Colonel McDowell's second brigade had come from the former lines at Russell's, and had relieved General John A. Logan's brigade.

Sherman then had his whole division in a slightly curved line, facing south, his right resting on the Mobile and Ohio railroad, near a deep cut known as Bowie Hill Cut, and left resting on the main Corinth road, at the crest of the ridge, there connecting with General Hurlbut, who, in turn, on his left connected with General Davies, and so on down the whole line to its extremity. So near was the enemy that the Union troops could hear the sound of his drums, and sometimes of voices in command, and the railroad cars arriving and departing at Corinth were easily distinguished. For some days and nights cars had been arriving and departing very frequently, especially in the night. Before daybreak, Sherman instructed the brigade commanders and the field-officers of the day to feel forward as far as possible, but all reported the enemy's pickets still in force in the dense woods to our front. But about six A. M. a curious explosion, sounding like a volley of large siege-pieces, followed by others singly and in twos and threes, arrested Sherman's attention; and soon after a large smoke arose from the direction of Corinth, when he telegraphed General Halleck to ascertain the cause. The latter answered that he could not explain it, but ordered Sherman "to advance his division and feel the enemy, if still in his front." Sherman immediately put in motion two regiments of each brigade, by different roads, and soon after followed with the whole division, infantry, artillery, and cavalry.

Somewhat to his surprise, the enemy's chief redoubt was found within thirteen hundred yards of our line of intrenchments, but completely masked by the dense forest and undergrowth. Instead of being, as had been supposed, a continuous line of intrenchments encircling Corinth, the defences consisted of separate redoubts, connected in part by a parapet and ditch, and in part by shallow rifle-pits, the trees being felled so as to give a good field of fire to and beyond the main road. General M. L. Smith's brigade moved rapidly down the

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main road, entering the first redoubt of the enemy at seven A. M. It was completely evacuated, and he pushed on into Corinth, and beyond, to College Hill. General Denver entered the enemy's lines at the same time, seven A. M., at a point midway between the wagon and railroad, and proceeded on to Corinth, and Colonel McDowell kept further to the right, near the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. By eight A. M. all Sherman's division was at Corinth and beyond.

.

On the whole ridge extending from Sherman's camp into Corinth, and to the right and left, could be seen the remains of the abandoned camps of the enemy, flour and provisions scattered about, and every thing indicating a speedy and confused retreat. In the town itself many houses were still burning, and the ruins of warehouses and buildings containing commissary and other confederate stores were still smouldering; but there still remained piles of cannon-balls, shells, and shot, sugar, molasses, beans, rice, and other property, which the enemy had failed to carry off or destroy.

From the best information obtained from the few citizens who remained in Corinth, it appeared that the enemy had for some days been removing their sick and valuable stores, and had sent away on railroad-cars a part of their effective force on the night of the 28th. But, of course, even the vast amount of their rolling-stock could not carry away an army of a hundred thousand men. The enemy was therefore compelled to march away, and began the march by ten o'clock on the night of the 29th-the columns filling all the roads leading south and west all night-the rear-guard firing the train, which led to the explosions and conflagration. The enemy did not relieve his pickets that morning, and many of them were captured, who did not have the slightest. intimation of the proposed evacuation.

Finding Corinth abandoned by the enemy, Sherman ordered General M. L. Smith to pursue on the Ripley road, by which it appeared they had taken the bulk of their artillery.

General Smith pushed the pursuit up to the bridges and narrow causeway by which the bottom of Tuscumbia

Creek is passed. The enemy opened with canister on the small party of cavalry, and burned every bridge, leaving the woods full of straggling soldiers. Many of these were gathered up and sent to the rear, but the main army had escaped across Tuscumbia Creek. Sherman says, in his official report of the siege :

"The evacuation of Corinth, at the time and in the manner in which it was done, was a clear back-down from the high and arrogant tone heretofore assumed by the rebels. The ground was of their own choice. The fortifications, though poor and indifferent, were all they supposed necessary to our defeat, as they had had two months to make them, with an immense force to work at their disposal. If, with two such railroads as they possessed, they could not supply their army with reinforcements and provisions, how can they attempt it in this poor, arid, and exhausted part of the country?"

