BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION ILLUSTRATED.

571

private rights, and all the regulations of public justice which discriminate the legalized naval vessel from the pirate, were disregarded. Although she was a British vessel, manned chiefly by British subjects from a British port, armed with British cannon, and

provided with coal and other supplies from British soil, she had no acknowledged flag nor recognized nationality, nor any accessible port to which she might send her prizes, nor any legal tribunal to adjudge her captures. She was an outlaw, roving the seas as an enemy of mankind, for plunder and destruction, and her commander was a pirate, whose career as such

THE ALABAMA.

was as cowardly as it was criminal. For a year and a half, while carefully avoiding contact with our National vessels of war, he illuminated the seas with blazing merchant-ships. During the last ninety days of 1862, he destroyed by fire no less than twenty-eight helpless vessels. The subsequent career of the Alabama will be considered hereafter.

While this British ship was upon the sea, commissioned for destruction, a notable American ship was also on the sea, but for a widely different pur pose. The blockade caused a lack of the cotton supply in England, and the greatly advanced price of that article made the manufacturers either run their mills only a part of each day, or shut them up altogether. This caused wide-spread distress among the poorly remunerated operatives in those mills, on which, in Lancashire alone, nearly a million of stomachs depended for food. Starvation invaded that region, and a most pitiful cry of distress came over

the sea. The just indignation of the loyal Americans, because of the conduct of the ruling classes of Great Britain, and especially because of the conduct of the Government in the matter of the pirate-ships, was quenched by the emotions of common humanity, and the citizens of New York alone, whose merchants suffered most by the piracies, contributed more than one hundred thousand dollars for the relief of starving English families. They loaded the ship George Griswold with food, and sent her out on an errand of mercy, while at the same time they were compelled to send with her a Government war-vessel to protect her from the torch of the pirate, which had been lighted at the altar of mammon by British hands! The loyal

This was the appearance of the ship while she was a-loading at her wharf on the East River. High up on her rigging was a piece of canvas, on which were the words, "CONTRIBUTIONS FOR LANCASHIRE. FREIGHT FREE."

572

VICKSBURG AND ITS IMPORTANCE.

Americans forgive their British brethren for their unkindness in the hour of trial, but all the waters of the Atlantic cannot wash out the stain.

Let us now turn again to a consideration of military events, whose theater of action, at the close of 1862, was nearly coextensive with the area of the slave-labor States. Up to that time the loyal States had furnished for the war, wholly by volunteering, more than one million two hundred thousand men, of whom, on the 1st of January, 1863, about seven hundred thousand were in the service. Sickness, casualties in the field, the expiration of terms of enlistment, discharges for physical disability, and desertions, had greatly thinned the original regiments.'

The most important movement at the close of 1862 was that of the beginning of the second siege of Vicksburg, which resulted in its capture at the following midsummer, and which engaged the services of nearly all the troops westward of the Alleghanies, directly or indirectly, during several months. Though a city of only between four and five thousand inhabitants when the war broke out, the position of Vicksburg soon became one of the most important on the Mississippi River in a military point of view, while its peculiar topography made its conversion into a strong defensive post an easy matter. Port Hudson below (about twenty-five miles above Baton Rouge), another position of great natural strength, was now quite heavily fortified,

and cattle growing regions of Western Louisiana and Texas be passed safely over the great river to Confederate armies, which, with those of the Nationals, were exhausting the regions eastward, between it and the mountain ranges. that project into Georgia and Alabama. The importance of holding this connecting link firmly was felt by the Confederates, and when, in the autumn of 1862, Jefferson Davis visited his home within the bounds of that link, and was returning, he declared in a speech at Jackson that Vicksburg and Port Hudson must be held at all hazards. The Nationals, equally impressed with the importance of destroying that link, now bent all their energies to effect

1 The fearful waste of an army may be comprehended by considering the statement made by General Meade, in a reply to an address of welcome from the Mayor of Philadelphia, that from March, 1862, when the Army of the Potomac left its lines in front of Washington, to the close of 1863, not less than 100,000 men of that army bad been killed or wounded.

2 This is a view of Davis's mansion on his estate below Vicksburg, from a photograph by Joslyn, of that city. When it was taken, the front of the house over the colonnade bore the words, in large black letters, "THE HOUSE JEFF. BUILT." The region was then in possession of the National forces, and Union soldiers occupied

GRANT'S ADVANCE IN MISSISSIPPI.

573

it. At that time the Confederate forces at and near Vicksburg were under the command of General John C. Pemberton, a Pennsylvanian, who had lately been commissioned a lieutenant-general, and ranked both Van Dorn and Lovell.

