Memphis, was intended to operate on the Mississippi; another army was already operating in Missouri and Arkansas; and a gunboat fleet had been placed on the waters of the Mississippi, which was said to be terrible in destructiveness, and impregnable in strength. Such was the extent of the enemy's plans of campaign in the West.

The situation left the South but little choice than that of making an aggressive movement by which North Alabama and Middle and East Tennessee might be cleared of the forces of the enemy, and they compelled to fall back to assist Gen. Buell in Kentucky-this State being fixed as the critical point in the West, and the field of the active campaign. The brief retirement of Gen. Beauregard from active command on account of ill health, which was made shortly after his evacuation of Corinth, left the way open to the promotion of Gen. Bragg, a favorite of the administration, who had a certain military reputation, but, as an active commander in the field, had the confidence neither of the army nor of the public. The first steps of the campaign were easily decided by this commander: it was to use the forces of Gen. Kirby Smith to threaten Cincinnati, and thus distract the attention and divide the forces of the enemy; while Gen. Bragg himself, co-operating with Smith, was to fulfil the great purpose of the campaign, which was the expulsion of the enemy from Kentucky and the capture of Louisville-thus subjecting the whole of that great grain-growing and meat-producing commonwealth, with all its rich stores, to our control.

Early in the month of August, Gen. McCown, under the orders of Gen. Smith, moved his division from London to Knoxville in East Tennessee. Thence our troops moved to the gaps in the Cumberland mountains, being joined by Claiborne's division at the lower gap, when the whole force was ordered through, with the trains and artillery. From this time our troops made forced marches until they reached Barboursville, which is on the main thoroughfare by which the Yankees received their supplies at the gap by way of Lexington. Halting there long enough only to get water, our wearied army was pushed on to the Cumberland ford. Here a few days' rest was allowed to the troops, who had performed their hard march over stony roads, with their almost bare feet, and with

green corn garnished with a small supply of poor beef for their food.

THE BATTLE OF RICHMOND.

On the 29th of August our troops were in striking distance of the enemy at Richmond. Until our advance descended the Big Hill, it met with no opposition from the enemy. Here, on the morning of the 29th, the enemy was discovered to be in force in our front, and a bold reconnoissance of the cavalry under Colonel Scott, in the afternoon, indicated a determination to give us battle. Although Churchill's division did not get up until quite late in the afternoon, and then in an apparently exhausted state, Gen. Smith determined to march to Richmond the next day, even at the cost of a battle with the whole force of the enemy. The leading division, under Gen. Claiborne, was moved early the next morning, and, after advancing two or three miles, they found the enemy drawn up in line of battle in a fine position, near Mount Zion church, six miles from Richmond. Without waiting for Churchill's division, Claiborne at once commenced the action, and by halfpast seven o'clock in the morning, the fire of artillery was brisk on both sides. As our force was almost too small to storm the position in front, without a disastrous loss, Gen. Churchill was sent with one of his brigades to turn the enemy's right. While this movement was being executed, a bold and well-conducted attempt on the part of the enemy, to turn Claiborne's right, was admirably foiled by the firmness of Col. Preston Smith's brigade, who repulsed the enemy with great slaughter. In the mean time Gen. Churchill had been completely successful in his movement upon the enemy's right flank, where, by a bold charge, his men completed a victory already partially gained by the gallantry of our troops on the left.

The Yankees having been repulsed and driven in confusion from this part of the field, might have retreated without risking another passage at arms, had they not misapprehended our movements.

Gen. Smith having ordered the cavalry to go around to the north of Richmond and attempt to cut off the retreat of the

enemy, our artillery ceased firing, and the enemy, thinking our army was preparing for a retreat, had the foolhardiness to rally on their own retreat and attempt a charge upon the Texas and Arkansas troops under McCray, who, to the great astonishment of the enemy, instead of running away, met them on the half-way ground. This gallant brigade of Texans and Arkansians had to fight the battle alone. Although the odds opposed to them were fearful, yet by reserving their own fire, under the deafening roar of the enemy's guns, and by a well-timed and dashing charge upon the advancing lines, they completely routed and put to flight the hosts of the enemy. They fled in the wildest confusion and disorder. Their knapsacks, swords, pistols, hats, and canteens, scattered along the road, would have marked the route they travelled, even if their dead and dying had not too plainly showed the way.

