inscription on the sword was very simple, being merely :

"Presented to General U. S. Grant, by G. W. Graham, C. B. Lagow, C. C. Marsh, and John Cook, 1862."

While the Tennessee programme of operations was thus carried out, General Grant was not unmindful of the fact that he had hostile forces scattered about at posts nearer home. He sent expeditions and reconnoitring parties in all directions; and, on the 12th of March, 1862, he attacked with artillery and cavalry the enemy's works at a point a mile and a half west of Paris, and commanding the various roads leading to that place. The rebels were driven out, with a loss of about one hundred killed, wounded, and prisoners, and the Union forces occupied the works.

With the tendency of the movements of the different armies of the West toward the mouth of the Mississippi River and the Gulf, it became necessary that one chief should have the direction of the whole, to make the combinations at the proper time. Therefore, a new department was created, to be known as the "Department of the Mississippi," which embraced all the country west of a line drawn north and south through Knoxville, as far as Kansas and the Indian Territory, and running north to the lakes. Of this large department, General Grant commanded a very important district.

The fall of Donelson had startled the entire Confederacy, as the cannonading of Sumter did the North; and General Beauregard addressed himself to the work of mustering an irresistible army, with which to roll backward the advancing columns of the Army of Freedom. The rebels began concentrating a large force in the Southwest, under General Albert Sydney Johnston. General P. G. T. Beauregard commanded the troops which constituted the rebel army of the valley of the Mississippi. The head-quarters of this army were located at Corinth, Mississippi, with the intention of holding the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad; of preventing any advance of the Union forces below the line of the Tennessee River; and also to have a force ready to move into Kentucky and across the Ohio River, if an opportunity

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should offer. The Mississippi River was also blockaded by fortified positions, at Island No. 10, and other points above Memphis, and at Vicksburg, New Orleans, &c., below that city. It was consequently thought by the rebels, that Corinth could not be attacked by the way of the Mississippi, and they determined to mass their forces to resist the advance of Grant's army from the Tennessee River.

As the remainder of the troops under General Grant passed up the river, they encamped at Savannah and Pittsburg Landing, about twenty miles from Corinth.

On the 15th of March, 1862, the troops belonging to the Third Division of Grant's army advanced from Savannah, Tennessee, into McNairy County, and struck the line of the Jackson and Corinth Railroad, at Purdy, where they burned the railroad bridge, and tore up the track for a long distance. This movement prevented a train, heavily laden with rebel troops, from passing over that line from Jackson, the cars arriving shortly after the bridge was destroyed. As the rebels held the road between Jackson and Grand Junction, thence to Corinth, the concentration of the rebel army was not prevented, but only delayed, by the destruction of this part of the line.

Never before, and perhaps not since, did the South summon with so much pride and confidence the flower of her army to overwhelm the "Yankee invaders." From Pensacola, under Bragg, from Mobile, where the troops had gone to dispute the landing of Butler, and other points, came the chivalry, and their poor whites, to swell the ranks. General Bishop Polk hastened forward divisions from Columbus; Johnson retraced his retreating steps to augment the Confederate force.

The rebel troops which had concentrated at Corinth, about the 1st of April, 1862, were supposed to number, at least, forty-five thousand men, under General A. S. Johnston, commanding department; General P. G. T. Beauregard, commanding army at Corinth; and Generals Bragg, Hardee, Breckinridge, and Polk, in command of divisions. It was also expected, by General Johnston,

that the forces under Generals Van Dorn and Price would have reached them within a few days, swelling his number to at least seventy thousand.

General Grant's forces had, by this time, been nearly all brought together at Pittsburg Landing, Savannahı, and other places within reach-the cavalry pickets occupying the outposts of the army.

General Buell, who had been pursuing Johnston through Nashville, was leisurely marching across the country to join General Grant.

"Corinth must be defended," declared the papers of Memphis. And the Governor of Tennessee, by a flaming proclamation, called for enlistments:

"As Governor of your State, and commander-in-chief of its army, I call upon every able-bodied man of the State, without regard to age, to enlist in its service. I command him who can obtain a weapon to march with our armies. I ask him who can repair or forge an arm to make it ready at once for the soldier."

The rebel generals had the railroads, by which they could rapidly concentrate their troops, and they determined to attack General Grant at Pittsburg, with their superior force, before General Buell could join him. Beauregard had his pickets within four miles of the Union forces, and he could move his entire army within striking distance before General Grant would know of his danger. He calculated that he could annihilate General Grant, drive him into the river, or force him to surrender, capture all his cannon, wagons, ammunition, provisions, steamboats-every thing-by a sudden stroke. If he succeeded, he could then move against General Buell, destroy his army, and not only recover all that had been lost, but he would also redeem Kentucky and invade Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

All but one division of General Grant's army was at Pittsburg. Two miles above the Landing, the river begins to make its great eastern bend. Lick Creek comes in from the west, at the bend. Three miles below Pittsburg is Snake Creek, which also comes in from the west. Five miles further down is Crump's Landing. General

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Lewis Wallace's division was near Crump's, but the other divisions were between the two creeks. The banks of the river are seventy-five feet high, and the country is a succession of wooded hills, with numerous ravines. There are a few clearings and farm-houses, but it is nearly all forest-tall oak-trees, with here and there thickets of underbrush.

From the Landing at Pittsburg, which is the nearest point to Corinth on the Tennessee, the road runs beside a ravine in a southwesterly direction, passing, a mile distant, a log-house, where another road branches off to the left, leading to Hamburg, and a third to the right, which goes to Shiloh Church, two miles further, in the direction of Corinth. This primitive sanctuary is a dilapidated log-building, without ceiling or windows-a fair type of the legitimate effect, upon Church and State, of American slavery.

A great advantage would be secured to the rebel army if the attack upon Grant could be made before General Buell reached him. The hostile force would not only outnumber ours by fifteen thousand men, but General Van Dorn was expected from Arkansas with thirty thousand more. But his arrival was delayed, which hastened the movement against Grant to get the start of Buell, who, Johnston learned on the first of April, was within two or three days' march of Savannah. The orders to advance were hailed with wildest joy by the rebel columns, who were assured by their commanders that it would be but a holiday pastime to overwhelm and rout the adversary. The march of eighteen miles was commenced on Thursday, and, hindered by a storm Friday night, the position of attack was not gained till Saturday afternoon. Preparations were immediately made for the onset on Sabbath morning. Along the Union lines there was no dream of the impending danger; no thought of meeting the foe this side of Corinth, where General Halleck, Chief of the Department, was to take the command.. A skirmish on the evening of Friday was regarded as a mere reconnoissance by the enemy.

The position of affairs Saturday night was unlike any

other in the progress of the war. There was certainly the appearance of vigilance in our army. But the divisions were scattered; the commanding general was at Savannah, ten miles from the threatened point, and Buell twenty miles away. Rebel sympathizers in the region had thoroughly posted the enemy, whose superior force had, it would seem, every possible advantage. And it must be recollected that nothing excepting the picket firing and light skirmishing changed at all the force of the many considerations which pointed to Corinth, the enemy's stronghold, as the battle-field.

General Grant personally reconnoitered, to discover if there were any indications that the rebels had advanced.

The rebel leader-the late candidate for Vice-President of the United States-addressed the soldiers with great earnestness and sensational eloquence :

SOLDIERS OF THE ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI:

I have put you in motion to offer battle to the invaders of your country, with the resolution and discipline and valor becoming men, fighting, as you are, for all worth living or dying for. You can but march to a decisive victory over agrarian mercenaries, sent to subjugate and despoil you of your liberties, property, and honor.

Remember the precious stake involved; remember the dependence of your mothers, your wives, your sisters, and your children, on the result. Remember the fair, broad, abounding lands, the happy homes, that will be desolated by your defeat. The eyes and hopes of eight million people rest upon you. You are expected to show yourselves worthy of your valor and courage, worthy of the women of the South, whose noble devotion in this war has never been exceeded in any time. With such incentives to brave deeds, and with trust that God is with us, your general will lead you confidently to the combat, assured of success.

General A. S. JOHNSTON, Commanding.

The rebel army of the Mississippi was divided into three army corps, and was commanded as follows:Commanding-General, General Albert Sydney John

ston.

Second in Command, General P. G. T. Beauregard. First Army Corps, Lieutenant-General L. Polk. Second Army Corps, Lieutenant-General Braxton Bragg.

Third Army Corps, Lieutenant-General W. J. Hardee.