days after the fall of New Orleans, wrote to him: "I think you may confidently rely upon the judgment of intelligent and reflecting men for the justification of your course, as soon as the facts, as they actually existed, shall be known." Gen. Joseph E. Johnston continued to have such a high opinion of his military abilities that, when he took command of the Army of Tennessee, in 1864, he desired his services, and proposed to give him command of one of the corps of his army. But even these high testimonials did not suffice to restore Gen. Lovell to the confidence of the people, or to the favour of the Executive. The Secretary of War endorsed a disapproval on his application for a command under Gen. John

by the infantry force necessarily follow as a matter of course when the enemy were in full possession of the river?

ANSWER-The forts commanding the river having been passed, New Orleans Becessarily lay at the mercy of the enemy's heavy guns afloat, which, owing to the high stage of the river, commanded the banks on both sides to the swamp skirting the river at a distance from one-half to one mile. An army of 50,000 men or more could not then have saved the city from destruction. Whether the latter was desirable at the time, before New Orleans had experienced Butler's iron rule, could only have been determined by the State or Confederate authorities, who should have considered whether the destruction of so large a city would have done more injury to the enemy than ourselves.

It is evident that to him Baton Rouge is a better strategic point than New Orleans, and the destruction of the latter would have relieved him of the necessity of keeping a garrison of 5,000 or 6,000 men there to guard it—this act would have been a mere empty bravado, a wanton destruction of an immense amount of private and public property, which would have shaken at the time the Confederacy to its very centre, and thrown upon its Government a helpless population of about 150,000 noncombatants (men, women, and children), to feed and provide for, when already overburthened to supply the wants of the armies in the field.

When the Russians burnt Moscow, it was for the purpose of annihilating Napoleon's army of 300,000 or 400,000 men, which had invaded that country. When they again consented to the slow but certain destruction of Sebastopol, it was to prevent the allies from taking possession of its immense docks, arsenals, military stores, and the fleet which had sought refuge under the guns of its forts. The possession of the harbour of Sebastopol would also have afforded them a magnificent base for future operations in the Crimea.

As I have already stated, the Mississippi River being extremely high, the streets of New Orleans could have been swept from one extremity to the other by the heavy guns of the enemy's fleet, or had Commodore Farragut preferred reducing the place to submission without using his guns, it would have been only necessary to have cut the levee above and below the city, and the whole population would have been utterly defenseless and in a starving condition in a few days. Without the command of the Mississippi River, New Orleans is not worth holding as a military or strategic position.

ston, saying, in his opinion it would be injudicious to place a corps under command of Gen. Lovell, and it would not give confidence to the army. The paper came back from President Davis, endorsed, "Opinion concurred in.”

For these unjust and cruel prejudices there remains for Gen. Lovell only the satisfaction of history. An unfortunate man, placed in difficulties from which he could not extricate himself; a sacrifice, as many another, to the faults and errours of President Davis's administration, he cannot be judged harshly, or without reference to the circumstances which surrounded him; and no account of his military life can deny his ingenuity, his activity, his ceaseless industry, or justly question his fidelity and earnest patriotism in the cause of the Southern Confederacy.

MAJ.-GEN. EARL VAN DORN.

CHAPTER LVII.

His capture of Federal troops in Texas at the beginning of the war.-Temporary command in North Virginia.-Assigned to the Trans-Mississippi.-Battle of Elk Horn.-Correspondence with Gen. Curtis on civilized warfare.-Gen. Van Dorn crosses the Mississippi River.-The Department of Louisiana.-Heroism of the first defence of Vicksburg.-Battle of Corinth.-Gen. Van Dorn removed from command. His reflections on the sentence.-His command of cavalry.-Destroys Grant's depot of supplies at Holly Springs.-Dies by the hand of private violence. His genius as a commander.

THE career of Earl Van Dorn in the war was not well sustained; but it was very brilliant in some of its parts; and it was terminated by a painful and well-remembered tragedy. He was a native of Port Gibson, Mississippi. He graduated at West Point in 1842, and entered the Seventh Infantry. He served in the Mexican War, was promoted first lieutenant, March 3, 1847, and was brevetted captain, April 18, 1847, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Cerro-Gordo. He obtained another brevet, that of major, at Contreras and Churubusco, and was wounded in entering the city of Mexico.

