water, when Farragut went up the river to Vicksburg and there held communication with the commanders of gun-boats above. Finally, he attacked the batteries there (June 26); and he also attempted to cut a canal across a peninsula in front of Vicksburg, so as to avoid the Confederate guns at the city altogether; but he failed in his undertakings, and descended the river with his vessels. This movement was followed, early in August, by an attack upon Baton Rouge, by a Confederate force led by General J. C. Breckenridge. The post was then in command of General Thomas Williams. There was a desperate struggle for about two hours, in which the Twenty-first Indiana Regiment was conspicuous. It lost all of its fieldofficers before the end of the action. Seeing this, General Williams placed himself at its head, exclaiming, "Boys, your field-officers are all gone; I will lead you!" They gave him three hearty cheers, when a bullet passed through his breast and he fell dead. He had just issued orders for the line to fall back, which it did, in good order, with Colonel Cahill of the Ninth Connecticut in chief command. The Confederates, dreadfully smitten, also fell back, and then retreated. The insurgents had constructed a formidable "ram," which they named Arkansas. With it they expected to sweep every National vessel from the Mississippi, and "drive the Yankees from New Orleans." It did not arrive at Baton Rouge in time to engage in the attack upon the National forces there; but on the morning after the battle, Commodore Porter, with the gun-boat Essex, accompanied by the Cayuga and Sumter, went up the river to meet her. They found her five miles above Baton Rouge. After a short and sharp fight, she became unmanageable, and was headed toward the river bank and set on fire. Just as she touched the shore her magazine exploded, and the monster was blown into fragments. During the summer and autumn of 1862, there were some stirring events in Missouri and Arkansas. After the battle at Pea Ridge, Curtis marched eastward, with his army, to assist in military operations on the borders of the Mississippi River; but he remained some time at Helena, menacing Little Rock and smiting guerrilla bands that roamed that State. Missouri was equally infested with guerrillas; and in June (1862) that Commonwealth was erected into a separate military district, with General J. M. Schofield at its head. He was vigilant and active; and with a force thirty thousand strong, scattered over the State in six divisions, he soon subdued, in a great degree, the numerous roaming bands that overran it. From April until September, about one hundred battles and skirmishes were fought in that State. Schofield drove out troops that came over the southern border to elp the Missourians in arms, and these fugitives formed the nucleus of a force, about forty thousand strong, which gathered in Arkansas under General T. C. Hindman, formerly a member of Congress. Leaving Curtis in command of the Missouri district, Schofield marched against Hindman, with eight thousand troops under General J. G. Blunt, in southern Missouri. With these he sought the shy Confederates in the vicinity of the Ozark Mountains. Blunt attacked a portion of them at Fort Wayne, near Maysville, on the 22d of October, and drove them into the Indian country. A week later a cavalry force, under General F. T. Herron, struck another portion on the White River, eight miles from Fayetteville, and drove them into the mountains. Soon after this, ill health compelled Schofield to leave the field, when the command devolved upon General Blunt. Hindman now determined to strike a decisive blow for the recovery of his State from National control. Late in November he had gathered about twenty thousand men on the western borders of Arkansas. He moved against Blunt, and on the 28th his advance, composed of Marmaduke's cavalry, was attacked and defeated by Blunt, on Boston Mountains. The latter then took position at Cane Hill, when Hindman, with eleven thousand men, prepared to crush him. Blunt sent for General Herron, then just over the border, in Missouri, to come and help him. Herron soon promptly complied, and the combined forces fought and defeated Hindman at a little settlement called Prairie Grove. The Confederates were driven in confusion over the mountains. Meanwhile there had been stirring events nearer the Gulf of Mexico, west of the Mississippi. 'Texas was then under Confederate rule. So early as May, 1862, Commander Eagle, with a small squadron of National vessels, appeared before Galveston, and demanded its surrender. There was a prompt refusal to comply; and so the matter remained until October following, when the civil authorities of that city surrendered it to Commodore Renshaw of the National navy. At the same time General Butler sent aggressive expeditions into the interior of Louisiana. The most important of them was led by General Godfrey Weitzel, who went with a strong force to "repossess" the rich La Fourche parish. This was accom plished, after a severe engagement at Labadieville, on the 27th of October. Very soon afterward the eastern portions of Louisiana, along the borders of the Mississippi, were brought under National control. On the 10th of December following, General Butler was succeeded in the command of the Department of the Gulf by General N. P. Banks. The year 1862 was now drawing to a close. General Grant had concentrated the bulk of his army at Holly Springs, in Mississippi, where he was confronted by Van Dorn; at about the same time, General Rosecrans, with a greater part of the Army of the Cumberland, was moving southward to attack Bragg at Murfreesboro', below Nashville. Rosecrans was assisted by Generals Thomas, McCook, Crittenden, Rousseau, Palmer, Sheridan, J. C. Davis, Wood, Van Cleve, Hazen, Negley, Mathews and others; and Bragg had, as his lieutenants, Generals Polk, Breckenridge, Hardee, Kirby Smith, Cheatham, Withers, Cleburne, and Wharton. On the 30th of December, the two armies lay within cannon-shot of each other on opposite sides of Stone River, near Murfreesboro'. On the following morning a sanguinary battle was begun, and continued until evening, with varied success and fearful losses. Rosecrans had gallantly conducted the fight in person, and