below or nearly opposite Tiptonville, so as to command the place where troops can be shipped. By getting the guns quietly into position near the lower Riddle farm to-night the gunboats will be above you, and can be dealt with. The transports lying there can be destroyed at daylight, before they can get out of the way. If you fire the 24-pounder at Point Pleasant, my whole purpose is defeated. I am, general, respectfully, your obedient servant, JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE MISSISSIPPI, Major General HALLECK: As soon as daylight unmasked my heavy battery below Point Pleasant, the enemy moved with five gunboats to within three hundred yards, and attempted to dislodge us. A furious cannonade was kept up for an hour and a half, when the gunboats rapidly retreated out of range. One gunboat was sunk and several badly damaged. Many of the gunners were shot down from our rifle-pits. We lost not a single man. Our lower battery is so placed that it commands the upper end of the overflowed landing, on east side of the river, and no communication from below with the enemy is now possible. They are shut up in the bend of the river, with no egress whatever, except by a road from Tiptonville to Union City, which crosses Reelfoot lake, two miles wide, and with only small flats. If I had the means to cross the river with my command, I could bag the whole of them. I made reconnoissance across peninsula to-day towards Island No. S. Party not returned. Will write fully by mail to reach you day after to-morrow. JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS District of the Mississippi, New Madrid, March 18, 1862. General PLUMMER: It is possible that the enemy, who is moving his whole infantry force from Island No. 10 to Tiptonville, may attempt to cross in force and attack the lower battery, now supported by General Palmer. In that case you will at once march to his aid, leaving only your guns in battery, and your sharpshooters in the rifle-pits. The enemy's whole force is only about eight thousand five hundred infantry, with perhaps two batteries of light artillery: no match for Palmer and yourself united. I send down a full regiment of cavalry to report to you. Send three companies to General Palmer, and keep open constant and frequent communication with him and with me. There are two regiments of Michigan cavalry here, many of the companies armed with revolving rifles, who can serve admirably on foot, and can re-enforce you, if necessary, in an hour. It is beyond measure important to maintain the heavy batteries below Point Pleasant. As long as they are there supplies are cut off, and there is no escape for the enemy. They cannot get off by land. Below Tiptonville the swamps begin, and it will not be possible to ship troops any lower down than that place. I rely much upon your skill and vigor, which if fairly exhibited for a few days, will secure us most important results. Respectfully, general, your obedient servant, JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. It HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE MISSISSIPPI, General PALMER: I judge from what was stated to me by the officer of engineers who came up this morning that the 24-pounder siege gun which was placed in battery last night is too high up the river to accomplish the purpose for which it was designed. I have directed Lieutenant Colonel Adams to place the other guns in position about one and a half miles below where the other gun is, if a suitable place can be found there. The object is to command Tiptonville and the shore for a half a mile below, so as to prevent the embarkation of troops. may be that the enemy will attempt to cross and come up on you from below. I send three companies of cavalry to you to enable you to keep out scouts, and keep yourself fully apprised of what is going on for some distance below you. You will use all vigilance, and be ready to support the guns with your whole force if necessary. Keep up constant communication with General Plummer, and advise him immediately of any movement of the enemy. He is instructed to move with his whole force to your assistance if necessary. It is of the last importance to the operations here that the battery of the two 24-pounder guns be maintained in its present position, and I will move the whole force from here for that purpose if necessary. If there be no suitable point below the gun in position for the one which I sent down last night, you will cause it to be placed in position near the other. But I must impress upon you that it is the landing at Tiptonville, and for a half a mile below it, which must be commanded by our guns to effect the purpose contemplated. Keep your mounted scouts along the river for at least four or five miles below you, to watch carefully whether the enemy make any attempt to cross. Their whole force in this vicinity, at Island No. 10, and elsewhere, does not exceed nine thousand infantry, with perhaps two batteries of light artillery-no match for yourself and Plummer united. Write to me regularly and fully two or three times a day. I am, general, respectfully, your obedient servant, JNO POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISsissippi, St. Louis, March 21, 1862. GENERAL: Your despatch in relation to canal (without date) is just received. I heartily approve of your plan. Impress all the negroes you can find to assist in the work. If you can, in this way, turn and capture the enemy, it will be one of the most brilliant feats of the war. When occasion requires you will assume command of all the forces under Colonel Buford on the