single regiment, the rest of his command having been halted, by mistake, several miles back, fought them under great peril until the rest of his forces came up, when the rebels beat a hasty retreat, leaving their cannon behind them.

At the same time, General Herron, with a force of nine hundred cav alry, marched to coöperate with an infantry force upon the rebel camp at Cross Hollows. Arriving there, he found himself alone, the infantry not having arrived. Not feeling disposed to return without a fight, he attacked the rebels, who, though largely outnumbering their assailants, fled after a short engagement, leaving their camp and all its furniture in their hands.

These trivial successes were not of much permanent value. The rebels, driven from one camp, gathered at another, or even returned to their old camp as soon as they could do so in safety. On the 26th of November, General Blunt received information that General Marmaduke was at Cane Hill with eight thousand rebels; and that he was only waiting for the remainder of General Hindman's army to arrive, when they would assume the offensive. General Blunt resolved to attack them before their reënforcements could arrive, and to drive them from the rich country where they were gathering abundant supplies.

Apprised of his approach, the rebels took a commanding position, from which they were dislodged after a brisk engagement. They retreated to another hill a little farther south; and thus they were steadily driven all day long, until night put an end to what was partly a battle, and partly a stubbornly resisted pursuit. Four days later, General Grant received information that General Hindman had joined General Marmaduke, and that their united forces amounted to over twenty thousand men. With this formidable army he had undertaken to invade Missouri, and recover the territory wrested from the rebels by the battle of Pea Ridge. General Blunt immediately telegraphed to General Herron, who was one hundred and twenty miles north, at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, to come to his assistGeneral Hindman, by making a feint, succeeded in slipping by to the east of General Blunt, and thus interposed his army between the divided Union forces. His purpose was first to rush north and crush General Herron, advancing with his reënforcements, and then to turn and destroy General Blunt's army. The success of this well-devised plan would give Missouri back to rebeldom.

ance.

In three hours after General Herron had received his dispatches his troops were on the move to join General Blunt. He had already marched one hundred and ten miles in three days, and had sent forward the bulk of his cavalry, which had reached General Blunt, when he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly in the presence of the foe. They had taken a commanding position on the road, and, with their batteries planted, they were prepared for battle. If General Herron attempted to retreat, his wagon-trains would inevitably fall into the hands of the rebels; while at the same time every retrograde step he took increased the distance between himself and the force he was hastening to relieve.

To fight an army of twenty-five thousand men with four thousand seems indeed a bold undertaking. But General Herron believed the

hazards of a battle less than the hazards of a retreat. Moreover, he hoped that the report of his guns might bring General Blunt to his relief. Of course no other communication between them was then possible. Immediately bringing his batteries into position, he opened upon the enemy.

Meanwhile, General Blunt, learning that the rebels had passed him, commenced pursuit. He was five miles from the battle-field when his attention was attracted by the sound of the guns. At once divining the cause, he pushed rapidly forward. Between two and three o'clock his advance reached the field of battle, and suddenly opened upon the rebels an unexpected and destructive fire. Their purpose to fight a divided foe was defeated by the rapid marches and cordial coöperation of the two divisions. Still, the rebels had over double the number of the patriot troops. The rebels' fought with great desperation, for General Hindman had assured them, "Our country will be ruined if we fail."

All day long the battle raged. Batteries had been repeatedly taken and retaken at the point of the bayonet. Darkness at length put an end to the conflict, apparently undecided, to be renewed in the morning. But in the night the rebels, muffling their cannon-wheels, stole away. The heroic little patriot army was left in possession of the field. Their loss was eleven hundred and forty-eight killed, wounded, and missing. The rebel loss is estimated at double that number.

Thus ended the last serious attempt on the part of the rebels to recover Missouri by force of arms. Its history from the time of the battle of Prairie Grove has been political rather than military. Henceforth the chief efforts of the rebels were to keep it a Slave State by the aid of intrigue and political combinations. It was, however, the theatre of a constant and devastating guerrilla warfare, and the scene of raids of a serious character. In January, 1863, a band of three thousand rebels, under Marmaduke, made a determined assault upon Springfield. They had no expectation of holding the place; but it was an important dépôt of supplies, from which they hoped to replenish their exhausted stores.

The town was commanded by a brave man, General Brown. He summoned the convalescents from the hospital, called together the milkia, and thus largely increasing his regular force, which was but small, he successfully repelled the rebel attack, and maintained his position until reënforced. In April following, General Marmaduke entered the State at the head of a large force of cavalry, and issued a flaming address, in which he proclaimed his purpose to redeem "a noble State from cruel thraldrom," and "not to pillage or destroy." He illustrated his words by taking every thing he wanted and paying with Confederate notes, which were worth scarcely their weight in brown paper.

