of 40,000, lay hid in the encircling wood about the Union camp. They had marched swiftly and secretly from Corinth, through rain and mud, and at midnight had gained sight of the camp fires. Cold and weary they lay on the ground, not daring to light fires to dry their clothes or cook a comfortable meal, lest the smoke or the light should reveal their presence to Union pickets. Just as the gray dawn broke on Sunday, that day which ought to bring peace and good-will among men, - the Union soldiers were roused from sleep by the wild yells which hailed the rebel attack. In a moment all was hurry and confusion in Sherman's camp, where the alarm began. His pickets made a feeble resistance, then rushed

There

back to give the alarm. It soon spread from camp to camp. was dressing in hot haste; no time for breakfast, or for elaborate toilets. By daylight the battle of Shiloh had fairly set in.

The battle broke first on Sherman's division near the log meetinghouse. He worked like the hero he was, and fought his ground inch by inch. But first Bragg, then Polk, and afterwards Johnston, beat upon him right and left. He was obliged to fall back nearer the river.

It was eight in the morning when Grant galloped on from Savannah where he had heard the firing. He sent post haste to hurry up General Buell, who he knew could not be far away, and another ex

press was sent to General Lew. Wallace, who was at a landing up the river with 5,000 men. If he could hold out till reinforcements came up, Grant did not despair.

The enemy fought hard to drive the Unionists to the river. There was not a boat to take them over. In case worse came to the worst, they could only have fought to the brink and then they must either drown or surrender. Beauregard, riding up and down his ranks, repeated again and again this order, "Drive the Yankees into the Tennessee."

For hours the battle raged, the Union troops all the time pressed backwards. But the banks of the river just here were high and ridgy. The Union troops had mounted guns on this crest, and with them held back the rebel advance. To keep this ridge was their only hope of resistance.

At three in the afternoon the rebel General Albert Sydney Johnston, riding in front of his troops, felt a twinge in his leg where a rifle ball had entered. "It is nothing but a flesh wound," he said, riding on. Ten minutes later he turned to his aid, deadly pale and almost fainting, "I fear I am mortally wounded," he said, brokenly. Then stretching out his arms to his companion, he fell from his horse, dead. His loss was a serious one to the South. He was one of their ablest commanding generals. Still with victory so near them as it seemed at that hour, his loss could not alter the chances. His body was borne quietly from the field and the fight went on.

As darkness fell, Beauregard gave orders for his men to suspend battle for the night. That morning he had pointed to the tents, where our army lay, unconscious of the near danger, and said to his officers. "Gentlemen, we will sleep to-night in the enemy's camp." He was right. The whole Union lines had fallen back so far from their position that the conquering rebels held their camping ground of the night previous. If he had gone on with the battle, in spite of growing darkness, he might perhaps have pushed the Union troops to the river and forced them to "surrender or drown."

That night Beauregard sat in his tent till after midnight, writing the report of the "glorious victory of the Confederate Army." While he wrote, the fresh troops of General Buell, who had been hurrying up to join Grant the previous day, were arriving, regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade. General Lew. Wallace, with his 5,000 men, was also in camp, after a hard march the afternoon previous. When Monday morning dawned there was an army of

50,000 Unionists at Shiloh, ready to regain what they had lost the day before. Beauregard's army had dwindled, by the killed, wounded, and missing, in Sunday's fight, to hardly more than 30,000. While he wrote in proud security of victory, the tables were ready to be turned upon him.

The battle of the second day began when these masses of fresh soldiers were hurled against the rebels, already worn by the hard fight of the first day; a less soldierly eye than that of Beauregard could have foreseen the issue. He made a gallant show of resistance, but fell back constantly. At noon, he ordered a retreat towards the stronghold at Corinth. On Monday afternoon Grant's banners fluttered victorious over the BATTLE-FIELD OF SHILOH. I have told you that the end of the rebel lines at Columbus fell back to Island No. 10, an island in the Mississippi, just where the river makes a double curve between Kentucky and Arkansas. This island had been strongly fortified. The town of New Madrid, lying opposite in Arkansas, was also guarded by rebel forces under the famous guerrilla chieftain, Jeff. Thompson. Rebel batteries, planted up and down on both sides of the river, were ready to sweep vessels coming down the stream, and a fleet of gun-boats lying off New Madrid lent their aid in making this point in the river impassable. While Grant was lying at Pittsburg Landing awaiting the battles of Shiloh, which broke up the centre of the rebel lines as effectually as it had been before broken up at Donelson, General John Pope, who had been generalling in Missouri since the war began, was proceeding to take Island No. 10.