he and Bragg prepared to renew the contest on the following morning, the first of January, 1863. That day was spent in heavy skirmishing; but on the morning of the 2d a terrific struggle was begun. The batteries on both sides were massed, and they were worked with destructive energy. The dead and wounded strewed the ground over scores of acres, for the carnage was dreadful; and, at one time, it seemed as if the total destruction of both armies would be the result. At length seven National regiments made a simultaneous charge, by which the Confederate line was broken into fragments and scattered in confusion. These regiments were the Nineteenth Illinois; Eighteenth, Twenty-first, and Seventyfourth Ohio; Seventy-eighth Pennsylvania; Eleventh Michigan, and Thirty、 seventh Indiana. Victory remained with Rosecrans, and Bragg retreated southward to Tullahoma, while his antagonist occupied the battle-field and Murfreesboro'. The National loss in the battle of Stone River was twelve thousand men, and that of the Confederates ten thousand. The relative position of the two armies immediately after the battle, remained so for several months afterward. The war had now been going on for almost two years. It had been begun by the politicians of the slave-labor States for the purpose of perpetuating the slave-system, which gave to the Confederate cause the chief sinews of its strength. It nurtured a producing class that fed, by its labor, the armies arrayed against the life of the Republic; and only a very small proportion of that class were drawn from the pursuits of agriculture to the camps. Perceiving this, the President of the United States and the loyal people resolved to destroy the system by some method of abolition. The kind-hearted Lincoln proposed to give pecuniary aid to any State government which might provide for the abolition of slavery; but the interested friends of that system everywhere refused to listen. Congress proceeded to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, over which that CHAP. XVIII. PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION. 1611 body had direct control; and, finally, they gave the President discretionary powers to declare the emancipation of the slaves in States wherein insurrection existed. Finally, late in September (1862), President Lincoln issued a proclamation, in which he gave public notice that it was his purpose to declare such emancipation on the first of January, 1863, to take effect immediately wherever a state of insurrection might then exist, unless the offenders should lay down their arms. This friendly warning-this forbearance to strike the blow that was to remove the manacles from millions of bondsmen-was treated by the masters of the slaves with scorn. It was sneered at by them, as an act of sheer impuissance. It was compared to "the Pope's Bull against the comet;" and because of this menace, resistance to the Government was more rampant than ever. It was evident that the warning would be ineffectual. The President prepared a proclamation of emancipation. It was submitted to his cabinet and approved; and on the first of January, 1863, it was promulgated with the whole force of the Republic—its army, its navy, and its judiciary; its Executive and Legislative powers-back of it to enforce its provisions. The moral force of that proclamation was tremendous. By that act the shackles were taken from the personal freedom of over three million slaves. From the hour of the promulgation of the proclamation of emancipation, the power of the enemies of the Government began to wane, and the star of their own future prosperity arose with beams of promise. Early in 1862, the Confederate government was changed from a "provisional" to a 'permanent one." The "provisional congress," made up of delegates chosen by conventions of politicians and legislatures of States, had been in continuous session from the 18th of November, 1861, until the 18th of February, 1862, when its term expired by limitation. On the same day a congress, professedly elected by the people, commenced its session under the "permanent constitution of the Confederate States." I say “professedly elected by the people." The following was the method pursued in Virginia, as presented in an editorial article in a leading Richmond journal, in carrying on a popular election: "It being necessary to form a ticket of electors, and the time being too short to call a convention of the people, it was suggested that the Richmond editors should prepare a ticket, thus relieving the people of the trouble of making selections. The ticket thus formed has been presented." Here several of the nominees were named. "Every district in the State," said the journal, is embraced in this editorial report." In the permanent Confederate congress, all of the slave-labor States were represented, excepting Maryland and Delaware. The oath to support the constitution of the Confederate States was administered to the senators by R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia, and to the representatives, by Howell Cobb of Georgia. Thomas Bocock, of Virginia, was elected Speaker of the House. On the following day (February 19) the votes for president of the Confederacy were counted, and were found to be one hundred and nine in JEFFERSON DAVIS number, all of which were cast Measures were adopted by the Confederate Congress to prosecute the war against the Union with vigor. It was declared, by joint resolution, that it was the unalterable determination of the people of the Confederate States "to suffer all the calamities of the most protracted war;" and that they would never, "on any terms, politically affiliate with a people who were guilty of an invasion of their soil and the butchery of their citizens." With this spirit they prosecuted the war on land; and with the aid of the British aristocracy, ship-builders and merchants, and the tacit consent of the British government, they were enabled to keep afloat, on the ocean, some active vessels for plundering American commerce. The hoped-for and expected result was the driving of the carrying-trade between the United States and Europe/ into British bottoms, and so enriching the British shipping-merchants. This was the end to be accomplished, and it was effected. |