drawn out in line of battle, the centre a little retired, and their flanks apparently resting but a little in advance of Forts Williams and Chapman. Their task seemed a simple one. It was only to assail and break the National line by one furious charge, and then capture the two forts by an attack in their rear. The battle was commenced about daylight by artillery fire from the rebels, who had planted a battery west of the town. This, however, produced no other effect than to render the town an exceedingly uncomfortable place of residence, and to drive the civilians to the hills in the rear. Not until after nine o'clock was any general assault attempted. Then suddenly an immense mass of rebels emerged from the woods, their bayonets gleaming in the sun, moving up against the National centre, in the shape of a monstrous wedge. The column was led by General Price.

As the assaulting column swept up to the charge, a fearful storm of shot and shell was poured upon it from the two batteries and from the great guns in Forts Williams and Chapman. Large gaps were torn through the rebel ranks by the cross and enfilading fire. Heroically the rebel troops filled up the gaps as fast as they were made. Undaunted, and Trending the air with their peculiar savage yell, the foe rushed to

the charge on the full run. Now the sharp rattle of musketry was heard, in addition to the booming of cannon. The infantry had opened upon them. Still, with heroic courage, they "marched steadily to death, with their faces averted like men striving to protect themselves from a driving storm of hail." Battery Richardson was now unvailed to the rebels. It must be taken at every cost. The wedge opens. A wing spreads out to storm it. Still the assailing column presses on. To meet firmly and unflinchingly such a charge requires no less courage than to make it. Three months later, General Rosecrans, speaking to the Army of the Cumberland, said, "Recollect that there are hardly any troops in the world that will stand a bayonet charge."

General Davies's Division, wearied with the marches and the conflicts of the previous day, disheartened too, probably, by their constant retreat, began to waver and break before the foe reached them. General Rosecrans, discovering the danger, sprang earnestly to the front, and, by the most strenuous operations, prevented a panic. Nevertheless, his line was pierced, and General Davies's Division, falling back, exposed the right wing, which was also thrown into confusion. The rebels, flushed with success, swarm about Battery Richardson, clamber the breastworks, and gain for an instant the guns. It is but for an instant. The Fifty-sixth Illinois suddenly rises from its cover in a ravine. A terrible volley, a shout, a charge with bristling bayonets, and the rebels are driven before them tumultuously and in the utmost precipitation. The rebels were indeed in a trap. By no possibility could they hold the battery. The diagram will show how perfectly it was commanded by the guns of Fort Chapman. Still, the transient panic in the National ranks gave the rebels a temporary

success.

The ragged head of Price's storming columns gained almost the centre of the town. General Rosecrans's head-quarters were for a few moments occupied by the rebels. Their success was but momentary. They were flanked on either side. Union reënforcements were hurried to the centre; the guns from the batteries in the rear of the town were reversed and turned upon them. In a few moments the remnant of General Price's column was flying from the works far more rapidly and far less orderly than it had entered. A rebel soldier says that General Van Dorn, who witnessed the assault and repulse, said grimly:

"That's Rosecrans's trick. He has got Price where he must suffer." Certain it is that General Rosecrans had laid an ingenious trap, which sprang as he intended upon his foe. While General Price was thus assailing the right and centre, General Van Dorn attacked the left. It was intended that the assaults should be simultaneous, but the ruggedness of the ground delayed Van Dorn's advance. Indeed, the battle on the left hardly commenced until the battle on the centre and the right was at an end. Here, however, there was another desperate conflict. It was essential to the success of the rebels that they should take Battery Robinet. But to take it, they were compelled to march across a rugged ravine, through dense thickets, and over an abattis, exposed all the way to the concentrated fire of Batteries Robinet and Williams The well-nigh

