they resisted most obstinately. We had captured in this time five pieces of artillery, and the enemy were at their last line. Just then our ammunition became exhausted. It was a trying time to all our troops. Their conduct, however, was above praise. They remained steadfast in line under a heavy fire, to which there was scarcely any reply. But as soon as cartridges were distributed, the men moved forward, and drove them again. Just at sunset, the Twenty-seventh Georgia, commanded by Colonel Zachry, made a furious attack upon the centre. This movement was seconded by a flank attack of the Sixth Georgia, Colonel Lofton, upon the enemy's right. They now broke and fled in great confusion. We pursued until dark. The Yankees did not halt until they had placed the St. Mary's river in their rear, twenty miles from the battle-field. The fruits of the victory were five pieces of artillery, two stands of colors, two thousand small arms, and five hundred prisoners. The enemy left upon the field three hundred and fifty dead. They also abandoned the severely wounded.

Our loss amounted to eighty killed and six hundred and fifty wounded. The fight was in the open pine woods peculiar to Florida. This accounts for the large number wounded in proportion to the killed. The enemy could not have lost less than two thousand killed and wounded. General Finnegan reported that the roads for three miles were strewn with the enemy's dead and wounded. More than one half of the two negro regiments that Seymour had placed in front were said to have been killed and wounded.

The enemy fell back to Jacksonville, forty-five miles from where they fought the battle. Our forces followed them along the road, and stragglers and wounded were picked up as they went. A lady reported that General Seymour passed along, looking haggard and pale, saying he had lost half of his troops.

The victory was a subject of extraordinary congratulation. Had the enemy been successful at Ocean Pond, there were not five hundred men between them and the capital, and, with the capture of our rolling stock at Lake City, they would soon have reached Tallahassee and fallen back on St. Mark's as a base, and by water held their communications perfectly. Viewed in this respect, it was one of the decisive battles of the war, and had preserved the State of Florida to the Confederacy.

The Yankee journals (probably for political reasons) were more candid in their admissions of defeat at Ocean Pond than on any other occasion of disaster to them in the war. An investigation was ordered in the Yankee Congress. The New York Herald declared that the whole movement grew out of the political jugglery for the next Presidency, and the whole thing was a trick to secure the electoral vote of Florida. It said that "a thousand lives were lost in the attempt to get three electoral votes."

SHERMAN'S EXPEDITION IN THE SOUTHWEST.

In the winter of 1864, the enemy had planned a grand military combination in the Southwest, which, properly viewed, was one of the greatest projects of the war. It was imperfectly known by the Confederates at the time, who, for many weeks vainly imagined the object of Sherman's movement into Mississippi at the head of an infantry column of thirty-five thousand men.

Events developed the scheme, and indicated Grant, the Yankees' present military idol, as its originator. It was the conceit of this General that the "rebellion" presented its most formidable front in North Georgia and that he was so circumstanced as to render it extremely difficult to turn his advantage, in the possession of Chattanooga, to account. His disadvantages were the enormous prolongation of the line connecting the front of operations with the base of supplies, the imperfect character of the communications, and the difficulty of accumulating sufficient supplies for a long and severe campaign in the Gulf States.

A New York paper declared that it had been recognized as a necessary condition to any advance from Chattanooga, looking to great and decisive results, that a water base be opened up, whence a powerful column should march to connect with, and support, the Union army advancing from Chattanooga. A possible point from which a water base could be opened up was Mobile.

It was known by the beginning of February that three distinct Yankee columns, from as many different points, were now

under way in the Southwest. A very powerful cavalry column, under command of Generals Smith and Grierson, had started from Corinth and Holly Springs. An infantry column, composed of the two corps of Hurlbut and McPherson, under command of General Sherman, was under way from Vicksburg. A combined land and naval expedition was moving from New Orleans.