The State of Texas seceded from the Union on the 1st February, 1861, and volunteer forces were at once started to capture the Federal garrisons and munitions of war within her limits. Van Dorn, holding from the State a Commission as Colonel, organized an expedition, consisting of not more than eighty men, which by a brave enterprise. on the 20th April, 1861, captured the Federal steamer, Star of the West, in the harbour of Galveston, with the troops on board of her. Under cover of night he put off in the lighter which had been used in transporting the

Federal soldiers; and, approaching the side of the steamer, whose commander thought he was about to take on his own men, the band of daring Texans, swift as lightning, were over the bulwarks, and in instant possession of the vessel. Not satisfied with this exploit, Col. Van Dorn, collecting a larger number of volunteers, proceeded by water to Saluria, and on the 24th April, anchored within sight of the schooners having on board United States troops to the number of 400 or 500, under command of Major Sibley. A summons to surrender was obeyed; and the officers were released on parole and the men on their oaths not to take up arms against the Southern Confederacy.

These early exploits in Texas obtained considerable fame for Van Dorn, and, when he offered his services at Richmond, he was commissioned a Major-General. He had a temporary command in Gen. Beauregard's army after the battle of Manassas; but when that army was re-organized, Van Dorn was sent West, and assumed command of the Trans-Mississippi department, which comprised the larger part of the States of Missouri and Arkansas, the State of Louisiana as far south as Red River, and the Indian territory west of Arkansas. In this department he cooperated with Gen. Price, and in conjunction with his forces fought the brilliant but fruitless battle of Elk Horn.

Before this battle, Gen. Van Dorn had meditated an expedition. by which he hoped to capture St. Louis. But while at Pocahontas, Arkansas, he received a despatch from Gen. Price, informing him that the enemy had forced McCulloch and himself out of Missouri, down into Boston Mountains, where the two Confederate forces lay on opposite sides of the mountain without coöperation, and without the recognition of a common head. This was the occasion of Gen. Van Dorn assuming command, which he did, riding across Arkansas to Boston Mountains, accompanied only by his chief of staff and a single aide; and, on reaching there, he immediately reorganized the army into a division of cavalry, under McIntosh, and two corps of infantry and artillery under Price and McCulloch. In the battle which ensued, there is good reason to suppose that if the subordinate commanders and the troops had been in a better condition of discipline, a complete surprise of the force of Gen. Curtis would have been effected, and the Federal army beaten in detail.

The following correspondence between the commanders of the two armies consequent on the battle of Elk Horn, is interesting as a commentary on the text of "rebel barbarities; " and the reader will notice the honourable and chivalrous terms of Gen. Van Dorn's reply on the subject, characteristic of himself and faithful in its representation of the true spirit of the South:

HEADQUARTERS TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DISTRICT, March 9, 1862. To the Commanding Officer of the United States Forces on Sugar Creek, Arkansas:

SIR: In accordance with the usages of war, I have the honour to request that you will permit the burial party whom I send from this army, with a flag of truce, to attend to the duty of collecting and interring the bodies of the officers and men who fell during the engagement of the 7th and 8th inst.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

EARL VAN DORN,

Major-General Commanding Army.

Earl Van Dorn, Commanding Confederate Forces:

SIR: The General commanding is in receipt of yours of the SIR:-The 9th, saying that, in accordance with the usages of war, you send a party to collect and bury the dead. I am directed to say all possible facilities will be given for burying the dead, many of which have already been interred. Quite a number of your surgeons have fallen into our hands, and are permitted to act under parole; and, under a General Order from Maj.-Gen. Halleck, further liberty will be allowed them, if such accommodations be reciprocated by you. The General regrets that we find on the battle-field, contrary to civilized warfare, many of the Federal dead who were tomahawked, scalped, and their bodies shamefully mangled, and expresses a hope that this important struggle may not degenerate to a savage warfare. By order of

S. R. CURTIS,

T. J. MCKINNEY, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.

Brigadier-General.

The following communication was received from Van Dorn, in response to the above: