hazards of a battle less than the hazards of a retreat. Moreover, he hoped that the report of his guns might bring General Blunt to his relief. Of course no other communication between them was then possible. Immediately bringing his batteries into position, he opened upon the enemy.

Meanwhile, General Blunt, learning that the rebels had passed him, commenced pursuit. He was five miles from the battle-field when his attention was attracted by the sound of the guns. At once divining the cause, he pushed rapidly forward. Between two and three o'clock his advance reached the field of battle, and suddenly opened upon the rebels an unexpected and destructive fire. Their purpose to fight a divided foe was defeated by the rapid marches and cordial coöperation of the two divisions. Still, the rebels had over double the number of the patriot troops. The rebels fought with great desperation, for General Hindman had assured them, “Our country will be ruined if we fail.”

All day long the battle raged. Batteries had been repeatedly taken and retaken at the point of the bayonet. Darkness at length put an end to the conflict, apparently undecided, to be renewed in the morning. But in the night the rebels, muffling their cannon-wheels, stole away. away. The heroic little patriot army was left in possession of the field. Their loss was eleven hundred and forty-eight killed, wounded, and missing. The rebel loss is estimated at double that number.

Thus ended the last serious attempt on the part of the rebels to recover Missouri by force of arms. Its history from the time of the battle of Prairie Grove has been political rather than military. Henceforth the chief efforts of the rebels were to keep it a Slave State by the aid of intrigue and political combinations. It was, however, the theatre of a constant and devastating guerrilla warfare, and the scene of raids of a serious character. In January, 1863, a band of three thousand rebels, under Marmaduke, made a determined assault upon Springfield. They had no expectation of holding the place; but it was an important dépôt of supplies, from which they hoped to replenish their exhausted stores.

The town was commanded by a brave man, General Brown. He summoned the convalescents from the hospital, called together the militia, and thus largely increasing his regular force, which was but small, he successfully repelled the rebel attack, and maintained his position until reënforced. In April following, General Marmaduke entered the State at the head of a large force of cavalry, and issued a flaming address, in which he proclaimed his purpose to redeem "a noble State from cruel thraldrom," and "not to pillage or destroy." He illustrated his words by taking every thing he wanted and paying with Confederate notes, which were worth scarcely their weight in brown paper.

Marmaduke occupied Frederickstown for a day, attacked Cape Girardeau, bombastically demanded its surrender, made a show of assaulting it, and then retreated, pursued by Generals McNeil and Vandever. On the 20th of August, 1863, a band of rebel guerrillas, under command of Quantrel, one of the blackest-hearted men whom the rebellion developed, entered Lawrence, Kansas, for purposes of revenge rather than of plunder. Seizing the defenceless city by night, he remorsely surrendered it to be sacked

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by his gang of murderers and outlaws. A guard, surrounding the place, shot all who attempted to escape. The houses were first plundered and then fired. In the morning he left, what had been a prosperous town, little more than a heap of smoking ruins. More than two hundred peaceful citizens were murdered in cold blood. Many others were consumed in the flames of their dwellings. The horrors of this awful scene of crime and brutality no pen can describe. In one case twelve men were driven into a building, when they were all shot, and the house set on fire over their bodies. Two millions of property were destroyed. The wife and daughter of a man threw themselves over his body, begging for his life. One of the rebel gang thrust his revolver between them, and shot the man. Seldom has earth witnessed a sadder spectacle than was seen when these assassins retired. The remains of many of the most distinguished citizens were left, crisp and black, in the midst of the smouldering ruins of their dwellings. The collecting these remains, that they might have respectful burial, was heart-sickening. Women and little children were wandering about searching for husbands and fathers, and when they did find them among the corpses, their anguish was indescribable.

It was thus that the rebels, exasperated by the Union victories of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, kept up a guerrilla warfare throughout Missouri. Desperate men, the most infamous of robbers, in gangs of from twenty to two or three thousand, ravaged the entire State, especially the southwestern portion. Disguised in the garb of citizens, seldom venturing to attack any but the unarmed, assuming the semblance of honest men at the first approach of danger, it was difficult to detect and almost impossible to pursue them. They roved with impunity through all defenceless regions, plundering alike friend and foe. Hundreds of families were bereft of their homes by the midnight torch.

A traveller met in one of these desolate regions a family, emaciate and ragged, crowded into a wagon. They had been robbed, their home burned, and they, in utter beggary, were trying to escape to some land where they could dwell under the protection of law. A little boy, bareheaded and barefooted, trudged along by the side of the rickety, crowded vehicle.

"Well, my little fellow," inquired the traveller, "where do you live?" "I don't live anywhere," was the artless response, "only in a wagon." It will be many years before this desolated country will recover from the ravages, not merely of legitimate war, but of guerrilla devastation. Thus the border-ruffianism of Missouri returned to vex her. She who was the first to take the sword to drive Free State men from Kansas, has almost literally perished by the sword thus lawlessly drawn.

This thievery and murder, ruinous as it was to individual interests, exerted no influence in arresting the onward movement of the National Government in rescuing the land from rebellion. All the territory the Union men gained they held. Nor were they content to remain in the edge of Arkansas. On the 1st of September, 1863, General Steele, then in command of the frontier army, prepared to advance on Little Rock. The city was ineffectually defended by General Price. The rebel general, being compelled to evacuate his works, abandoned the city and retreated.