In passing a deserted camp of the enemy, Gen. Smith found from some of the wounded that Gen. Nelson, the Yankee commander, with reinforcements, had arrived after the second battle. A march of two miles brought us within sight of the town, in front of which, and on a commanding ridge, with both flanks resting upon woods, Nelson had determined to make a final stand. Churchill, with a brigade, was sent off to the left, when a deafening roar of musketry soon announced the raging of a furious combat. In the mean while, Preston Smith, bringing up his division at a double-quick, formed in front of the enemy's centre and left. Almost without waiting the command of the officers, this division coolly advanced under the murderous fire of a force twice their number, and drove them from the field in the greatest confusion, and with immense slaughter. The exhausted condition of our men, together with the closing in of night, prevented the pursuit of the enemy more than a mile beyond Richmond.

The results of the day were gratifying enough. With less than half his force, Gen. Smith had attacked and carried a very strong position at Mount Zion church, after a hard fight of two hours. Again, a still better position at White's farm, in half an hour; and finally, in the town of Richmond, just before sunset, our indomitable troops deliberately walked (they were too tired to run) up to a magnificent position, manned by ten thousand of the enemy, many of them perfectly fresh, and

carried it in fifteen minutes. In the last engagement, we took prisoners from thirteen regiments. Our loss in killed and wounded was about four hundred; that of the enemy was about one thousand, and his prisoners five thousand. The immediate fruits of the victory were nine pieces of artillery and ten thousand small-arms, and a large quantity of supplies. These latter were greatly increased by the capture of Richmond and Frankfort, the whole number of cannon taken being about twenty.

On the 1st day of September Gen. Smith took up the line of march for Lexington; and on the morning of the fourth day of that month, our forces, consisting of a Texas brigade and an Arkansas brigade, under the command of Gen. Churchill, and Gen. Claiborne's division and Gen. Heath's division, all under the command of Gen. Kirby Smith, marched through the city amidst the hearty and generous welcome of thousands of men, women, and children.

The entrance of our troops into Lexington was the occasion of the most inspiriting and touching scenes. Streets, windows, and gardens were filled with ladies and little girls with streamers of red and blue ribbons and flags with stars. Beautiful women seized the hard brown hands of our rough and ragged soldiers, and with tears and smiles thanked them again and again for coming into Kentucky and freeing them from the presence and insults of the hated and insolent Yankees. For hours the enthusiasm of the people was unbounded. At every corner of the streets, baskets of provisions and buckets of water were placed for the refreshment of our weary soldiers, and hundreds of our men were presented with shoes and hats and coats and tobacco from the grateful people. Private residences were turned for the time into public houses of entertainment, free to all who could be persuaded to go and eat. But if the reception of the infantry was enthusiastic, the tears, the smiles, and shouts and cheers of wild delight which greeted Gen. John Morgan's cavalry as they came dashing through the streets amidst clouds of dust, was without a parallel. The wildest joy ruled the hours. The bells of the city pealed forth their joyous welcome, whilst the waving of thousands of white handkerchiefs and tiny Confederate flags attested the gladness and delight of every heart.

It would have been well if the enthusiasm which welcomed Gen. Smith in this town could have been confirmed as a true token of the public sentiment of Kentucky. But while this sentiment was developing itself, the exultation which greeted our troops at Lexington was reflected in other parts of the Confederacy; and from the results already achieved in the Western campaign, the Southern public was raised to the pinnacle of hopeful expectation. When it was known at the seat of government in Virginia that Gen. Smith, after crushing the force opposed to him at Richmond, had gone on and captured Lexington, Paris, and Cynthiana, and established his lines almost in sight of Cincinnati, the public indulged the prospect of the speedy capture of this great city of the West, with its valuable stores and yards for building gunboats. What might have been the result of a sudden attack on this city (for one of our brigades was in striking distance of it) is left to conjecture. The order was to menace, not to attack; and the purposes of the campaign projected by Gen. Bragg required that Smith's command, after making its demonstration on the Ohio, should fall back into the interior to co-operate with the splendid army he had already brought into Kentucky.

Gen. Bragg had entered the State by the eastern route from Knoxville and Chattanooga. The direct route by the way of Nashville would have brought him on Buell's front; but he chose to make the crossing of the Cumberland river several miles above Nashville, apparently with the design of making a flank movement on Buell. The immediate effect of this movement was to cause the Yankees to evacuate East Tennessee, and to relieve North Alabama from Federal occupation; but the enemy, learning that Cincinnati was not in immediate danger, had abundant time to remove the forces collected for the defence of that city, to be united with Buell's army in Kentucky.

The sudden disappearance of Smith from in front of Cincinnati, and the rapidity of his movement, intimated clearly enough that he was making a forced march to reach Bragg and strengthen him before a decisive trial of his strength with Buell. But the movement deprived us of a victory that might have been cheaply won; for it gave opportunity of escape to the Yankee Gen. Morgan, who had been completely hemmed