impossible task was audaciously attempted. Indeed, there never was more desperate fighting than was displayed by the rebels during this war. The leaders had staked every thing upon its issue; and to them all, death was infinitely preferable to final defeat. The recklessness with which they hurled their ignorant and degraded masses upon the lines of the patriots has never been surpassed in the records of war. The daring manifested by officers and men in the rush upon Battery Robinet was sublime. Two brigades, one immediately in the rear of the other, advanced to the charge. Volley after volley of shot and shells mangled and lacerated their line. Still onward, right onward, unfalteringly they pressed, stumbling over the wounded and the dead. Colonel Rogers was in front of the First Brigade. They reached the breastworks: Colonel Rogers leaped upon the parapet with a rebel flag in one hand and revolver in the other. For an instant the rebel and the National flag float side by side. Then the traitor and his flag fall in the dust together. History must do homage to the bravery of the rebel, while it abhors his treason.

The Second Brigade, nothing daunted, follows close upon the first. A storm of leaden hail is poured upon them. They falter not; but, in their turn, swarming over the breastworks, fill the redoubt. A terrific hand-tohand conflict ensues. It was literally hand to hand in the death-grapple. Bayonets were used, muskets clubbed, and men were felled with brawny fists. Such a strife could not last long. The rebels, repulsed, broken, and with the mad enthusiasm of their charge dissipated by ill success, in wild rout flee back to the cover of the woods, pursued by the Eleventh Missouri and the Twenty-seventh Ohio. Entangled in the meshes of the abattis, there is no escape from the pitiless storm which pursues them. Many, in despair, wave white handkerchiefs in token of surrender. Over two hundred prisoners were taken within an area of a hundred yards. Over two hundred fell in the assault. The ditch in front of the redoubt was literally filled with the dead. Soldiers always respect the brave. The heroic Colonel Rogers was buried with the honors of war, in a separate grave, with a tablet to indentify the spot.

Thus ended the battle of Corinth. The rebel loss in killed, including officers and men, was one thousand four hundred and twenty-three. Their wounded amounted to nearly six thousand. They lost in prisoners, during the battle and in the subsequent pursuit, two thousand two hundred and forty-eight. Fourteen stand of colors, two pieces of artillery, three thousand three hundred stand of arms, four thousand five hundred rounds of ammunition, together with a large quantity of accoutrements, fell into the hands of the victors.

As soon as it was ascertained that the rebels had really retreated, preparations were made for a vigorous pursuit. A few hours were, however, first allowed to the weary soldiers for much needed rest and refreshment. "I notified our victorious troops," said General Rosecrans, "that after two days' fighting, two almost sleepless nights of preparation, movements, and march, I wished them to replenish their cartridge-boxes, haversacks, and stomachs, take an early sleep, and start in pursuit by daylight." His orders to his officers in command of the pursuit were :—

"Follow close; compel them to form often in line of battle, and so harass and discourage them; prevent them from communicating from front to rear; give them no time to distribute subsistence; don't let them sleep."

General McPherson, who arrived at Corinth from Jackson, with a brigade of patriot troops, but too late to take part in the battle, being obliged to pass nearly round the enemy, and to enter Corinth from the east, led the van in the pursuit. Other forces were sent by General Grant from Jackson, under Generals Ord and Hurlbut, to cut off the retreat of the rebels. They arrived in time successfully to dispute the passage of the Hatchie River by the rebels, whose discomfited forces they drove back, after a severe battle, on the 5th. For a time it seemed that the whole rebel host would be captured. Caught between two rivers, the Hatchie in their front and the Tuscumbia in their rear, pursued impetuously by General Rosecrans, and as impetuously assailed and checked in their flight by Generals Ord and Hurlbut, their escape seemed impossible. But the National armies were too much exhausted to follow up their advantage. General Price, an accomplished veteran in retreating, succeeded in crossing the Hatchie a few miles above where his first attempt had been disputed.

We have thus brought our readers to the end of the rebels' unsuccessful attempt at an invasion of the Northwestern States. Though they inflicted serious injuries upon the National cause, they wholly failed in their grand enterprise of transferring the scenes of the war to the North. General Kirby Smith had entered Kentucky unopposed. He had defeated at Richmond the raw militia, unwisely sent into the open field to oppose his march. He had compelled the evacuation of Cumberland Gap, by cutting off the only feasible line of supplies. He had laid brief siege to Cincinnati, causing great anxiety, and had marched away unharmed.