On the 10th of September the capital of Arkansas was formally surrendered into the hands of the Union general by its mayor. The National flag has never ceased since to float over that city. Its restoration to the Union may be considered as effectually and finally closing the Missouri campaign.

POSITION OF ISLAND NUMBER TEN AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY.-STRENGTH OF ITS FORTIFICATIONS.-GENERAL POPE.-ADMIRAL FOOTE.-CONFIDENCE OF THE REBELS.-SUBLIME AND ROMANTIC INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE.-CAPTURE OF POINT PLEASANT AND NEW MADRID.BOMBARDMENT OF ISLAND NUMBER TEN.--THE CANAL SECRETLY CUT.-DARING MIDNIGHT EXPLOIT.-CAPTURE OF THE ISLAND.-GREAT IMPORTANCE OF THE VICTORY,

WE must claim the privilege of the dramatist, and call for a change of scene from Northwestern Arkansas to the Mississippi River. This majestic stream, appropriately called by the Indians the Father of Waters, abounds in islands from above Cairo nearly to New Orleans. These islands, commencing a few miles below Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, are numbered from one to one hundred and twenty-four. After the evacuation of Columbus, the rebels retreated down the river, past the town of Hickman, to one of these islands, known as Island Number Ten. It is situated near the boundary-line between the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. The general course of the river, from Cairo to Napoleon, in Arkansas, is a little west of south. At Island Number Ten, however, it makes a sudden turn back upon itself, and flows, for six or eight miles, nearly due north. Then, turning as abruptly again, it continues in its former southerly direction.

By these turns in the river two promontories are formed, one on the Missouri or western shore, and one, a little lower down, on the opposite or Kentucky bank. Island Number Ten is situated in the first bend of the river. It commands the approach for miles in either direction. New Madrid is a small town on the Missouri shore, opposite the point of the Kentucky promontory, and below Island Number Ten. Some miles further down the river is Point Pleasant. A few miles below, on the Tennessee shore, is the hamlet of Tiptonville. The annexed diagram will afford the reader a clear conception of these localities, which, through the fortunes of war, have attained such celebrity.

From Island Number Three, across the neck of the peninsula to New Madrid, is a distance of six miles. By the river it is fifteen miles. From Island Number Ten to Tiptonville it is five miles by land, while it is twenty-seven miles by water. On both sides of the river the land is low and marshy. On the Kentucky shore an immense swamp commences nearly forty miles above Island Number Ten, and extends for many miles below, running nearly parallel with the river, with but a narrow strip of dry land between. Opposite the island this swamp becomes an unbroken body of water, called Reelfoot

Lake. The outlet of this lake into the Mississippi is forty miles below, at Tiptonville. Thus the whole eastern bank of the river is here, in effect, an island, cut off from the mainland by impassable swamps. There is, however, a good road along the western bank of Reelfoot Lake from Tiptonville to Island Number Ten.

The western or Missouri bank of the river here, is also low and swampy. It was the scene, in 1811, of a terrible earthquake. Large tracts of land were sunk and converted into lakes or swamps, while other portions of the land were elevated several feet. The effects of this earthquake are still to be seen in the singularly wild and broken aspect of the region. It has, indeed, neither hills nor ravines, but it is very manifest that large tracts of land have suddenly fallen below their natural level. The entire peninsula of which we have spoken is flat and marshy, intersected by creeks and bayous.

Island Number Ten is about a mile long and half a mile wide. The channel, on either side, affords depth of water for vessels of the largest class. It will be remembered that during General Fremont's campaign in Missouri, the rebel General Pillow had occupied New Madrid, making it the base of operations against St. Louis. At the same time he occupied and threw up a few intrenchments on Island Number Ten. As has been stated in the history of that campaign, it was a part of General Fremont's plan, for the descent of the Mississippi, to occupy New Madrid at the same time that he advanced on Nashville by the way of Bowling Green and the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. This part of the plan General Halleck did not execute. The events recorded in this chapter will enable the reader to see the importance of this plan of General Fremont, and the unfortunate results to the Mississippi expedition from its omission. If the National troops had taken possession of New Madrid, when they could easily have done so, Island Number Ten could not have been occupied by the rebels. Consequently, upon the evacuation of Columbus, the gunboat fleet could have swept almost unopposed down the river, along its whole length to New Orleans, and could have kept the stream clear by shelling out any parties who should have attempted to throw up obstructions upon its banks.

As soon as the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson rendered it evident-that Columbus was no longer tenable, the rebels commenced the work of strengthening and rendering as impregnable as possible the fortifications on Island Number Ten. Their ablest engineer, General Beauregard, was ordered to the command of the Western Department, and he personally directed the construction of these fortifications. The heavy ordnance and military stores were, as far as possible, removed from Columbus to this island. Siege-guns were brought up from below. River-batteries were planted at the water's edge. The whole island frowned with batteries, guarding every possible approach.

Coöperating batteries were also planted on the Kentucky side of the river. They were so arranged that any gunboat, coming within short range to attack any one of these batteries, would be exposed to the concentrated fire of them all. A number of rebel gunboats was also ordered up from the river below, Commodore Hollins commanding, to prevent the