uated on the 15th, hastened his remaining forces southward. Buell followed up the retreating enemy and took possession of Nashville.

The capture of Roanoke Island by Burnside and Goldsborough belongs to the same awakening period. A large part of the soldiers (over 11,000) were landed on the 6th of February at Ashby Harbor, midway of the western side of the island. The Confederate works, under orders of ex-Governor Wise, who had charge of the coast defenses, had been reinforced after the arrival of the fleet, but a single assault, on the 8th, sufficed to give Burnside possession of the place and full control of Roanoke Island.

The hearts of Union people everywhere were made glad by these military and naval achievements in the East and in the West. Washington's birthday was chosen at the National Capital for a grand illumination. Preparation was duly made; but the February victories were not to have such celebration in Washington. Early in the month, the President's son, Willie, a lad of twelve years, was attacked by typhoid fever. Through many anxious days and nights the father had tenderly watched, hopefully and despairingly by turns, until, on the 20th, the fatal ending came. the presence of this domestic sorrow, all thought of joyous public demonstration was abandoned.

In

vol. ii.-2

CHAPTER II.

1862.

Halleck and Buell - The Mississippi River— Farragut and Butler- New Orleans.

After the victory at Fort Donelson and the occupation of Nashville, Halleck's command was extended (March 11th) over the army of Buell and its intended field of operations in Tennessee. In Missouri, the main part of the army which Fremont led to Springfield had already been withdrawn by Pope to the Mississippi, while a smaller force, under General Samuel R. Curtis, had been sent to deal with Price, who was reinvading the State from the southwest.

Curtis set out from Rolla about the middle of February, and on the 23d of that month reached Fayetteville, Ark., having marched 250 miles. Price, who had retired without giving battle, was now joined in the Boston Mountains beyond that town by Ben McCulloch and his Texas forces, and soon after by General Van Dorn, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, who brought a strong reinforcement, to which was added an Indian brigade under General Albert Pike. Far from his base and confronted by greatly superior numbers, Curtis was now in a situation of extreme peril. Ordered by Halleck to take up a strong defensive position, he selected the valley of Sugar Creek, surmounted

by the heights of Pea Ridge, a few miles south of the Missouri line. His entire force available for the field was little more than ten thousand infantry and cavalry, with artillery of forty guns. The four thin divisions, under Osterhaus, Sigel, Davis and Carr, scattered in various directions gathering forage and supplies as they slowly fell back from Fayetteville in separate columns, seemed to Van Dorn an easy prey. On the 5th of March Curtis learned that the enemy was close at hand. After obstructing the roads by which Van Dorn's forces were expected, the soldiers bivouacked on the night of the 6th at Sugar Creek, expecting an early assault. Van Dorn, leaving a few men to feign a direct advance, swung his main force around to the west and north, one wing, under himself and Price, extending to the main road from Fayetteville to Springfield, in Carr's immediate rear. Finding this state of affairs in the morning, Curtis turned to right-about, advancing Carr northward on the road, beyond the Elkhorn Tavern, and aligning Davis in front of McCulloch and McIntosh. All day Carr fought persistently, suffering heavily but maintaining discipline, though obliged again and again to fall back; and, as night closed in, he had given ground for more than a mile. The enemy's fierce pressure upon Davis near Leetown-only relieved after the death of both McCulloch and McIntosh - prevented any reinforcement of Carr. Late in the day, when Sigel's artillery came up to Davis's support, his assailants were thrown into confusion and rout. So ended the conflict of the 7th.

Flushed with his success against Carr, whose retreat into Missouri now seemed to be cut off, Van Dorn

sought to gather all his strength on the next day for a final blow. The encounter proved to be of no long duration. Van Dorn was badly beaten on his right, and presently was found to be retreating through a narrow gorge called Cross Timbers Hollow. Both armies had severe losses, the killed and wounded on the Union side numbering 1,183; on the Confederate side, 1,500. It was a decisive victory, which practically settled the contest for Missouri and brought the war line within the State of Arkansas.

Albert Pike, a native of Massachusetts, who moved in early life to Arkansas, had held official relations with the inhabitants of the Indian Territory, in which slaves were held by some of the wealthier red men, and had used his influence with effect to induce the chiefs of that dependency to look to the Confederates as their political guardians. He thus induced some thousands of savage warriors to join the army of Van Dorn before the battle of Pea Ridge, where they went into the fight with defiant war-whoops, but were so much appalled by the noise and havoc of cannon as to prove worse than useless. The humble submission of the errant chiefs ere long brought the Territory back to order and peace.

a

In New Mexico slavery had lately been legalized, and in the spring of 1860, Colonel W. W. Loring · Southern officer whom Secretary Floyd could trustwas sent to supersede the Unionist officer commanding there. Under Loring was Lieutenant-Colonel George B. Crittenden, later heard of at Mill Springs. In the main, however, the forces in New Mexico were true

to their flag.

Soon after Lincoln's inauguration, Loring was superseded by Major Edward R. S. Canby, a Kentuckian by birth. The Democratic Territorial Governor, Abraham Rencher, was loyal, and the popular sentiment inclined strongly the same way. On recommendation of Rencher's successor, Henry Connelly, the Territorial Legislature repealed the slavecode by a vote almost unanimous. Before this action,

a force for the conquest of New Mexico had been gathering in Northwestern Texas, under Henry S. Sibley, a Louisianian by birth, and lately a Captain in the regular army. Early in January, 1862, he set forward with his Texan rangers; won in a fight near Valverde (February 21st), and occupied Albuquerque, establishing depots there; on the 28th of March defeated a small force under Colonel Slough at Apache Pass, and triumphantly entered Santa Fe. He found his presence unwelcome, however, and soon withdrew, reaching Fort Bliss after a wild, wearisome march, with but a remnant of his original command. Canby issued a proclamation at Santa Fe on the 4th of May announcing the end of Sibley's invasion.

West of Arkansas the strife was now over.

General Pope, breaking camp late in February, moved upon New Madrid, on the west bank of the Mississippi, where the enemy was strongly entrenched, and began siege on the 3d of March, without help from Foote's gunboats, which were detained above by the batteries of Island Number Ten. General Polk, evacuating Columbus after the fall of Fort Donelson, had retired with part of his force to Jackson, Tenn., while