In cooperation with the same plan, General Bragg, had slipped past General Buell's flank without a battle; had threatened Nashville and Bowling Green; had invaded Kentucky, and captured, in spite of the most heroic defence, the Union forces at Munfordsville, and had, at his leisure and unmolested, ravaged Central Kentucky. Subsequently he had been defeated by about half of General Buell's army in the indecisive battle of Perryville, and had retreated to Murfreesboro', Tennessee, with immense plunder of military and other stores.

Generals Morgan and Forrest had invested Nashville unsuccessfully, and a lit le later had attempted to carry it by assault, but had suffered a repulse. The rebels had fared no better in their attempts to recapture Fort Donelson. General Price had attempted to play the same game upon Generals Grant and Rosecrans which Bragg had so successfully accomplished with General Buell. He found, however, a more wily foe, and was defeated at Iuka, narrowly escaping capture. The combined armies of Price, Van Dorn, and Lovell had then attempted the recapture of Corinth, which was held by but little more than half their force. But thanks to the ingenious generalship of its commander, the rebels were beaten back with heavy loss. The rebel invasion was ended on the whole ingloriously. As an invasion it had proved an utter failure. As a gigantic raid it was an unparalleled success.

BATTLE OF

CHAPTER XXX.

MURFREESBORO'

OR STONE RIVER.

(From October, 1862, to January, 1868.)

GENERAL ROSECRANS IN COMMAND.-REORGANIZING THE ARMY.-COLONEL TRUESDAIL-HIS ADMIRABLE POLICE REGULATIONS.-SKILL OF HIS DETECTIVES.--PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLEPLAN OF THE BATTLE.-THE PATRIOTS SURPRISED AND Defeated.-THE BATTLE RENEWED.PROTRACTED CONFLICT.-DISCOMFITURE of the Rebels.—RESULTS.

ONE of the results of the battle of Corinth was the transfer of General Rosecrans to the command of the department over which General Buell had so unsuccessfully presided. On the 24th of October the State of Tennessee, east of the Tennessee River, together with Northern Alabama and Georgia, were constituted the Department of the Cumberland. General Buell, as we have before stated, was relieved from active service. General Rosecrans was assigned to the command, which he assumed on the 30th of that month.

The circumstances under which he entered upon his duties were dis couraging. His army was demoralized by its inglorious and disastrous campaign under his predecessor. How seriously it was disheartened, is evident from the fact that over seven thousand desertions had occurred; and from various causes, thirty thousand men, one-third of the army, wer absent from the ranks. The remnant was composed in part of new levies, undisciplined, and yet possessing a bravery which they had well demonstrated in the battle of Perryville. The army was concentrated chiefly at Glasgow and Bowling Green. At the latter point General Rosecrans established his head-quarters.

General Negley held Nashville with two divisions, but was closely invested. General Breckinridge, with one division of the rebel army, already occupied Murfreesboro'. General Bragg's entire force was rapidly being concentrated there. The rebel Generals Forrest and Morgan, with a strong force of cavalry, occupied the surrounding country. All communication with the North had been for a considerable time cut off. Between Nashville and Bowling Green the railroad was most effectually destroyed.

General Rosecrans's first step was to take measures for the more perfect organization and discipline of the army. Authority was obtained from Washington to dismiss summarily from the service, officers guilty of flagrant misdemeanors.* Supplies were brought forward from Louisville.

· MAJOR-GENERAL ROSECRANS:

* "WASHINGTON, November 3, 1862

"The authority you ask, promptly to muster out or dismiss from the service officers for fisgrant misdemeanors and crimes, such as pillaging, drunkenness, and misbehavior before the enemy, or on guard duty, is essential to discipline, and you are authorized to use it. Report of the facts in each case should be immediately forwarded to the War Department, in order to prevent improvi

dent restoration.

E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War."