rection from Cairo is about nine miles distant, on the Central Railway, and all between are cypress swamps, with here and there a marshy opening, called a farm, and covered with a mass of heavy timber, vines and creepers, through which the sun cannot penetrate. The high land, commencing at the edge of this swamp, rises several hundred feet, often presenting mountainous aspects; the timber is maple, beech, hickory, and oak. Springs are frequent, and where farms are opened they well reward the laborer; but more than three-fourths of all this high land is an unbroken wilderness.

"On the Illinois side of the Ohio, above Mound City (six miles from Cairo), the shore is high and free from inundation, while on the Kentucky side the land is low and swampy, the distance to the hills being from six to twelve miles. The Illinois bank of the Mississippi is low, yet occasionally there are hills, as at Thebes, but above this point it is subject to overflow for 150 miles. The Mississippi shore of Missouri is swampy in every direction, and the nearest high land is as much as fifty miles distant, near Cape Girardeau, which is the only place where southern Missouri can reach the river with teams. From Cape Girardeau to the Gulf of Mexico extends a succession of cypress swamps, canebrakes, and bayous-the scene of deso lation being varied only at long intervals by farms, always protected by a levee. On the east side of the river there are occasionally high lands and bluffs, on which the towns are situated. Opposite

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Cairo, in Missouri, is the little village of Bird's Point, from which a railroad extends twenty or thirty miles toward Little Rock, in Arkansas. In such a wilderness of swamps and waters, Cairo is really a place of refuge and a harbor of safety."

The importance of Cairo as a basis of military operations was recognized early in the struggle, and in the course of the month of May a force of over six thousand Illinois volunteers encamped there under the command of Brigadier-General Prentiss. They immediately commenced the construction of four entrenched camps, and mounted heavy guns upon the dykes.

The site of Cairo is commanded only in one direction. This is from the Missouri side of the Mississippi River, at Bird's Point, where the land rises two or three feet above the top of the Cairo dykes.

* **

"Bird's Point consists of scarcely half a dozen unpretending houses and a wharf-boat, which is the principal feature of the town, inasmuch as it supports on its floating bottom the chief store, grocery, and commission-house of the town. Standing upon even as low a situation as the deck of the wharf-boat, the housetops and spires within the Cairo levee are plainly visible, and within easy range of a battery at Bird's Point; and although the latter place is situated on low bottom land and subject to frequent overflows, yet the still lower situation of Cairo is so palpable, that, to a spectator at Bird's Point, it seems as if the great rivers

which here mix their waters had been displaced from their beds to make room for the houses which are hugged within the huge embraces of the levee. The river here is very wide, and but for the murky turbulence of its water, and the steady onward motion of the current, would give one an idea of an arm of the sea."

There was great danger lest the secessionists of Missouri and Tennessee should seize this important position. BrigadierGeneral Lyon, however, was on the alert, and anticipated the movements of the enemy by promptly dispatching a regiment of Missouri volunteers, under Colonel Shuttner, to Bird's Point. Here they immediately fortified a camp, and thus bid defiance to attack.

The communications of Cairo through the Illinois Central Railroad with the North, give it every advantage of rapid reinforcement. In twenty-four hours troops can reach the place not only from Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky, but from Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

About a score of miles below Cairo, on the Kentucky bank of the Mississippi River, is situated the town of Columbus, the Northern terminus of various Southern railways. This place has become of great interest, in connection with the present war, as an important strategic post, having been seized and held by the enemy. Paducah, again, forty miles to the east of Cairo, on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, at its confluence with the Tennessee, is another point of great importance, commanding as it does the mouth of the latter river,

and connected as it is with the Southern series of railways. This important place fortunately remains in the possession of the United States troops.

The prompt military occupation of Cairo, and the preparations made for its defence, were heavy blows to the secessionists. They strove, however, to find consolation in the presumption that "this audacious movement has had good effect in developing the purpose of our enemies to prosecute the war in earnest, and in its inspiring influence upon the Tennessee and Kentucky mind. It conveys a threat which the people of those States will join their brethren of the Confederate States in resenting with promptitude."

