and memorable tribute to the private soldier of the Confederacy. He wrote: "To the private soldier a fair word of praise is due, and though it is so seldom given and so rarely expected, that it may be considered out of place, I cannot, in justice to myself, withhold the opinion ever entertained, and so often expressed during our struggle for independence. In the absence of instructions and discipline of our armies, and of the confidence which long associations produce between veterans, we have, in a great measure, to trust to the individuality and self-reliance of the private soldier. Without the incentive or the motive which controls the officer, who hopes to live in history, without the hope of reward, actuated only by a sense of duty and patriotism, he has in this great contest justly judged that the cause was his own, and gone into it with a determination to conquer or die, to be free or not to be at all. No encomium is too high, no honour too great for such a soldier. However much of credit and glory may be given, and probably justly given, to the leaders in the struggle, history will yet award the main honour, where it is due, to the private soldier, who, without hope of reward, and with no other incentive than a conscientiousness of rectitude, has encountered all the hardships, and has suffered all the privations. Well has it been said: The first monument our Confederacy raises, when our independence shall have been won, should be a lofty shaft, pure and spotless, bearing this inscription: 'To the unknown and unrecorded dead." OPERATIONS IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. In other quarters of the war less important than Virginia and Tennessee, the latter part of the year 1862 was without considerable interest. Since the commands of Price and Van Dorn had moved east of the Mississippi, the campaign in the extensive country west of that river had become feeble and irregular. It was marked, however, by one battle-that of Prairie Grove-the dimensions of which were large for that campaign, and the results of no little importance to the country of the Trans-Mississippi. In the latter months of 1862, Maj.-Gen. T. C. Hindman was commanding what was known as the District of Arkansas. Lieut.-Gen. Homes was commanding the Trans-Mississippi department, with his headquarters at Little Rock. Gen. Blunt, commanding about seven thousand Federal troops, had advanced from Springfield as far as Cane Hill, Arkansas, driving Gen. Marmaduke, who was commanding a small division of cavalry. Gen. Hindman, with about eight thousand Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas infantry and artillery, was at Van Buren. It was considered necessary to oppose the further advance of Blunt; and accordingly, on the OPERATIONS IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. 353 1st December, Gen. Hindman put his whole force in motion to meet the enemy, and, if possible, drive him back, as a large supply of quartermaster and commissary stores had been collected at Van Buren. Owing to delays occasioned by crossing the river and the bad condition of our transportation, the command did not reach the camp on Cove Creek until the evening of the 5th. The position was six miles from Cane Hill, the same where Gen. Price halted on his retreat from Springfield in the winter of 1861. When Gen. Hindman reached this place, he learned that Blunt was camped at Cane Hill, and that Gen. Herron, with five thousand men, was pushing on rapidly from Springfield to reinforce him. It was immediately determined by Hindman to meet this latter force, and, defeating it, to turn upon Blunt, and force him to surrender. He issued an extravagant address to his soldiers, and designated the enemy opposed to them as a combination of "Pin Indians, free negroes, Southern tories, Kansas Jayhawkers, and hired Dutch cut-throats." He declared that unless this ruthless force was defeated, the country would be ruined. In order that Gen. Hindman's plan of operations might be effectual, it was necessary to engage Blunt's attention so as to prevent his falling back to Fayetteville, and forming a junction with Herron. For this purpose, early in the morning of the 6th December, a regiment of cavalry was sent to drive in the enemy's outposts nearest us. At sunrise, the 11th Missouri infantry were pushed forward as far as the cavalry had advanced, to deploy as if to invite attack. It only succeeded in developing a party of Indians, who declined attacking. In the evening, Hindman's whole force was moved up to the ground occupied by the 11th Missouri infantry, and a regiment of cavalry was ordered to drive in the skirmishers, and feel the main body. Some desultory fighting ensued, and continued until nightfall. Hindman's whole command, resting on their arms, were ordered to move at two o'clock in the morning on the roads towards Fayetteville, to attack Herron's force approaching the field of battle. A regiment of cavalry was ordered to remain with one battery of light field pieces, and to commence shelling the enemy in front at daylight. The next morning, the command struck the Fayetteville and Cane Hill road, and surprised the advance-guard of Herron's force, capturing two hundred prisoners. This success appears to have confused Gen. Hindman, and, instead of atacking Herron immediately and with vigour, he divided his force, sending Parsons' brigade in the direction of Cane Hill, as if expecting an attack from Blunt. Meanwhile, Blunt, anticipating a flank movement, had fallen back, and