to Stephenson on the left. May 30, after fortifying, step by step, and consuming nearly six weeks in advancing less than 20 miles, General Halleck occupied Corinth, which the enemy evacuated the previous evening, falling back to Tupelo, Miss. June 6, the Navy destroyed the Confederate fleet above Memphis and the same day received the surrender of the city. June 7, General Negley, operating under General Mitchel, bombarded Chattanooga, from the north bank of the Tennessee.' June 15, General Morgan occupied Cumberland Gap. West of the Mississippi, General Curtis, on the 6th of May, advanced to Batesville and White River, whence he intended to march upon Little Rock; but receiving no supplies, besides losing a large part of his troops who were ordered to Corinth, he marched on the 26th of June for Clarendon, where he arrived on the 9th of July. Again disappointed in not meeting gunboats and supplies, he was compelled to cross over to Helena, on the Mississippi. While these operations for opening the Mississippi were proceeding, from the north, important events were taking place at its mouth. February 25, General Butler sailed from Hampton Roads with a force of 18,000 men to cooperate with the Navy in an attack upon New Orleans. April 24, after a brilliant engagement, Rear-Admiral Farragut destroyed the Confederate fleet and ran by the batteries of Forts St. Phillip and Jackson. April 25, anchored off New Orleans; demanded a The value of professional training again asserted itself in this battle. The only two general officers of military education and experience present on the first day of the struggle were Grant and Sherman, whose subsequent skill raised them to the grade of generals of our armies. Immediately after repelling the last assault General Grant ordered General Sherman, "to be ready to assume the offensive in the morning, saying that, as he had observed at Fort Donelson at the crisis of the battle, both sides seemed defeated, and whoever assumed the offensive was sure to win." (Sherman's Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 254.) In respect to General Sherman, General Halleck wrote, after arriving at Shiloh: "It is the unanimous opinion here that Brig. Gen. W. T. Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th and contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th." Van Horne's History of the Army of the Cumberland, vol. 1, p. 132. 15836-04 -18 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 heing 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. 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.@ 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. |