CHAP. XXI. OPERATIONS AGAINST CHARLESTON. 1643 Charleston, five miles distant. One of these entered St. Michael's Church near the roof, and destroyed the table on the wall that contained the ten commandments, obliterating all of them excepting two-" Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery." General Gillmore was ready for another attack on Forts Wagner and Sumter on the 17th of August, and on that day the guns of twelve batteries and of the fleet opened upon them. Before night the granite walls of Fort Sumter began to crumble and its cannons ceased to roar, under the pressure of Dahlgren's guns. The land troops pushed their parallels nearer and nearer Fort Wagner; while the fleet guns continually pounded away, day after day, until the 6th of September, when General Terry was prepared to storm the latter work. Then it was ascertained that the Confederates had evacuated it and fled from Morris Island. Gillmore took possession of Fort Wagner and turned its guns on Fort Sumter, battering it dreadfully and driving away (it was supposed) its garrison. But that sentinel which had so long guarded the gate to Charleston harbor, only slumbered; and when, on the night of the 8th, an armed force from the ships, in small boats, attempted to take possession of it, a vigilant garrison that had been lying quietly there, suddenly arose and repulsed the assailants with great loss t the latter. Finally, late in October (1863), Gillmore brought his heaviest guns to bear on Sumter, and reduced the once proud fort to a heap of ruins. Charleston now, as a commercial mart, had no existence. For months not a blockade-runner had entered its harbor, and its wealth and trade had departed. In a military point of view, as we have observed, it was absolutely of very little importance. Let us leave the Atlantic coast, and consider stirring events in the interior. A thousand miles westward of the sea-coast the war was still going on, but more feebly than at first. The Confederates reoccupied all Texas in 1863, and carried on a sort of guerrilla warfare in Arkansas and Missouri during a part of that year. In the earlier months, Marmaduke was active with his mounted men. He rushed over the border from Arkansas into Missouri, and fell upon Springfield in January, but was repulsed with a loss of two hundred men. After some other reverses, he fell back; and at Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, he planned a formidable raid into · Missouri, chiefly for the purpose of seizing National stores at Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi. He invaded the State with eight thousand men, and was met at the Cape by General McNeil, on the 20th of April, who, after a sharp engagement, drove Marmaduke out of Missouri. Other bands of Confederates, under various leaders, roamed over the western borders of Arkansas, and, at one time, seriously menaced Fort Blunt, in the Indian Territory. There was a sharp engagement at Honey Springs, in that Territory, on the 17th of July, between Nationals under General Blunt and Confederates in strong force led by General Cooper, in which the latter were defeated, and a part of them fled into northern Texas. Guerrilla bands in Blunt's rear did much mischief. One of them, led by a white savage named Quantrell, fell upon the defenceless town of Lawrence, in Kansas, on the 13th of August, and murdered one hundred and forty of the inhabitants. They also laid one hundred and eighty-five buildings in ashes, and escaped. Earlier than this, the strongly fortified post of Helena, on the Mississippi, in eastern Arkansas, became a coveted object; and on the 3d of July (1863) eight thousand Confederates, under General Price and others, ignorant of the strength of the post, attacked it. General Steele was in command there. After a sharp fight, the Confederates were repulsed with a loss of twenty per cent. of their number. That section of Arkansas was then abandoned by the Confederates; and on the 10th of August, Steele left Helena with twelve thousand troops and forty pieces of cannon, to attempt the capture of Little Rock. He pushed back Marmaduke, who confronted him; and early in September he moved on the State capital in two columns, CHAP. XXI. EVENTS IN MISSOURI AND ARKANSAS. 1645 one on each side of the Arkansas River. The Confederates there, after setting fire to several steamboats, abandoned the place on the evening of the 10th (September) and fled to Arkadelphia, on the Wachita River. Meanwhile General Blunt had been trying to bring the Confederates and their Indian allies in western Arkansas to battle, but had failed. He took possession of Fort Smith (September 1) and garrisoned it; and on the 4th of October, while he was on his way from Kansas to that post with an escort of one hundred cavalry, they were attacked near Baxter's Springs, on the Cherokee Reservation, and scattered, by six hundred guerrillas led by the notorious Quantrell, who plundered and burnt the accompanying train of the Nationals. Blunt's forces were nearly all killed or disabled in the conflict. The wounded were murdered; and Blunt and only about a dozen followers barely escaped, with their lives, to Little Fort Blair. Some of Blunt's escort fled, at first, without firing a shot. Had they acted more bravely, they could have driven their assailants in ten minutes, Blunt declared. Finding their supplies nearly exhausted, the Confederates in that region made a raid into Missouri as far as Booneville, at the close of September; but they were driven back into Arkansas by Generals E. B. Brown and McNeil. No other military movements of much importance occurred in Missouri and Arkansas for some time after this, excepting an attack made by Marmaduke upon Pine Bluff, on the Arkansas River, on the 25th of October, 1863. The little garrison there was commanded by Colonel Powell Clayton, and these, with the assistance of two hundred negroes in making barricades, fought the assailants (who were two thousand strong, with twelve pieces of artillery) for several hours, and drove them away. Quiet prevailed for some time afterward. When General Banks left Alexandria, on the Red River, and marched to the siege of Port Hudson, General Taylor, whom he had driven into the wilds of western Louisiana, returned, occupied that abandoned city and Opelousas, and garrisoned Fort de Russy. Then