From the time the army moved on Corinth, up to the date of its evacuation, the troops of Sherman's division had constructed seven distinct lines of intrenchments. Scarcely had one line been completed before they were called upon to advance a short distance, take up a new position, and construct another line. Occupying as it did the extreme right flank of the army, this division was necessarily more exposed, and was compelled to perform harder work, and furnished heavier details than any other single division in the entire command. But every task was performed with a cheerfulness and alacrity that elicited the highest encomiums from the division commander.

"But a few days ago," he says in his congratulatory order of May 31st, "a large and powerful rebel army lay at Corinth, with outposts extending to our very camp at Shiloh. They held two railroads extending north and south, east and west, across the whole extent of their country, with a vast number of locomotives and cars to bring to them speedily and certainly their reinforcements and supplies. They called to their aid all their armies from every quarter, abandoning the seacoast and the great river Mississippi, that they might over

whelm us with numbers in the place of their own choosing. They had their chosen leaders, men of high reputation and courage, and they dared us to leave the cover of our iron-clad gunboats to come to fight them in their trenches, and still more dangerous swamps and ambuscades of their Southern forests. Their whole country, from Richmond to Memphis and Nashville to Mobile, rung with their taunts and boastings, as to how they would immolate the Yankees if they dared to leave the Tennessee River. They boldly and defiantly challenged us to meet them at Corinth. We accepted the challenge, and came slowly and without attempt at concealment to the very ground of their selection; and they have fled away. We yesterday marched unopposed through the burning embers of their destroyed camps and property, and pursued them to their swamps, until burning bridges plainly confessed they had fled, and not marched away for better ground. It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in history, and every officer and soldier who lent his aid has just reason to be proud of his part.

"No amount of sophistry or words from the leaders of the rebellion can succeed in giving the evacuation of Corinth, under the circumstances, any other title than that of a signal defeat, more humiliating to them and their cause than if we had entered the place over the dead and mangled bodies of their soldiers. We are not here to kill and slay, but to vindicate the honor and just authority of that government which has been bequeathed to us by our honored fathers, and to whom we would be recreant if we permitted their work to pass to our children marred and spoiled by ambitious and wicked rebels.

"The general commanding, while thus claiming for his division their just share in this glorious result, must, at the same time, remind them that much yet remains to be done, and that all must still continue the same vigilance and patience, industry and obedience, till the enemy lays down his arms, and publicly acknowledges, for their supposed grievances, they must obey the laws of their country, and not attempt its

overthrow by threats, by cruelty, and by war. They must be made to feel and acknowledge the power of a just and mighty nation. This result can only be accomplished by a cheerful and ready obedience to the orders and authority of our leaders, in whom we now have just reason to feel the most implicit confidence. That the fifth division of the right wing will do this, and that in due time we will go to our families and friends at home, is the earnest prayer and wish of your immediate commander."

The ability and untiring energy displayed by General Sherman during the siege elicited the warm praise of General Grant, who afterwards, in an official dispatch to army headquarters, wrote: "His services as division commander in the advance on Corinth, I will venture to say, were appreciated by the now general-in-chief (General Halleck) beyond those of any other division commander."

On the 2d of June, Sherman was ordered by General Halleck to march with his own division and Hurlbut's through Corinth and dislodge the enemy, supposed to be in position near Smith's bridge, seven miles southwest of Corinth, where the Memphis and Charleston railway crosses Tuscumbia Creek. He set out immediately, his own division in advance; 'but on the morning of the 3d, Colonel T. Lyle Dickey, Fourth Illinois Cavalry, who was sent forward to reconnoitre, returned and reported the bridge burned, and no enemy near it. Sherman then went into bivouac near Chewalla, and set to work to save such of the rolling-stock of the railway as could probably be rendered serviceable, and by the 9th, chiefly through the exertions of the Fifty-second Indiana, Major Main, which was generally known as "the railroad regiment," succeeded in collecting and sending to Corinth seven locomotives in tolerable order, a dozen platform-cars, over two hundred pairs of truck-wheels, and the iron-work of about sixty cars.

On the 26th of May, Sherman had received from the War Department, and had accepted, a commission as Major-General of Volunteers, dating from May 1st.