CHAP. LII.]

imploring them to abandon slavery,

BUTLER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

349

political position, by social affinity, inclined to sustain your domestic laws, if by possibil ity it could be done with safety to the Union. Months of experience and observation have forced the conclusion on me that the existence of slavery is incompatible with the safety either of yourselves or of the Union. As the system has gradually grown to its present huge dimensions, it were best if it could be gradually removed; but it is better, far better that it should be taken out at once, than that it should vitiate the social, political, and family relations of your country. I am speaking with no philanthropic views as regards the slave, but simply of the ef fect of slavery on the master. See for yourselves; look around you, and say whether this saddening, deadening influence has not all but destroyed the very frame-work of your society. I am speaking the farewell words of one who has shown his devotion to his country at the peril of his life and fortune, who in these words can have neither hope, nor interest save the good of those whom he addresses.

and return to their allegiance.

"Come, then, to the unconditional support of the gov ernment. Take into your own hands your own institutions. Remodel them according to the laws of nations and of God, and thus attain that great prosperity assured to you by geographical position, only a portion of which was heretofore yours."

CHAPTER LIII.

THE SORTIE OF BRAGG AND ITS REPULSE. BATTLES OF PERRY

VILLE AND MURFREESBOROUGH.

Encouraged by its successes in Virginia, the Confederate government ordered General Bragg to advance from Chattanooga northward.

He executed his orders, compelling Buell to retreat to the Ohio. He then attempted to establish a Confederate government in Kentucky.

Buell was re-enforced; the BATTle of PerryvilLE was fought; and Bragg, carrying away immense plunder, retreated. Rosecrans was ordered to take command of Buell's army.

Bragg, marching northward again, was overthrown by Rosecrans at the BATTLE OF MURFREESBOROUGH; and the Confederates, giving up all hope of crossing the Ohio, retired to Tullahoma. The sortie of Bragg had failed.

THE Civil War had already assumed its characteristic aspect. The Confederate States were completely beleaguered and besieged.

The military condi

eracy.

They were encircled by the blockade of the sea-coast, by hostile armies on the north of Virginia tion of the Confed- and along the entire line of the Ohio, by a patrol of national gun-boats on the Mis sissippi as far as Memphis, and by Farragut's ships from New Orleans to Vicksburg.

I have now to relate how they made convulsive efforts to break through this line of investment, the stringency of which was daily increasing. The campaigns of Bragg and of Lee stand in the attitude of gigantic sortiesgigantic, yet only in proportion to the vastness of the siege.

The Confederate government was not without causes of encouragement. Conscription had re-enforced its ar mies; victory had rewarded its efforts. McClellan had

CHAP. LIII.]

THE SORTIE OF BRAGG.

351

been driven from Richmond; his peninsular campaign had totally failed.

Determination to

It seemed as if the time had now come for gratifying the clamor so importunately raised throughmake offensive war. out the South that the war should no lon ger be carried on defensively, but that vigorous offensive operations should be instituted in the Free States. The demand had become irresistible-"Carry the war into the enemy's country, and relieve us from its intolerable burdens."

and Lee.

Accordingly, as the proper initiatory steps, Lee was diThe sorties of Bragg rected to move into Maryland and Bragg into Kentucky. It was supposed that those slaveholding states, thus far lost to the Confederacy, would be easily reclaimed; that from them the North might be invaded, and peace wrung from it in one of its great cities.

Lee's movement to the North we shall have to consider in a subsequent chapter. In this we have to speak of Bragg's.

Bragg was at Chattanooga. In his march to it from Tupelo he had outstripped the tardy Buell, who, as we have seen (p. 311), had been dispatched by Halleck on the 10th of June.

Advantages of

march.

It was clear that very great incidental advantages would arise from the march of Bragg's army Bragg's northward northward from Chattanooga along the west flank of the Cumberland Mountains, for not only might he recover the two states Tennessee and Ken tucky, and threaten Louisville and Cincinnati, but he might compel the detachment of a large part of the force from the army of Grant near Corinth. The projected march of that general southward toward New Orleans might be half paralyzed by the march of Bragg northward to Louisville. The event more than justified these

expectations, for Buell himself was at once thrown from the confines of Alabama to the Ohio River, a distance of three hundred miles.

The Confederate authorities had considered it expe dient to have an ostensible as well as a real motive for the Northern campaign in which

An ostensible motive assigned.

CHAP. LIII.] THE CONFEDERATES MARCH NORTHWARD.

353

Bragg was about to engage. While their real objects were such as have been just described, they gave out that they were undertaking a foray into Kentucky. It was affirmed that in that state there were more provisions and live-stock than in all the rest of the South. Bragg might fail in destroying the national forces, in driving them north of the Ohio, in capturing Louisville and Cincinnati, in detaching the Northwest from the Union, in arresting Grant's march to the South, but it was hardly possible for him to fail in securing a vast supply of provisions; and it was supposed that the Southern people, expecting no more, would be content with that.

Bragg commences his march.

The conscription had raised Bragg's army to 50,000 men. It was organized in three corps. Those of Hardee and Polk were with him at Chattanooga; that of Kirby Smith was at Knoxville. With the former Bragg commenced moving northward from Chattanooga, having his antagonist Buell on his left flank. He directed his march toward the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and reached it at Mumfordsville, encountering there a national force, which he compelled to surrender.

Kirby Smith commences his march.

Meantime Kirby Smith left Knoxville with the intention of joining Bragg, and marched as rapidly as he could through Big Creek Gap. At Richmond, Kentucky, he routed a national force under Brigadier General Manson, their loss being, according to his statement, 1000 killed and wounded, 5000 prisoners, 9 guns, 10,000 small-arms, and a large quantity of provisions and ammunition. He then passed through Lexington, and advanced northward as far as Cynthiana.

fall back.

On his part, Buell, forestalled in the occupation of Buell is obliged to Chattanooga, was depending on Louisville for supplies, and hence had to guard nearly 300 miles of railroad. As Bragg marched northward,