be abolished. This opinion was regarded by the regular officers as very singular, and under the circumstances as a bid for popularity in the volunteer service. General Grant was little known to the officers of the regular army; while General Smith, by his long and distinguished services, was not only well known, but very highly esteemed.

General Grant was impressed with the conviction that a movement on Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, should be made at once; and General Smith coincided with him. Grant asked permission, which was granted, to proceed to St. Louis to lay the matter before General Halleck, who a short time before had succeeded General Frémont in the command of the Department of the Missouri. He was received with but little cordiality, and before he had fully unfolded his plan he was abruptly cut off, and the interview soon ended. He returned to Cairo a good deal crestfallen, and feeling that possibly he had committed a blunder. Some two months later, however, General Halleck authorized him to carry out the idea he had suggested at their last meeting; namely, of sending an expedition against Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

The expedition up the Tennessee River started early in February, and was commanded by General Grant, with General Smith as second in command. On the 6th of February Fort Henry was captured; and on the 16th Fort Donelson, after a short siege and bloody battle, capitulated. The last-named was the first decisive and important victory won by Union forces in the West, and it sent a thrill of joy throughout the North. General Grant was regarded by the loyal people of the country. as a hero, and his praises were sounded by all. As soon as General Halleck learned of the surrender of Fort Donelson, he telegraphed to General McClellan to make General Smith a major-general, for, he said, “He, by his coolness and bravery when the battle was against

us, turned the tide and carried the enemy's outworks. Honor him for this victory, and the whole country will applaud." This request was not granted; but both Grant and Smith were soon after promoted to the rank of major-general, the former still as the senior. General Smith was entirely ignorant of any effort made to place him over General Grant, for whom, I know, he had genuine esteem, and in whom he had the utmost confidence. He seemed to take pride in the success and advancement of his old West Point pupil, who was noted in his class, as he once remarked, for his modesty, superior horsemanship, and proficiency in mathematics.

A short time after the surrender of Fort Donelson, General McClellan, at the suggestion of General Halleck, placed General Grant in arrest, ostensibly for leaving his command and proceeding to Nashville, beyond the limits. of his district, to consult with General Buell (whose army was believed to be in a critical situation); for gross neglect of duty in failing to furnish the Department Commander daily reports giving the strength and position of his command; and for irregularity in his habits. General Halleck's conduct in this matter showed how persistent and unscrupulous he was in his determination to raise Smith above Grant. Satisfactory explanations were soon after made by General Grant, and a few weeks later he was relieved from arrest, and assumed the command of his old army. About the middle of March he was at Savannah on the Tennessee River, organizing into brigades and divisions the new troops assigned to him, with General Smith in command of the camp at Pittsburg Landing, eight miles above Savannah, on the west bank of the river. This concentration of troops at Pittsburg Landing was preparatory to a movement on Corinth, - a point of great strategic importance at the junction of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio River Railroads, where General Albert Sidney Johnston had massed a large force of Confederates.

On the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, was fought, near Pittsburg Landing, the hotly contested and sanguinary battle of Shiloh. Of this battle General Grant afterward said, It was the most severe battle fought in the West, and but few in the East equalled it for hard and determined fighting."

Persistent efforts have been made to show that General Grant would have suffered defeat at this battle but for the timely arrival of General Buell's army. In a recent number of the "Century Magazine" is a long and carefully prepared paper from the pen of General Buell, who commanded the Army of the Ohio, in which the author attempts to prove that to his army was due the defeat of the Confederates. The paper is a tissue of "special pleading," and would not, I am sure, have been published had General Grant been living. The opposing forces at this battle were nearly equal in number, the Confederates having a few thousands the more; but the Union Army had been depleted in the early morning of the 6th by the demoralization of five or six thousand men, mostly fresh troops who left the front and fled to the river; and by the defection of General Lew Wallace's division of over six thousand men, who, on account of General Wallace's failure correctly to understand orders, did not reach the battlefield until evening, and after the first day's fighting was over.

At about half-past four o'clock of the 6th, having been driven back with my regiment from the extreme left, after six hours' of hard fighting, I met General Grant near the Landing, just after he had made his last visit to the front. After a few commonplace remarks, he said, "Colonel, you had better take your regiment to its old quarters for the night. The enemy has done all he can. do to-day, and to-morrow morning, with the fresh troops we shall have, we will finish him up." He was calm and confident, and seemed to know intuitively the condition. of the Confederate forces. By two o'clock of the next

day the enemy had been driven from the field, and was retreating hurriedly and in great demoralization toward Corinth. General Grant would have made a vigorous pursuit, had not orders been received from General Halleck not to pursue. Why this order was given was always an enigma to General Grant. I have always been of the opinion that had General Buell not reached Pittsburg Landing on the evening of the 6th, with a portion. of his army, General Grant would nevertheless, with the aid of General Wallace's division of veterans and the return to the ranks of the greater part of the men who had fled panic-stricken to the rear, have won a victory before the close of the second day. The fact is that the Confederates were virtually defeated when General Albert Sidney Johnston fell, mortally wounded, at three o'clock of the first day, while leading a brigade in a desperate charge. Had General Smith been on the ground prior to the battle, and able to participate in it, I have no doubt the partial surprise of the early morning of the 6th would have been avoided, and a decisive victory gained by four o'clock of the first day. This gallant officer had been sick in a hospital at Savannah for over a week before the battle, and he died fifteen days after. His death was a severe and almost irreparable loss to the Army of the Tennessee.

Soon after the battle of Shiloh, General Halleck appeared on the field and assumed the command of all the troops, with General Grant as second in command. General Halleck at once began a movement on Corinth, twenty miles distant from Pittsburg Landing, where the Confederates under General Beauregard were strongly intrenched. By the 10th day of May, having been reenforced by General Pope's army of thirty thousand. men, General Halleck had under him an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men, nearly all veterans. It was as splendid an army as was ever seen on this continent, and was commanded by such able and experienced

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officers as Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Pope, Logan, Buell, and Rosecrans. The advance on Corinth was, however, slow and unnecessarily cautious. The army intrenched itself after every advance, and by the 25th of May was still a mile from the enemy's outer works and over two miles from the town. General Grant was ostensibly in command of the right wing and the reserve, but in fact only of the reserve, composed of the divisions under Generals Lew Wallace and McClernand. General Thomas commanded the right wing, General Buell the centre, and General Pope the left. General Halleck, apparently to show his contempt for General Grant, during the advance on and siege of Corinth, ignored him entirely, and sent all his orders directly to the division commanders of the reserve, a proceeding at once unusual and unmilitary. General Grant during all these operations was as useless as the fifth wheel to a coach. He felt the indignity keenly, but bore it uncomplainingly, except twice, when, out of sheer desperation, he asked to be relieved of his command; but no notice was taken of his requests. Some ten days before the evacuation of Corinth, he modestly suggested to General Halleck that were a feint in force made by the left and centre, he believed the right could easily charge over the enemy's works. He thought he had information that justified such a movement. General Halleck received the suggestion coldly, and treated it as being entirely impracticable. It soon became evident, however, that had the suggestion been acted upon, success would have been the result, Corinth captured, and a substantial victory won. On the last day of May, Corinth was evacuated by the Confederates; and when Halleck's grand army entered the place nothing was found there but a few Quaker guns, a lot of burning army beans, and a few score of sick and disabled Creole soldiers in a hotel used as a hospital. The victory was indeed a barren one.

After the occupancy of Corinth, it was General Grant's

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