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the remainder, under General McCown, occupied New Madrid and Island Ten. Pope took the former place in ten days, McCown retiring to the island at night, with the loss of his heavy guns. Foote having for several days ineffectually bombarded this "little Gibraltar" of the Confederates, Pope urgently requested that a gunboat should be run past its batteries to disperse the wooden fleet of Hollins below. Foote at first insisted that this was impracticable; but the commander of the Carondelet (Walke) offered to make the trial, and in a fog on the night of April 4th he succeeded without loss or injury. The Pittsburg was equally fortunate two nights later. Under protection of the gunboats, Pope readily effected the desired landing on the east bank of the river, and occupied Island Ten on the morning of the 7th. There and on the Tennessee shore he captured 6,700 prisoners, 123 heavy guns, and a great quantity of supplies. The Confederates now abandoned the river for a long distance below, their next obstruction being the fortifications they had erected a few miles above Memphis.

Meanwhile, Halleck's stronger forces east of the Mississippi were not inactive. General O. M. Mitchel, commanding a division of Buell's army, advanced from Nashville southward, restoring the railway which Albert Sidney Johnston had disabled in his retreat, and early in April captured Huntsville, Ala., with a large amount of rolling-stock of the Memphis and Charleston Railway. There were also demonstrations eastward as far as Bridgeport, menacing Chattanooga.

Albert Sidney Johnston, by tedious and trying

marches over bad roads in winter weather, led his remnant of an army a distance of nearly three hundred miles to the new position he had chosen. He arrived at Corinth, Miss., on the 25th of March, joining Beauregard, who had gathered an army there, consisting of the men he had taken from Manassas; of Polk's force, that retired from Columbus on the fall of Fort Donelson; of the troops so long retained at Pensacola by Bragg in the vain hope of taking Fort Pickens; and of other small commands, besides new levies sent, on urgent appeal, by the Governors of Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. The addition brought by Johnston, chief in command, made a total of near sixty thousand men.

Grant's victory at Fort Donelson brought him a Major-General's commission, yet the command of the Army of the Tennessee was directly after given to General Charles F. Smith, a most worthy and capable officer, who had held a subordinate place. Savannah, on the east bank of the Tennessee River, was chosen by Smith as a depot of supplies, and Pittsburg Landing, on the west bank, nine miles above, as the place for disembarking the army to advance against Corinth, twenty miles distant. Soon after establishing his headquarters at Savannah, General Smith was prostrated by illness dying (April 25th) without further active command. It was not until the army had gone into camp beyond the Tennessee that (March 13th) Grant was again at its head. Reinforcements, mostly raw troops, had come in rapidly, and the divisions of W. T. Sherman, B. M. Prentiss and S. A. Hurlbut were called.

from the Paducah district. Halleck, intending to take the field in person, ordered Buell with the bulk of his army to join Grant. The latter's forces at the beginning of April were in good position but unintrenched, the front extending from Owl Creek on the right to Lick Creek on the left a distance of about three miles. Three of Sherman's brigades were on the right, near Shiloh Church, more than two miles out on the Corinth road, and his other brigade (Stuart's) was on the extreme left; McClernand's division next Sherman's main force and partly rearward; between McClernand and Stuart's brigade, the division of Prentiss; and behind these three divisions were Hurlbut's on the right and W. H. L. Wallace's (late C. F. Smith's) on the left. Lew Wallace's division was at Crump's Landing and on the road thence to Purdy. For a week there had been an occasional collision of cavalry between the hostile camps on both the Corinth and the Purdy road, but neither Grant nor Sherman believed the enemy would advance to give battle, until the storm actually burst upon them on Sunday morning, the 6th of April.

Johnston began almost with the dawn, and meant, by the impetuous pressure of superior numbers, to drive the Union army back upon the river, turn its left, hem it in between the Tennessee and the swollen waters of Snake Creek, and compel a surrender before sunset. His men advanced in triple lines, extended to cover the Union front. Between two flanking creeks, now in flood, and the great river, on a ground broken by ravines — its ridges and levels mostly covered with woods opened here and there by meadow, field, or orchard, the battle was to be waged. Hardee commanded the

first line, Bragg the second, Polk the third, and there was a reserve under Breckinridge. Each of the four corps was about ten thousand strong.

The pickets of Prentiss and a regiment which had early gone out to their support received the first musket volley from the advancing host. Near the same moment, Sherman's foremost brigade, on a ridge overlooking a ravine to be crossed by the enemy, was made aware of the impending onslaught. In both encampments the alarm was promptly given, and line of battle formed in time to receive the assault. Some of Sherman's regiments gave way in disorder; brigades at length began crumbling; new lines were formed on ridges in the rear; McClernand became engaged, with like experience, and between McClernand and Prentiss the assailants tried to penetrate, seeking to cut the army in two. Prentiss fell back, after protracted resistance; Stuart, with much fighting, eluded Breckinridge's effort to surround him; Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace were busy and persistent, helping to stay the hostile tide. All this was the work of many hours. Some brigades were badly broken, some regiments dispersed; many stragglers and fugitives sought ignoble shelter under the bluffs on the river's brink. Grant, who was at Savannah in the morning, hastened to the scene of action, visited every division, and though compelled by previous injuries to use crutches when dismounted, he kept in the field through the day. Position after position was gradually yielded, ridges and hollows, timber and clearing favoring such retrograde movement and affording fit rallying places. At last a stronghold was occupied, the "Hornets' Nest," as styled by the enemy,

which for hours defied all assaults. This was well toward Grant's left, where Johnston was specially concentrating his strength, to the neglect of the now much weakened Union right. Near 3 o'clock Johnston fell, dying from a flesh wound, which severed an artery.

men.

The sun was getting low when the Union line was withdrawn to what seemed to be the best available position between the enemy and the river. Prentiss, not falling back promptly enough, was surrounded and captured in person, with more than two thousand of his Grant's front had receded more than a mile since morning. Most of his artillery in the field had been lost, but the reserve, twenty-two guns, had now been promptly massed by Colonel Webster, of his staff, on high ground commanding a ravine which the enemy must cross to deliver the intended final blow. The Confederates recoiled before Webster's destructive fire, which they in vain sought to silence by charges of infantry. About this time Nelson's division of Buell's army began arriving at the landing. The gunboats Lexington and Tyler improved with telling effect the opportunity which the ravine presented for shelling the enemy. Beauregard, now in chief command, withdrew his front, and the dreaded shells fired at intervals through the night helped to increase the interval between the opposing lines.

The heroic attempt to crush Grant, fighting singlehanded, had failed. The crisis was now past. Nelson's division was pushed forward at night on the left. Crittenden's division, also at hand, was sent to the right of Nelson, and McCook's, which reached the field during