CORINTH DESCRIBED.-SHERMAN'S RECONNOISSANCE. THE ARRIVAL OF HALLECK.POPE'S ARMY COMES UP.-BEAUREGARD'S ORDER.-HIS FORCE-OURS.-POPE TAKES FARMINGTON. THE BATTLE OF FARMINGTON.-ELLIOT'S RAID.-CORINTH EVACUATED.- -THE OCCUPATION AND PURSUIT.- -Co OPERATING MOVEMENTS.MITCHEL'S MARCH.-THE NAVY.-FIGHT AT MEMPHIS.-NEW EFFORTS OF THE ENEMY.

CORINTH was the objective point, at which Beauregard was to make his stand, and which Halleck was to capture at any cost. Specifically, the immediate matter in hand for the Union general was to cut the enemy's communication from east to west, on the new line which he had established, and the strength of which he vaunted; and thus to force him back upon the southern route from Vicksburg to Montgomery. In executing this, the commander of the land forces was to move pari passu with the naval armament, which was endeavoring to clear the Mississippi; and finally, he was either to beat Beauregard, or, if that wily commander would not stay to be beaten, he was, at the least, to compel him to abandon Corinth in a disastrous retreat.

Only a small village, not upon common maps, Corinth owes its military importance to the fact that it is at the intersection of two great arterial railroads-the "Mobile and Ohio" and the "Memphis and Charleston." The length and value of these routes are indicated by their names. Corinth is forty miles east of the Grand Junction, which it covered from Hal

bridges had been destroyed beyond Iuka. To isolate him completely, making either a vigorous attack or an evacuation the only alternatives, Halleck now ordered his southern communications to be interrupted. This was done by Colonel Elliot, of the Second Michigan cavalry (a captain in the United States cavalry), who, with his regiment and the Second Iowa cavalry, marched on the night of the 27th. His route was from Farmington, across the railroad east of Iuka; then along the Tuscumbia road to Cartersville and Boonesville, twenty-five miles distant. The expedition was well conducted, and entirely successful: the surprise of the people along the route was very great; and there was no little consternation in the army of Beauregard. Elliot destroyed at Boonesville five cars loaded with arms, five containing loose ammunition, six filled with officers' baggage, and five with subsistence stores. He paroled the prisoners and the sick whom he found in his route, burnt trains and depots, and destroyed many locomotives. His work was done in the most admirable manner, and he set out upon his perilous return. He had been directed, in the event of finding his pathway blocked in returning, to strike off, and join General Mitchel's column at the east. But, by taking the Tuscumbia road, he eluded pursuit, and joined General Pope's army on the 31st. For this service he was afterwards made, as he fully deserved to be, a brigadier-general of volunteers.

THE EVACUATION OF CORINTH.

And now, by slow movements, our combined forces have closely embraced the Confederate lines. On the 28th, Halleck advances three strong reconnoitring columns, one from each army on the 28th, also, Sherman attacks a strong position in his front, commanded by a house which had been arranged for defence, like a blockhouse, and takes it, establishing his lines within a thousand yards of the enemy: on the 30th, Pope's batteries are opened. But they will not be needed.

The rebels are evacuating Corinth. The fierce display is but a mask. They had begun their preparations for retreat on the 26th. The musketry ceases on Friday. Soon clouds of smoke and sheets of flame announce that Beauregard is firing the town; and as he moves out, filling the southern and western roads, our forces move in.

He has destroyed all that he can, and is off. The "soldiers of Shiloh and Elkhorn" may now put "Corinth" on their colors!

With an immense army, after loud boasts and protestations, in a position and with works of amazing strength, why has he fled without a blow?

His own statements are such as would indeed make Democritus laugh, if he still lived. In his report, written at Tupelo, on the 13th of June, he declares that he had "accomplished his purposes and ends." He denies Elliot's capture of cars, etc., and charges him with inhumanities in burning his sick soldiers,—criminations ably and boldly answered in a letter by Gordon Granger, to which Beauregard has not vouchsafed a reply. He says he twice offered battle, which we declined; and the appearance he would put upon matters is, simply, that the occupation of Corinth was merely a temporary shift, and that it was to be abandoned when weightier matters, then in train, should have made sufficient progress. How does this agree with his former declarations, that Corinth was "the strategic point of that campaign," and that "he could hold it?" The facts in the case are few and simple. His strategy was entirely at fault. He must either drive back Halleck's army, or abandon Corinth; he could not stay there. When he fought the battle at the landing, he expected to overpower Grant. That was his first failure.

He considered the Mississippi secure, both above and below; whereas New Orleans and Island No. 10 fell, Vicksburg was not yet strong, and Memphis was shaking to its centre. Farragut had attacked Forts St. Philip and Jackson on the 18th of April; had destroyed the rebel fleet of thirteen gunboats and three rams; and had so isolated the forts that they sur

rendered on the 28th. On the same day Lovell retired, and New Orleans was ours. By its capture, the heaviest blow of the war, up to that time, had fallen upon them. Unprepared for such crushing disasters, the entire people of rebeldom began to exhibit signs of distrust, and even the "soldiers of Shiloh and Elkhorn" were in no condition to bear our attack. Under the influence of these moral and strategical causes, like the massive portal of that Corinth of which Byron describes the fall,

"It bends-it falls-and all is o'er;

Lost Corinth may resist no more."

Virginia was in a blaze of lurid fires, with the advance of McClellan. Yorktown was evacuated on the 3d and 4th of May; Norfolk on the 10th. Pensacola and Natchez came into Federal possession on the 12th.

The second great rebel line in the West had dissolved like the fabric of a dream, and the enemy must fall back on the third and last-that upon which the strategic points were Vicksburg, Jackson, Meridian, and Selma.

Unfortunately, notwithstanding the clear intelligence and dashing valor of General O. M. Mitchel, they were still to hold Chattanooga, which was long to be to them a tower of strength, and to us a cause of great trouble, carnage, and delay. But, to an unprejudiced eye, it was evident that the decree had gone forth. Line after line had been cut. Boasting of victory, they had retreated from every field; but ever hopeful, ever deluded by siren voices, the rebels prolonged the war, when, by a simple application of military principles, it became daily more manifest that success was impossible.

The occupation of Corinth by our forces was both picturesque and inspiring. From the highest points of the rebel intrenchments it was a magnificent sight, on that brilliant May morning. The eye ranged over a horizon five miles distant, and the intervening space was glistening with bayonets; fluttering with banners, battle-torn, and inscribed with the rubricated glories of former fields; and busy with martial life.