come to the Tallahatchie River, which runs south-east to the Yazoo, which empties into the Mississippi twelve miles above Memphis. It winds through the broad bottom-lands east of the Mississippi. The bluffs are fifty miles east of the river opposite Helena. The railroad is on the table-land still farther east. There are no towns in the bottom-landsonly plantations—but along the railroad are Abbeville, Grenada, and other places.

After the defeat of Van Dorn at Corinth, Jefferson Davis appointed General Pemberton to command the Confederate army. He was at Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. Van Dorn was in command of the troops along the Tallahatchie. He had twenty-four thousand men; there were six thousand at Vicksburg, nearly six thousand more at Port Hudson, with other troops, giving Pemberton in all forty thousand.

General Grant saw that a movement from Grand Junction along the railroad would bring the army in rear of Vicksburg, which would compel

the Confederates to evacuate that place. He moved south along the railroad. General Sherman advanced from Memphis November 24, 1862. General Hovey, with a portion of the troops at Helena, crossed the Mississippi and marched east, all three detachments moving towards Van Dorn, who retreated from the Tallahatchie southward, and took up a new position behind the Yallabusha River, another branch of the Yazoo.

General Grant reached Oxford, sixty miles south of Grand Junction. General Sherman was near him, at College Hill. They were one hundred and eighty miles from their base of supplies. All their flour and beef must be brought from Columbus over a single track. There were so few locomotives on the railroad that they could not do the required work. General Grant asked for more engines, but the War Department for some reason did not supply them. Foraging parties visited the plantations and brought in cows, calves, and sheep. Grant saw that if he went much farther he would not be able to feed the army, and decided to change his plan to send General Sherman back to Memphis, put his troops on steamboats, hasten down the river, ascend the Yazoo a short distance, and attack Vicksburg in the rear, while he with the rest of the army would march from Oxford and join him. When united it would be a powerful army, which would receive its supplies by the river.

The Confederate Government in Richmond saw the great danger which threatened the Confederacy, and President Davis hastened west, taking General Joseph E. Johnston with him, and appointing him commander of all the troops between the Mississippi and the Alleghanies. He visited Jackson and Vicksburg, and was cheered by the Confederate troops. Conscripts were coming by thousands, gathered in by the conscript officers.

We come to December 11. General Bragg is at Murfreesboro'; Rosecrans at Nashville, laying his plans. Bragg has nearly ten thousand cavalry. He sees a grand opportunity to cripple General Grant by destroying the railroad over which he receives his supplies, and sends General Forrest to do the work. On the morning of the 11th Forrest leaves Columbia, Tennessee, south of Nashville, moving west.

The Union scouts bring word to Rosecrans, who before night sends this despatch to General Grant: "Tell the commanders along the road to look out for Forrest."

General Forrest crossed the Tennessee at Clifton on an old flat-boat, swimming his horses. He had two thousand five hundred men. Twenty miles west of the river he came upon Colonel R. G. Ingersoll, commanding seven hundred Union cavalry. Ingersoll and more than two hundred

of his men were captured, the rest put to flight. Forrest had a skirmish with two regiments near Jackson. But he had not come to fight. He turns north, reaches the railroad, burns bridges, tears up the track, moving north to the Kentucky line, then turning south once more towards Lexington.

At Parker's Cross-roads, not far from Lexington, Tennessee, he is confronted by General Sullivan, sent by General Grant with two brigades to cut off his retreat. Forrest begins a battle, but is put to rout with a loss of six guns, three hundred men, and several wagons. He had done great damage-destroyed sixty miles of the railroad and killed, wounded, and captured nearly two thousand Union troops.

Grant was to receive a more disastrous blow. Van Dorn had three thousand five hundred cavalry. He knew that Grant's supplies were at Holly Springs, where there was a brigade under General Murphy. The Union cavalry was forty miles away, destroying the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Now was his opportunity. Putting himself at the head of his cavalry he started from Grenada, and made a rapid march.

"Be prepared for Confederate cavalry, and hold your position at all hazards," is the despatch sent by Grant to Murphy at Holly Springs, and to the commander at Grand Junction.

Murphy has one thousand five hundred men guarding the supplies piled up in the depot and surrounding buildings. At daylight the next

morning Van Dorn is upon him; and the cowardly Murphy, almost without firing a shot, surrenders his whole command. A few minutes later a cloud of black smoke darkens the sky. In an hour property worth one million five hundred thousand dollars is destroyed.

Murphy was court-martialled, disgraced, and dismissed from the service as a coward.

Van Dorn attacked a small body of Union troops at Davis's Mills and was repulsed. He advanced to Bolivar and was driven off by the brave men there. He was repulsed at Middleburg. All of which shows that Murphy might have defeated him, and saved the country from the disaster which upset Grant's plan and brought defeat to Sherman at Vicksburg, as we shall see.

A great fleet of steamboats, with the divisions of Generals A. J. Smith, Morgan L. Smith, and George W. Morgan cast loose from Memphis and descended the Mississippi, to be joined at Helena by General Steele's division, making an army of thirty-two thousand with sixty cannon. It was a magnificent sight. There were sixty-seven steamboats crowded with men, who clustered on the decks like bees upon a hive.

Twenty miles above Vicksburg A. J. Smith's division landed on the west side of the river, marched south-west and reached the railroad over which the cars were bringing provisions to Vicksburg The bridges were burned and the track destroyed. The steamboats went on to the mouth of the Yazoo, and sailed up that stream thirteen miles. The troops landed beneath the great cottonwood-trees on the bottom-lands. A. J. Smith, having destroyed the railroad, hastened on, and on December 27th the whole army was on shore.

General Sherman knew very little about the ground before him, or the Confederate forts and rifle-pits. He only knew that the Walnut Hills, as the bluffs above Vicksburg are called, were lined with forts and rifle-pits and breastworks; that thousands of slaves had been employed upon the intrenchments; that there were bayous, swamps, lakes, miry places, deep ravines, high hills, tangled thickets, and a Confederate army before him. He must feel his way.

He hoped to descend the river so rapidly that the Confederates would be taken by surprise; but before a soldier embarked at Memphis they knew all about the plan. Although Memphis had been captured, the people in that city were as much devoted to the Confederacy as ever. Along the river were detachments of cavalry, and as soon as the fleet started couriers rode with the news, so that the Confederates had full information of the movement. The troops which had been confronting

Grant along the line of the railroad were hurried west, and placed behind the intrenchments. Instead of six thousand, the Confederates numbered twelve thousand.

The bluffs were fully two hundred feet high, and the Union artillery might just as well have been left at Memphis.

General Sherman knew nothing of what had happened at Holly Springs. He expected to hear the thunder of Grant's guns in the rear of Vicksburg; he did not know that Grant, instead of advancing to join him, was falling back to Grand Junction because of the pusillanimous surrender of Murphy.

General A. J Smith's division was on the right, then Morgan L. Smith's, then G. W Morgan's, and lastly General Steele's on the left. Morgan was to make the attack, supported by Steele, while the other two divisions were to make a demonstration only.

The engineers reconnoitred the ground. They found the bayou, which was from fifty to one hundred feet wide, passable only at two points-one a sand-bar, the other an old and narrow levee.

At daylight December 28th the troops advanced. They soon came