Hindman made a new disposition of his forces. But valuable time had been lost, and the attack was not made on Herron's force until half-past three o'clock in the afternoon. In our line of battle, the Arkansas troops were on the right flank, the First Missouri brigade forming the centre, the Second Missouri brigade the left, and the Texan troops the reserve. The action had scarcely commenced, when Gen. Blunt, who, having burned his stores and his train, had made a rapid movement, by an obscure road leading through a valley, reached the battle-field. The new force appeared upon the Confederate left. It was necessary for the First Missouri brigade to change its front from the east to the north, to meet the charge which the enemy was now preparing to make. Just as the evolu tion was completed, the combined forces of the enemy advanced to the charge. It was gallantly met by the two Missouri brigades. As night fell, the action was decided. The enemy was driven from the field; Blunt swinging around, uniting with Herron, and both retreating. The Federal forces fell back six miles. The evidences of victory were with the Confederates. Their loss was about two hundred killed and five hundred wounded; that of the enemy, by his own accounts, exceeded a thousand. It appears, however, that Hindman, who had blundered during the day, although he had yet succeeded in driving the combined forces of Herron and Blunt, was so impressed with the fact they had formed a junction, that he determined to retreat during the night. The wheels of his artillery were muffled, and the Confederates actually retreated from a field of victory. Thus terminated the battle of Prairie Grove (as it was called by the Confederates); the importance of which was that it virtually decided the war north of the Arkansas River. The country of the Trans-Mississippi suffered from peculiar causes in the war. A great part of it not only laboured under military incompetency; but singular disorders affected the whole population, and an enormous despotism cursed the land. Gen. Hindman, who had but a weak head in military matters, exhibited an iron hand in the management of other affairs, usurped all authority in the country he occupied, and exercised a tyrannical rule, that only finds a parallel in antique despotism. His conduct was made the subject of a special investigation in the Congress at Richmond. It was discovered that he had established within his military lines what he was pleased to call a "government ad interim." He superseded the entire civil authority; he deliberately amplified the conscription law by proclamation; he declared martial law throughout Arkansas and the northern portion of Texas; and he demanded, under the penalty of death, the services of all whom he had tyrannically embraced in his conscription lists. Crops were ravaged; cotton burned, or appropriated to unknown purposes; while straggling soldiers, belonging to distant commands, traversed the country, armed and lawless, robbing the people of their property under the pretence of "impressing" it for the Confederate service. To a great part of the country within the limits of his command Hindman extended no protection whatever. Hostile Indians CRUELTIES AND DISORDERS OF GEN. HINDMAN. 355 began collecting on the border, and Federal emissaries were busy among the Cherokees and Creeks, inciting disaffection. Detachments of Federal cavalry penetrated, at will, into various parts of the upper half of Arkansas, plundering and burning houses, stealing horses and slaves, destroying farming utensils, murdering men loyal to the Confederacy, or carrying them into captivity, forcing the oath of allegiance on the timid, and disseminating disloyal sentiments among the ignorant. Such a condition of affairs could not long be tolerated, although the statements of it were slow in reaching Richmond, and obtaining the just consideration of the Government there. The cruelties and disorders of Hindman-notoriously the favourite of President Davis-became at last so enormous in Arkansas, that it was unsafe that he should remain there longer, when he was brought across the Mississippi River, and assigned to some special duty. It was indeed remarkable that the people of the TransMississippi, with such an experience of maltreatment, and in spite of a conviction that the concerns of this distant portion of the Confederacy were grossly neglected at Richmond, should yet have, even to the latest period of the war, faithfully kept and fondly cherished their attachment to the vital principle of our struggle and the common cause of our arms. It was an exhibition of devotion and of extraordinary virtue in the Confederate States west of the Mississippi River that should be omitted in no historic record of the war. CHAPTER XXI. REVIEW OF POLITICAL QUESTIONS IN THE WAR.-THE THREAD OF ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION THE beginning of the year 1862-when the heavy operations of the war on land were suspended by the rigour of winter-presents a convenient period for review of some political questions in the war. The thread of Anti-Slavery legislation appeared for some time to have been broken with the decree of emancipation in the District of Columbia. President Lincoln evidently hesitated to identify his Administration further with the radical party in the war. A formidable opposition was gath ering in the North with especial reference to the Anti-Slavery acts of the Government at Washington; it was declared that these acts were divert |