The first thing Pope did was to drive Jeff. Thompson away from New Madrid and take possession with his army. This was not a work of much time. Thompson saw that it was not a place that he could hold, and accordingly he took advantage of a dark night, and a tremendous thunder-storm, and landed all his troops on the island, leaving Pope to come peaceably into his desired head-quarters.

Just about this time Commodore Foote, who had been in Cairo. repairing his vessels, battered in the attack on Donelson, appeared on the scene of action. Eighteen gun-boats, all made as good as new, prepared to pound away with their cannon and mortar-guns on Island No. 10.

The attack was begun March 16th, and promised to be slow busiThe batteries along the shore answered back Foote's firing. The days went by till April, and still the island remained appar

ness.

ently as strong as ever. Pope, at his headquarters in New Madrid, was all the time chafing with impatience at his inability to hasten on affairs. One morning Gen. Hamilton of his army came to him with a brilliant suggestion. He proposed to cut a canal straight across a swampy tongue of land jutting out into the river opposite the island, through which gun-boats would pass out of reach of shore or island batteries, get down below No. 10, and so attack it in front and rear at once. The plan was at once acted on. In nineteen days the soldiers, commanded by the army engineers, had cut a canal twelve miles long, through the swampy peninsula, covered with trees which had to be sawed by hand four feet under water.

On the 5th of April the enemy saw a fleet coming up from below, upon their defenses. Already several of their shore batteries had been silenced. They saw that Island No. 10 was as good as taken, and resolved to save themselves by instant flight. Pope heard of this intention, and hastened down below to cut off their retreat. The fugitives, hemmed in by the river on one hand, the swamps on the other, Pope's army in front and their deserted stronghold in the rear, could do nothing but surrender. Nearly 7,000 men were taken prisoners without striking a blow. The same day the rebels remaining on the island sent a flag to Commodore Foote, and the place was in his hands when Pope returned. This happened on the 8th of April, the day after the victory at Shiloh.

Pope went immediately over to join Grant's army, who had begun the siege of Corinth, where Beauregard had retreated from Shiloh. There the rebels had built, or pretended to build, another set of impregnable fortresses. General Halleck, who had come down from Missouri to take the chief command, was very cautious about moving upon the enemy's works. Grant, Pope, and Sherman were all in front of Corinth, waiting the order from Halleck to attack. But although there was some skirmishing and a constant advance, over a month slipped by, and the town was not taken. On the night of May 30th a terrible explosion was heard in Corinth. The soldiers in the Union camp could see clouds of smoke rolling into the air. Sherman was ordered forward to look out for the enemy and see what they were doing. He found Corinth empty. The rebels had decamped again. For days Beauregard had been sending his most valuable stores away south to Mobile. He had gone with his army to Tupelo, a place commanding the railway lines to Mobile and New Orleans. He began to feel that it was important to be near the railway in case of further retreat. This was Beauregard's last strategy, however. Jefferson Davis, who was at Richmond making believe that he was president of a "great and glorious country,' was tired of him. He took advantage of his temporary illness to put General Bragg in his place, and the star of Beauregard, who was really a very able military man, went down below the horizon. The rebels fought no more battles with him for a leader.

After Pope left for Corinth, Commodore Foote with those indefatigable gun-boats proceeded down the river to take Memphis, where Jeff. Thompson, who had got away from the siege of No. 10, had made another stand. There were a few small obstacles along the river in the way of forts and batteries, but Foote proceeded slowly, taking these by the way, in the same deliberate, matter of course way in which he would eat his dinner. Fort Pillow was taken with the most difficulty, and caused him the delay of a week or two. But when, on the 6th day of June, he arrived at Memphis, the rebels had again fled, and there was nothing to do but anchor the gun-boats in the river and march the troops into the city. Thus the first half of the year 1862 ended. In those six months Henry and Donelson had been taken; the rebel line had again been broken at Shiloh; Island No. 10 had been captured, and the Mississippi was free of obstruction as far south as Memphis.

The Union troops, under General Mitchell, were scouring Ala