They, nevertheless, were forced to acknowledge the importance of the possession of Cairo to the Federal troops.

"Geography," they admitted, "has made Cairo a strategical position of the utmost consequence. It is the key to the upper, as New Orleans and the Lake and the Balize are the key to the lower Mississippi. It can blockade St. Louis on the one hand, and Louisville on the other; while, if in possession of a considerable force, possessing heavy ordnance, and commanding the railroad leading south of that point, it would menace the city of Memphis, and open the way for an invading army to make that an advanced post of occupation. It is not pleasant to contemplate such a possibility. But it is good policy to face it. fairly, if we would defeat it effectually.

The United States Government, with its rapidly accumulating forces, was

beginning to present in every direction a more vigorous opposition to the enemy. Washington being considered temporarily out of danger, and the disaffected of Maryland no longer feared, General Scott ventured to make a move across the Potomac. Virginia, though previously in arms and leagued with the Confederate States in open resistance to the Federal authorities, had yet, with an affected regard for law, submitted the ordinance of secession to the vote of her May people. In the middle and east23. ern districts of the State the vote was almost unanimous in favor of secession, while in the western it was nearly unanimous in opposition. The United States Government is supposed to have thus far withheld the assertion by arms of its authority in Virginia, that the people might enjoy in freedom the exercise of their suffrage. It was accordMay ingly not until the day after the 24. vote on secession had been taken that Scott threw across the Potomac, into the insurgent State, a portion of the troops encamped in and about the capital, which constituted already, such had been the military promptitude of the North, a force of nearly fifty thousand militia and volunteers.

The number of men detached for this purpose was nearly thirteen thousand, formed into two columns, one of which was sent to occupy Arlington Heights and the rest of the Virginia shore opposite to Washington, and the other Alexandria, on the Potomac River, about six miles south of the capital. The former, being the larger portion of

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the troops, crossed by the Long bridge at Washington and the iron bridge at Georgetown, and took possession of the high banks of the Virginia side of the river. Driving the scattered outpost guards of the enemy before them, they were permitted to occupy the ground with little opposition, and at once began to throw up fortifications.

At Alexandria, which had just voted almost unanimously for secession, and where an intense feeling of animosity to the Federal troops was known to prevail, greater opposition was anticipated. The town had been long flaunting its secession flags in the sight of the capital, the troops of the enemy were parading its streets, and its citizens were in arms apparently prepared for resistance. It was accordingly determined to surround the place, not only to secure its possession, but the capture of the armed force within. For this purpose the Third Regiment of Michigan militia, in command of Colonel Wilcox, accompanied by a detachment of United States cavalry, and supported by two pieces of Sherman's flying artillery, crossed the Long bridge into Virginia, with the view of marching to Alexandria by land and advancing upon the city in the rear. The Fire Zouave Regiment of New York, commanded by Colonel Ellsworth, was dispatched by water to take Alexandria in front. The steamer Pawnee had been previously moored in the Potomac off the town, so as to command it with her guns.

The Zouaves, however, reached their destination in advance of the Michigan

troops, and impelled by an imprudent impetuosity hastened to land. The town was at once alarmed, and the enemy's troops succeeded in effecting their escape before the Michigan regiment, coming up in the rear, could cut them off. The landing of the Zouaves, and the subsequent tragedy in which their young Colonel lost his life, have been thus minutely detailed by one who was at his death:

'It was not until our boats were about to draw up to the wharf," he says, "that our approach was noticed in any way; but at the latest minute a few sentinels, whom we had long before discerned, fired their muskets in the air as a warning, and, running rapidly into the town, disappeared. Two or three of the Zouaves, fancying that the shots were directed toward them (which they certainly were not), discharged their rifles after the retreating forms, but no injury to anybody followed. The town was thus put on its guard, but yet so early was the hour, and so apparently unlooked for our arrival, that when we landed, about half-past five o'clock A. M., the streets were as deserted as if it had been midnight.