he swept vigorously over the country in the direction of the Mississippi River and New Orleans. With a part of his command he captured Brashear City on the 24th of June (1863), with an immense amount of public property, and made a thousand National troops prisoners. At about the same time another portion of the Confederates, under General Green, operating in the vicinity of Donaldsonville, on the Mississippi, were driven out of the district. Finally, at the middle of July, when Banks's troops were released, on the fall of Port Hudson, they expelled Taylor and his forces from the country eastward of the Atchafalaya. This was the last struggle of Taylor's forces to gain a foothold on the Mississippi. General Banks now turned his thoughts to aggressive movements. General Grant visited him at New Orleans early in September, and was in that city when he was summoned to Chattanooga. There it was determined that Banks should make an attempt to recover Texas; and he speedily sent four thousand troops under General Franklin, accompanied by four gun-boats commanded by Lieutenant Crocker, to seize the Confederate post at Sabine Pass, on the boundary line between Louisiana and Texas. Owing to a premature attack by the gun-boats, the expedition was a disastrous failure. Then Banks concentrated his land forces on the Atchafalaya, for the purpose of penetrating Texas from the east by way of Shreveport, on the Red River; but this design was abandoned for a time, and it was concluded to attempt to seize and hold the coast harbor of that Commonwealth. To mask this movement, General C. C. Washburne, with a considerable body of troops, moved across Louisiana toward Alexandria, when about six thousand other Nationals under General Dana, with some warvessels, sailed for the Rio Grande. The troops landed, and drove Confederate cavalry up that river. The Nationals pressed on; and on the 6th of November encamped at Brownsville, opposite Matamoras. At the close of the year, the National troops occupied all the strong positions on the Texan coast excepting Galveston Island and a formidable work near the mouth of the Brazos; and the Confederates had abandoned all Texas west of the Colorado River. Meanwhile N. B. Forrest, who had become a noted guerrilla chief, had broken into western Tennessee, from Mississippi, with four thousand Confederate soldiers, and making Jackson, in the firstmentioned State, his headquarters (December, 1863), had sent out foraging parties in various directions. General Hurlburt, at Memphis, tried to catch him, but failed. There were many hopeful signs of success for the defenders of the life of the Republic at the opening of the third year of the Civil War, 1864. The debt of the National Government was then more than $1,000,000,000; but the public credit never stood higher. The loyal people stood by the Government, and trusted it with a fidelity and faith that was truly sublime. At the same time the Confederate debt was at least $1,000,000,000, with a prospective increase during the year to double that amount. The Confed erate government had contracted loans abroad to the amount almost of $15,000,000, of which sum the members of the Southern Independence Asso ciation in England (composed chiefly of the British aristocracy) loaned a large share and lost it, the security offered for the Confederate bonds being cotton to be forwarded, and which was never delivered. The producers of the Confederacy, better informed than their English sympathizers, were CHAP. XXI. GREAT BRITAIN AND THE CONFEDERACY. 1647 unwilling to trust the promise of their government and withheld supplies, for they preconceived the worthlessness of the bonds and paper currency of the Confederates. The people there were no longer willing to volunteer for the military service; and Davis and his associates at Richmond, in their desperation, proceeded to the exercise of a despotic act that has no parallel in the history of civilized nations. By the passage of a law they declared that every white man in the Confederacy, liable to bear arms, to be in the military service; and that, upon his failure to report for duty at a military station within a certain time, he was liable to the penalty of death as a deserter! They devised schemes of retaliation; also cruel measures toward the colored troops in the National service and their white commanders were proposed. They refused to regard captive negro troops as prisoners of war; and by threats of dire vengeance, they tried to deter the colored men from enlisting in the National service. While the authorities at Richmond were preparing to carry out these measures, they received a despatch from Lord John Russell, the British Foreign Secretary, which deprived them of the last prop of hope for the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States from any foreign State excepting that of the Roman pontiff. That despatch gave them notice that no more vessels should be fitted out in Great Britain (nor tolerated in British waters) for depredating on the commerce of the United States by persons employed by the "so-called Confederate States." The last expression, which absolutely ignored the very existence of the "Confederate States" was very significant. and also very offensive to Davis and his associates. The latter replied sharply, protesting against the "studied insult;" and thenceforward the Confederates regarded the British government as their enemy. That government, perceiving the weakness of the Confederacy which it had tried to foster, stood firm, and so did our own. Regardless of the menaces of the Confederate leaders, the President determined to defend the colored troops against the vengeance of their late masters, and to prosecute the war with greater vigor. "The signs," he said, "look better." More than fifty thousand square miles of territory had already been recovered from the Confederates. There were about eight hundred thousand National troops in the field, while the Confederates had only about half that number; and the former were disposed to act on the offensive, while the latter were generally standing on the defensive. Early in 1864, Congress created the office of lieutenant-general. The President nominated Ulysses S. Grant to fill it, and the Senate confirmed the nomination. Grant was made general-in-chief of the armies of the |