other side of the river, and all those at Columbus. Colonel Buford has a number (five, I think,) of large siege pieces; use them wherever you think they will be of most advantage. I will not attempt to hamper you with any minute instructions. The great object, you know, is to cut the enemy off from any chance of retreat by water. I leave you to accomplish this according to your own judgment, having full confidence in your ultimate success. Buell will effect a junction with Grant and Smith by Monday. We shall then have seventy thousand men at a single point on the Tennessee with which to cut the enemy's centre, destroy their railroad connexions, and thus cut off the retreat by land of Polk, McCown, &c. Unless the enemy is much stronger at Corinth than reported, I can see no chance of failure. There will probably be a big battle somewhere in that vicinity. Unfortunately, just as I am preparing additional re-enforcements for the army of the Tennessee to make everything still more certain, I have received official despatches of more troubles in New Mexico and the condition of Colonel Canby's forces. This compels me immediately to fit out a column of five thousand men for Canby's assistance. I do it most willingly, for the government has shamefully neglected him, but at the same time it seriously interferes with my plan. Yours, truly, Major General POPE, New Madrid. H. W. HALLECK, Major General. HEADQUARTERS District of the Mississippi, Colonel J. W. BISSELL: Your two communications of yesterday have been received. If it indeed be impracticable to get a gunboat or two past the enemy's batteries, some other mode of dealing with him must be devised. I desire you, therefore, to make an examination of the peninsula opposite Island No. 10, to ascertain whether a short canal, not to exceed two miles in length, cannot be dug, so that boats can enter above Island No. 10 and come out into the river below it. A mere ditch, through which the water of the river can be started, will, at this stage of the river, wash into a deep channel in one night. I think, from the character of the ground and the high condition of the river, it may be feasible to do this in twenty-four hours, so that gunboats at least could pass through and enter the river below the island. Show this letter to Colonel Buford, who will furnish you every assistance. If the work can be done, lay off the line of it, and call on Colonel Buford for all his available men to do the digging. Of course, you will begin below, and not open the upper end to the river until the whole ditch is completed. Affairs below are in such condition that the presence of this force here is necessary. It is not possible, from your report, to get any part of it up to Island No. 10 or to Island No. 8, nor do I see what good result could be effected by carrying it there. Colonel Buford has men enough to establish and work his heavy guns if it be desirable to establish them in position. Write fully. Respectfully, colonel, your obedient servant, JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT of the MississIPPI, Major General HALLECK: Have had the country examined between here and Islands No. 8 and No. 10. Had to be done in skiffs, as the whole region is under water. River rising rapidly and threatening to overflow this place. For the present it is impossible to get troops to Foote's assistance this side of river; they could not aid them, even if there. The only way to attack the works opposite Island No. 10 is by crossing the river here. Nearly whole of enemy's force now encamped at Tiptonville, five miles below Point Pleasant, and a little above my lower battery. Am having examination made to see if by digging across one or two ridges cannot connect Island No. 8 with river below Island No. 10 by uniting two bayous. If so, work will be done by as large a force as necessary to complete it in twenty-four hours. All the roads leading northeast from here are under water, in many places six feet deep, and rising. It is impracticable for the present to build road across peninsula-utterly so. Rebels are shut up in bend of river with only outlet across, Reelfoot lake by flat-boat. Impracticable now, as lake is four miles wide in cypress timber. Capture of enemy, I think, only question of time. They have small supply of provisions, and can get no more. Is it not possible for a couple of gunboats to run past Island No. 10, so I can cross my command over the river? Have urged Foote to try it. JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE MISSISSIPPI, New Madrid, March 20, 1862. Colonel BUFORD: Colonel J. W. Bissell returns to Island No. 8 to-morrow to commence the work with which he is charged. He will require from you two steamers, which please allow him to select, as he knows precisely what I need, one regiment of infantry, which he will also designate, and at least four barges. I need not urge you to furnish these things without delay, and to aid him in every possible way. The operations here will soon be concluded if he completes his work successfully, and I have faith that he will do so. Subsistence for his men he will also need. From Commodore Foote he desires to borrow, for a time, three cutters to enable him to work in the swamps. Please present my compliments to the commodore, and beg him to be kind enough to furnish Colonel Bissell with what he wishes. My lower battery sunk one of the enemy's transports which undertook to land supplies for the force near Tiptonville, (Merriweather's landing) I am, colonel, respectfully, your obedient servant, JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE MIssissippi, Major General HALLECK: I transmit, enclosed, a very rough sketch of the situation here. What is on the other side of the river is, of course, from hearsay. My great object is to get across the river, which I shall do as soon as possible. I expect the tugs and barges here by the canal on Monday. The value of our gunboat flotilla has been altogether overestimated. As an auxiliary merely to land forces, to escort transports, to reconnoitre in advance of our movements, and to cover the landing of troops, gunboats can do admirable service. They cannot take any sort of battery on the shore, as I think you will find. The enemy's gunboats have wholly failed to dislodge even the hasty batteries and rifle-pits I have made. After five days bombarding, Commodore Foote has made no sort of impression. Nothing but the gunners and a few infantry have been left opposite Island No. 10. My impression is that the enemy is trying very hard to get off by river from Tiptonville. They have a very small supply of rations, and the country in the bend is very sparsely settled. One of their transports was sunk yesterday by our lower battery, in attempting to make a landing just below Tiptonville. It is a bare possibility that the men, by paddling down the swamps on logs, and wading where they can, may get off on boats below, but it will be without anything whatever. I have closed every exit from the bend by way of the river as far as guns will do it. The means of crossing are all I need. It would be of immense service for such operations on this river if you would send me the 20-pounder Parrotts. There are four at Jefferson barracks, and I suppose more in the city. One battery of them is at Sedalia or Lexington, and can well be spared from there. The 20pounder Parrotts are better and more effective than the siege twenty-fours, and can be used as field-batteries. The river is high and rising, and is nowhere less than a mile wide; in most parts it is at least a mile and a quarter. I will do all that is possible to keep things going. I am, general, respectfully, your obedient servant, JNO. POPE, Brigadier General Commanding. HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE MISSISSIPPI, Major General HALLECK: Since yesterday our gunboats seem to have ceased their fire, and are waiting for us to reduce the batteries opposite Island No. 10. If I can cross this force it will be an easy matter, as the batteries are only. earth parapets, open to the rear-such works as could be put up in twentyfour hours. The river is very high and rising still, and the current runs so furiously that a row-boat, manned by six oarsmen, which I sent out yesterday, was unable to stem it and floated down three miles. It was necessary to haul it back to the upper redoubt by land. The river is over a mile wide at every point-a distance too great for our guns to cover the landing on the opposite side. To cross this army under such circumstances, in the face of the enemy, will be a difficult and dangerous operation, and nothing except the utter failure of our gunboats to achieve what they promise, and the imperative necessity of taking the enemy's batteries, now that they have been assailed, would induce me to hazard such an operation with volunteers, without positive orders. The difficulties have much increased since I first determined upon such a movement, by the greatly increased velocity and fury of the current. The canal cannot be made deep enough for gunboats, and there will be nothing to cover our landing on the opposite bank. The movement must therefore be made under cover of darkness, which will greatly increase the danger and chance of confusion. I see well the necessity of carrying the enemy's works, now that the attack has begun, but it is distinctly to be understood that no manner of assistance has been, or, from appearances, can be rendered us by the gunboats of the flotilla. Commodore Foote declines to run any of his boats past the batteries, for fear of losing them. I have offered, through Colonel Bissell, engineers to secure the boat against damage from the enemy's fire, but Commodore Foote fears that the enemy may board her. Surely such a risk is much less than will be that of crossing a large force in frail boats, over a wide, swift river, in the face of an enemy, and without anything to cover the landing. I shall, however, carry out the operation, but I would respectfully suggest that if any plan of operations down this river has been made with the belief that our gunboat flotilla can dielodge the enemy from any batteries they choose to place on the main land or on the islands, it must of necessity fail. Unless the gunboats are able to perform what has been asserted for them, the line of the river is the strongest the enemy has. If the enemy have planted batteries on the upper end of any island below us, we will have the same delay and difficulty we have had here. I must disembark, pass round by land, establish batteries below the enemy, and wait until they are starved out, as it is not likely that other places will be found where canals can be dug, so as to bring transports below the enemy's batteries without passing in range. Even if such places could be found wherever the enemy established a battery, I would be obliged, as I am now, to cross without cover or the aid of gunboats, in the face of the enemy. Of course, if the land forces are to cross and recross this river at every battery of the enemy along its banks and on the islands, and carry their works, we must be delayed in our progress beyond all reason, and must certainly sustain some disaster. I write |