"Before our troops disembarked, a boat, filled with armed marines, and carrying a flag of truce, put off from the Pawnee, and landed ahead of us. From the officer in charge we learned that the Pawnee had already proposed terms of submission to the town, and that the rebels had consented to vacate within a specified time. This seemed

New York Tribune, May 26.

to settle the question of a contest in the negative; but in the confusion of mustering and forming the men, the intelligence was not well understood, and received but little attention. Indeed, I am quite sure that the Pawnee's officer did not seek Colonel Ellsworth, to communicate with him, and that the Colonel only obtained a meagre share of information by seeking it directly from the bearer of the flag of truce himself. No doubt this omission arose from the confused condition in which affairs then stood. But it would have caused no difference in the Colonel's military plans. No attack was meditated, except in case of a forcible resistance to his progress. On the other hand, the idea of the place being under a truce seemed to banish every suspicion of a resistance either from multitudes or individuals. It was just possibly this consideration that led Colonel Ellsworth to forego the requisite personal precautions, which, if taken, would have prevented his unhappy death. But I am sure none of us at that time estimated the probability of the danger which afterward menaced us. Perhaps the thought of actual bloodshed and death in war was too foreign to our experiences to be rightly weighed. But it certainly did not enter our minds then, as poor Ellsworth's fate has since taught us it should have done, that a town half waked, half terrified, and under truce, could harbor any peril for us. So the Colonel gave some rapid directions for the interruption of the railway course, by displacing a few rails near the dépot, and then turned toward the centre of

the town, to destroy the means of communication southward by the telegraph; a measure which he appeared to regard as very seriously important. He was accompanied by Mr. H. J. Winser, military secretary to the regiment, the chaplain, the Rev. E. W. Dodge, and myself. At first he summoned no guard to follow him, but he afterward turned and called forward a single squad, with a sergeant from the first company. We passed quickly through the streets, meeting a few bewildered travellers issuing from the principal hotel, which seemed to be slowly coming to its daily senses, and were about to turn toward the telegraph office, when the Colonel, first of all, caught sight of the secession flag, which has so long swung insolently in full view of the President's House. He immediately sent back the sergeant, with an order for the advance of the entire first company, and, leaving the matter of the telegraph office for a while, pushed on to the hotel, which proved to be the Marshall House, a second-class inn. On entering the open door the Colonel met a man in his shirt and trowsers, of whom he demanded what sort of flag it was that hung above the roof. The stranger, who seemed greatly alarmed, declared he knew nothing of it, and that he was only a boarder there. Without questioning him further the Colonel sprang up stairs, and we all followed to the topmost story, whence, by means of a ladder, he clambered to the roof, cut down the flag with Winser's knife, and brought it from its staff. There were two men in bed in the garret

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whom we had not observed at all when we entered, their position being somewhat concealed, but who now rose in great apparent amazement, although I observed that they were more than half dressed. We at once turned to descend, private Brownell leading the way, and Colonel Ellsworth immediately following him with the flag. As Brownell reached the first landing-place, or entry, after a descent of some dozen steps, a man jumped from a dark passage, and hardly noticing the private, levelled a doublebarrelled gun square at the Colonel's breast. Brownell made a quick pass to turn the weapon aside, but the fellow's hand was firm, and he discharged one barrel straight to its aim, the slugs or buckshot with which it was loaded entering the Colonel's heart, and killing him at the instant. I think my arm was resting on poor Ellsworth's shoulder at the moment. At any rate, he seemed to fall almost from my own grasp. was on the second or third step from the landing, and he dropped forward with that heavy, horrible, headlong weight which always comes of sudden death inflicted in this manner. His assailant had turned like a flash to give the contents of the other barrel to Brownell, but either he could not command his aim, or the Zouave was too quick with him, for the slugs went over his head, and passed through the panels and wainscot of a door which sheltered some sleeping lodgers. Simultaneously with this second shot, and sounding like the echo of the first, Brownell's rifle was heard, and the assassin staggered backward. He

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