Marmaduke occupied Frederickstown for a day, attacked Cape Girardeau, bombastically demanded its surrender, made a show of assaulting it, and then retreated, pursued by Generals McNeil and Vandever. On the 20th of August, 1863, a band of rebel guerrillas, under command of Quantrel, one of the blackest-hearted men whom the rebellion developed, entered Lawrence, Kansas, for purposes of revenge rather than of plunder. Seizing the defenceless city by night, he remorsely surrendered it to be sacked

by his gang of murderers and outlaws. A guard, surrounding the place, shot all who attempted to escape. The houses were first plundered and then fired. In the morning he left, what had been a prosperous town, little more than a heap of smoking ruins. More than two hundred peaceful citizens were murdered in cold blood. Many others were consumed in the flames of their dwellings. The horrors of this awful scene of crime and brutality no pen can describe. In one case twelve men were driven into a building, when they were all shot, and the house set on fire over their bodies. Two millions of property were destroyed. The wife and daughter of a man threw themselves over his body, begging for his life. One of the rebel gang thrust his revolver between them, and shot the man. Seldom has earth witnessed a sadder spectacle than was seen when these assassins retired. The remains of many of the most distinguished citizens were left, crisp and black, in the midst of the smouldering ruins of their dwellings. The collecting these remains, that they might have respectful burial, was heart-sickening. Women and little children were wandering about searching for husbands and fathers, and when they did find them among the corpses, their anguish was indescribable.

It was thus that the rebels, exasperated by the Union victories of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, kept up a guerrilla warfare throughout Missouri. Desperate men, the most infamous of robbers, in gangs of from twenty to two or three thousand, ravaged the entire State, especially the southwestern portion. Disguised in the garb of citizens, seldom venturing to attack any but the unarmed, assuming the semblance of honest men at the first approach of danger, it was difficult to detect and almost impossible to pursue them. They roved with impunity through all defenceless regions, plundering alike friend and foe. Hundreds of families were bereft of their homes by the midnight torch.

A traveller met in one of these desolate regions a family, emaciate and ragged, crowded into a wagon. They had been robbed, their home burned, and they, in utter beggary, were trying to escape to some land where they could dwell under the protection of law. A little boy, bareheaded and barefooted, trudged along by the side of the rickety, crowded vehicle.

"Well, my little fellow," inquired the traveller, "where do you live?" "I don't live anywhere," was the artless response, "only in a wagon." It will be many years before this desolated country will recover from the ravages, not merely of legitimate war, but of guerrilla devastation. Thus the border-ruffianism of Missouri returned to vex her. She who was the first to take the sword to drive Free State men from Kansas, has almost literally perished by the sword thus lawlessly drawn.

This thievery and murder, ruinous as it was to individual interests, exerted no influence in arresting the onward movement of the National Government in rescuing the land from rebellion. All the territory the Union men gained they held. Nor were they content to remain in the edge of Arkansas. On the 1st of September, 1863, General Steele, then in command of the frontier army, prepared to advance on Little Rock. The city was ineffectually defended by General Price. The rebel general being compelled to evacuate his works, abandoned the city and retreated.

On the 10th of September the capital of Arkansas was formally surrendered into the hands of the Union general by its mayor. The National flag has never ceased since to float over that city. Its restoration to the Union may be considered as effectually and finally closing the Missouri campaign.

POSITION OF ISLAND NUMBER TEN AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY.-STRENGTH OF ITS FORTIFICATIONS.-GENERAL POPE.-ADMIRAL FOOTE.-CONFIDENCE OF THE REBELS.-SUBLIME AND ROMANTIC INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE.-CAPTURE OF POINT PLEASANT AND NEW MADRID.— BOMBARDMENT OF ISLAND NUMBER TEN--THE CANAL SECRETLY CUT.-DARING MIDNIGHT EXPLOIT-CAPTURE OF THE Island.-GREAT IMPORTANCE OF THE VICTORY.

WE must claim the privilege of the dramatist, and call for a change of scene from Northwestern Arkansas to the Mississippi River. This majestic strcain, appropriately called by the Indians the Father of Waters, abounds in islands from above Cairo nearly to New Orleans. These islands, commencing a few miles below Cairo, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, are numbered from one to one hundred and twenty-four. After the evacuation of Columbus, the rebels retreated down the river, past the town of Hickman, to one of these islands, known as Island Number Ten. It is situated near the boundary-line between the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. The general course of the river, from Cairo to Napoleon, in Arkansas, is a little west of south. At Island Number Ten, however, it makes a sudden turn back upon itself, and flows, for six or eight miles, nearly due north. Then, turning as abruptly again, it continues in its former southerly direction.

By these turns in the river two promontories are formed, one on the Missouri or western shore, and one, a little lower down, on the opposite or Kentucky bank. Island Number Ten is situated in the first bend of the river. It commands the approach for miles in either direction. New Madrid is a small town on the Missouri shore, opposite the point of the Kentucky promontory, and below Island Number Ten. Some miles further down the river is Point Pleasant. A few miles below, on the Tennessee shore, is the hamlet of Tiptonville. The annexed diagram will af ford the reader a clear conception of these localities, which, through the fortunes of war, have attained such celebrity.

From Island Number Three, across the neck of the peninsula to New Madrid, is a distance of six miles. By the river it is fifteen miles. From Island Number Ten to Tiptonville it is five miles by land, while it is twenty-seven miles by water. On both sides of the river the land is low and marshy. On the Kentucky shore an immense swamp commences nearly forty miles above Island Number Ten, and extends for many miles below, running nearly parallel with the river, with but a narrow strip of dry land between. Opposite the island this swamp becomes an unbroken body of water, called Reelfoot