We left the main forces of General Grant confronting the Confederates on the Tallahatcheé.' Grant's plan was for General Sherman, then at Memphis, to descend the river with troops in transports from that city, and from Helena, in Arkansas, and, with a gun-boat fleet, make an attack on Vicksburg. At the same time, General McClernand was to go down with troops from Cairo and re-enforce Sherman soon after his attack. Grant himself was to advance rapidly in the mean time upon the main body of the Confederate troops under Van Dorn, north and eastward of Vicksburg, and, if they should retreat to that place, follow them, and assist Sherman in the reduction of the post.

On the 4th of November Grant transferred his head-quarters from Jackson (Tennessee) to La Grange, a few miles west of Grand Junction, on the Memphis and Charleston railway. He had concentrated his forces for a vigorous movement in the direction of Vicksburg. On the 8th he sent out McPherson, with ten thousand infantry, and fifteen hundred cavalry under Colonel A. L. Lee, to drive a large body of Confederate cavalry from Lamar, on the railway southward of him. It was accomplished, and the Confederates were gradually pushed back to Holly Springs, on the same railway.

@ Nov. 20, 1862.

It was now evident that the Confederates intended to hold the line of the Tallahatchee River, for there Pemberton had concentrated his forces and cast up fortifications. Grant at once prepared to dislodge them, and on the 20th of November he moved toward Holly Springs with his main body, Hamilton's division in the advance. In the mean time Generals A. P. Hovey and C. C. Washburne had crossed the Mississippi" from Helena, landed at Delta, and moved in the direction of Grant's army. Their cavalry was distributed. That of Washburne pushed rapidly eastward to the Cold Water River, where they captured a Confederate camp. Moving swiftly down that stream and the Tallahatchee, they made a sweep by way of Preston, and struck the railway at Garner's Station, just north of Grenada, where the railways from Memphis and Grand Junction meet, and destroyed the road and bridges there. They then went northward to Oakland and Panola, on the Memphis road, and then struck across the country southeast to Coffeeville, on the Grand Junction road.

SLAVE-LASH.

the mansion and the plantation. Davis was the owner of a large number of slaves, and on his estate were found every implement employed in slave-labor and its management in that rich cotton district. Among other things found there was a lash for beating the slaves, represented in the engraving, which Colonel James Grant Wilson, of General Banks's staff, sent to his home in Poughkeepsie. It is a terrible instrument for punishment. The lash is twenty-five inches in length and a little more than two inches in width, composed of five thicknesses of heavy leather, sewed together with saddler's thread in seven rows, making the whole half an inch thick. This lash is inserted in a handle made of hickory, a little more than a foot long, and fastened by three screws on each side. Sometimes these lashes had holes in them, an inch in diameter, into which the flesh of the victim would rise when the blow was inflicted. Such was the kind of scepter with which Capital was to rule Labor in the horrid empire of injustice within "The Golden Circle" projected by Davis and his fellow-conspirators, and for the establishment of which they attempted to destroy the Republic.

1 See page 524.

574

SERIOUS DISASTER AT HOLLY SPRINGS.

Having accomplished the object of their expedition, Hovey and Washburne returned to the Mississippi.

This raid, in which the railways on which the Confederates depended were severely damaged, and the rolling stock destroyed, while Grant was pressing in front, disconcerted Pemberton, and he fell back to Grenada, and by the 1st of December Grant held a strong position south of Holly Springs, and commanding nearly parallel railways in that region, as we have observed on page 524. He pushed on to Oxford, the capital of Lafayette County, Mississippi, and sent forward two thousand cavalry, under Colonels Lee and T. L. Dickey, to press the rear of Van Dorn's retreating column. At Coffeeville, several miles southward, these encountered a superior force of Van Dorn's infantry and some artillery, and, after a sharp struggle, were driven back several miles, with a loss of one hundred men, killed, wounded, and missing.

■ Dec. 5, 1862.

Grant, with his main army, remained at Oxford.' The railway had been put in running order as far southward as Holly Springs, and there he had, made his temporary depot of arms and supplies of every kind, valued, late in December, at nearly four millions of dollars. That very important post was placed in charge of Colonel R. C. Murphy, with one thousand men, who, as we have seen, abandoned a large quantity of stores at Iuka on the approach of the Confederates. He now permitted a far greater disaster to befall the National cause. His treasures were a powerful temptation to Van Dorn, and Grant was so satisfied that he would attempt to seize them, that he had enjoined Murphy to be extremely vigilant. On the night of the 19th he had warned him of immediate danger, and sent four thousand men to make the security of the stores absolutely certain; but Murphy seems not to have heeded it. He made no preparations, by barricading the streets or otherwise, for defense. When, at daybreak the next morning, ¿Dec. 20. Van Dorn and his cavalry burst into the town like an overwhelming avalanche, he was met by very little resistance. He captured Murphy and a greater portion of his men, gathered what plunder his troops wanted for personal use, and burned all the other public property, not sparing even a large hospital, filled with sick and wounded soldiers. The Second Illinois cavalry refused to surrender, and gallantly fought their way out with a loss of only seven men. Murphy accepted a parole, with his soldiers; and on the 9th of January General Grant, in a severe order, "to take effect," he said, "from December 20th, the date of his cowardly and disgraceful conduct," dismissed Murphy from the army.

€ 1968.

After remaining at Holly Springs ten hours, engaged in pillaging and

1 Grant had a very efficient staff. Among the principal and most active officers were Brigadier-General J. D. Webster, a most skillful artillery officer, and then superintendent of military roads. Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Rawlins was his chief of staff, and Captain T. S. Bowers was his most trusted aid-de-camp. The two latter remained on his staff throughout the entire war.

2 See page 513.

3 In an order on the 23d of December, General Grant spoke of the surrender as "disgraceful," and declared that with "all the cotton, public stores, and substantial buildings about the depot," Murphy might easily have kept the assailants at bay until relief arrived. He pointedly condemned the acceptance of a parole by Murphy for himself and men, a cartel having been agreed to, by which each party was bound to take care of its own prisoners. Had Murphy refused parole for himself and men, Van Dorn would have been "compelled," Grant said, “to have released them unconditionally, or to have, abandoned all further aggressive movements for the ⚫time being."

SHERMAN'S DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

575

destroying, blowing up the arsenal, and burning the public property,' Van Dorn's men departed at five o'clock in the evening, highly elated, and immediately afterward assailed in rapid succession the National troops at Coldwater, Davis's Mills, Middleburg, and even Bolivar, but without other success than the effect produced upon Grant by a serious menace of his communications. Two hours after they had left Holly Springs, the four thousand troops which Grant had dispatched by railway to re-enforce Murphy arrived. They had been detained by accident on the way, or they might have reached the place in time to have saved the property. Its loss was a paralyzing blow to the expedition, for Grant was compelled to fall back to Grand Junction, to save his army from the most imminent peril, and perhaps from destruction. This left General Pemberton at liberty to concentrate his forces at Vicksburg for its defense.

In the mean time General Sherman had been preparing for his descent upon Vicksburg. While in command of the right wing of the Army of the Tennessee, with his head-quarters at Memphis, he had

thoroughly drilled his troops, and put that important post in the most complete defensive state. In Fort Pickering he had constructed one of the finest of the numerous look-outs that were so extensively used by both parties during the war, from which, on several occasions, notice of the approach of guerrillas was given in time to save the place from pillage.

• Dec. 20,

1862.

Sherman left Memphis with a little more than twenty thousand troops in transports, on the day of the sad disaster at Holly Springs," leaving as a guard to the city a strong force of infantry and cavalry, and the siege-guns in place with a complement of artillerists. He proceeded to Friar's Point, a little below where Hovey landed, where he was joined by Admiral D. D. Porter (whose naval force was at the mouth of the Yazoo River) in his flag-ship Black Hawk, and with the gun-boats Marmora and Conestoga to act as a convoy. On the same evening the troops at Helena embarked, and joined Sherman at Friar's Point, and made his entire force full thirty thousand strong. Arrangements for future action were completed the following morning' by the two commanders. The army and navy moved down the Dec. 22. stream, and were all at the mouth of the Yazoo River, about twelve miles above Vicksburg, on the 25th. The plan was to make an attack upon Vicksburg in the rear, with a strong force, and for that purpose

LOOK-OUT.

1 The kind and value of the public property destroyed was as follows:-1,809,000 fixed cartridges and other ordnance stores, including 5,000 rifles and 2,000 revolvers, $1,500,000; 100,000 suits of clothing and other quartermasters' stores, $500,000; 5,000 barrels of flour and other commissary stores, $500,000; medical stores, $1,000,000; 1,000 bales of cotton and $600,000 worth of sutlers' stores.

2 It was at about this time, as we have observed (page 551), that Forrest was making his raid in West Tennessee.

3 The fleet consisted of more than sixty transports, besides a number of gun-boats (some of them armored), and some mortar-boats.