While Mobile was the plain objective point at which the latter force aimed, it is probable that Sherman did not design to make an overland march from Vicksburg to Mobile-about three hundred miles. There is reason to believe that he expected, when he marched out of Vicksburg, to reach Selma, in Alabama. The heavy column of cavalry that started from Memphis, and constituted an important part of his forces, was to move rapidly across Mississippi and Alabama, cut the interior railway lines, destroy the bridges and Government workshops, lay waste the country, and gain the rear of General Polk, harass and delay his retreat, and, if possible, force him down towards Mobile, while Sherman rushed upon him in front. Had General Polk retreated upon Mobile, the attack upon which by the Federal fleets was calculated if not designed to draw him in that direction, Sherman would have occupied Meridian, Demopolis, and Selma, and thus have rendered his escape impossible, and the fall of Mobile, from lack of provisions and without a blow, a matter of absolute certainty. The possession of Mobile and Selma would have given the Federal commander two important water bases, the one on the Mississippi, at Vicksburg, the other at Mobile, on the Gulf, two navigable rivers communicating with the latter-the Alabama and Tombigbee-and two railways ready to hand, viz.: the Mobile and Ohio, and the Vicksburg and Jackson roads. Once in possession of these important points and his army firmly established in the triangle formed by the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, and the railroad leading from Selma to Demopolis and Meridian, and we should no more have been able to dislodge him from his position than we had been to drive the enemy from the Virginia Peninsula and Fortress Monroe.

It must be confessed that there were in these combinations the marks of a bold, brilliant, original conception. General Grant had contemplated, so to speak, the removal of the Mis

sissippi river from Vicksburg and New Orleans to Montgomery and Mobile; while at the same time the organization of this line would have operated as a flank movement upon General Johnston's army, and might have resulted in the fall of Atlanta, and the occupation by the legions of the enemy of the northern half of the great State of Georgia. He proposed thus to get possession of the only remaining line of defence which it was possible for the Confederates to take up when he should advance from Chattanooga. Military men of the North had recognized that, if the Confederates were once turned at Atlanta, the line of the Tombigbee was the only available position left them. The other line led directly into a cul-de-sac, ending in Florida. If, therefore, the present movements were successful, it would clutch this single position at which the Confederates could have hoped to make any protracted stand.

But Grant-and it will be found to be his characteristic fault-had overtasked himself. His formidable combination was to fail because too much was attempted, and because it was to be met by the Confederates with consummate skill and courage. The co-operating columns were too widely separated, were exposed to too many chances of failure, and were entrusted to too many different heads.

The expedition so largely planned was inaugurated by the moving of the first two columns. Sherman left Vicksburg the 1st of February, at the head of thirty-five thousand infantry, two or three thousand cavalry, and from sixty to eighty pieces of artillery. Almost simultaneously Grierson or Smith began their march through North Mississippi with about ten thousand cavalry and mounted infantry. Mobile, at the same time, was threatened by water with the enemy's fleet of gunboats, and by land from Pensacola and Pascagoula.

General Polk had recently been placed by the Confederate authorities in command of the Department of the Southwest. He assumed command late in December, and scarcely had more than familiarized himself with the command, and had but little time to organize his troops and collect together all the energies of his department.

General Polk took the field. Forrest was still detached from the main army, and remained so as to watch the movements of Grierson and his command. Sherman with his thirty

five thousand men could only be opposed by Loring, French, and Lee.

From Vicksburg the enemy moved very rapidly and vigorously on to Jackson, and from that point they threatened Meridian, the railroad centre of the Southwestern Department. At this time General Polk borrowed from the Mobile garrison two or three brigades to retard the enemy in order to enable him to save his supplies, which had accumulated at different points of the railroads for the past two years. It would have been the height of folly to have given the enemy battle under the circumstances. Our force, when strengthened by the reinforcements from Mobile, did not reach over half that of the enemy, inclusive of our cavalry.

With the additional force from Mobile the enemy was checked, enabling General Polk to save his accumulated stores and protect his supplies. The little army fell back from Brandon in perfect order-slowly and successfully. The enemy moved his bodies of infantry, artillery and cavalry, with caution and prudence. Lee hung upon his flanks and compelled him to move in compact column, giving him but little time to forage or to depredate upon the country. In the mean time General Polk, with all his acknowledged energy, was moving all his stores from points of the different railroads likely to fall into the enemy's hands.

On Sunday, the 14th, Lieutenant-general Polk evacuated Meridian, with his little army, heavily pressed by an enemy thirty-five thousand strong. Before the evacuation, however, every article belonging to the different departments of the Government had been moved. The rolling stock of four important railroads had been saved-not a car was left, and scarcely a wheel left. The locomotives and cars belonging to the Mobile and Ohio road were safely housed in Mobile. Those of the other roads were brought to the Tombigbee and safely placed upon the other side of the river. It was a literal and positive evacuation of this great railroad centre. The little town of Meridian stood lonely amid the silence of pine barrens, without a noise to disturb its solitude or to arouse its inhabitants. The garrison belonging to Mobile had been safely returned to their duties there, and Mobile was as safe as the department at Richmond intended it to be. General Polk retired to De