CHAPTER V.

1861-WAR OF THE REBELLION-BATTLE OF PEA RIDGEBELMONT AND COLUMBUS-GRANT AND HALLECKFORT HENRY - FORT DONELSON — MILL SPRINGS BALL'S BLUFF THE NAVY-A GENERAL VIEW-ENGLAND-GENERAL BURNSIDE IN NORTH CAROLINA.

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OR the next month General John Pope got the

FOR

souri. In this time he captured or broke up several small rebel forces, and finally drove Price back to Springfield and the Arkansas border. The species

of warfare now carried on in Missouri, as throughout the whole border line, indeed, only bore upon the final result so far as the question of exhaustion was concerned. On the 23d of January, 1862, General Samuel R. Curtis, with twelve or thirteen thousand men, marched from Rolla toward Springfield on the third of these expeditions to Arkansas. Price, who was really one of the most successful of the rebel leaders, retreated before him to Fayetteville, in Arkansas, where he was again joined by Ben McCulloch, and they agreed so far as to retreat together to Boston Mountain. The rebel General, Earl Van Dorn, now arrived, and took the chief command, and on the 5th of March advanced to attack the Federals. With some difficulty Curtis drew in his much-scattered

forces, of Pea Ridge, overlooking the valley of Sugar Creek. On the 7th the battle began, and when night closed the work of the day, it was not easy to say where the advantage lay. Ben McCulloch and McIntosh had been killed, and there had been some successes on both sides. The next morning the conflict was renewed, but in a few hours the rebels had given way and retreated through the defiles of the Knobs, leaving the victors on the field. The Union loss in

and formed his line of defense on the bluffs

Curtis

this battle was over thirteen hundred in killed, wounded, and missing. The rebels had the advantage in numbers, and suffered a greater loss. After a time resumed his march into Arkansas, but many men having been sent to the Tennessee River, he made little headway. Still he found little oppoas the regularly organized rebel forces had also been mainly sent to the east side of the Mississippi, a field of more importance.

of his

sition,

Curtis, toward the last of September, became commander of the Department of Missouri, with his

head-quarters at St. Louis; but its affairs, although often serious, and always bad enough, from this on, by reason of the great events in other quarters, beof little note in the great conflict. The vast

came

Department of the West had been divided into several separate commands. New Mexico was placed under General E. R. S. Canby; Kansas, under General David Hunter; Missouri was a department; and D. C. Buell was put at the head of the Department of the Ohio.

In the meantime matters had progressed somewhat in other parts of the country. On the 4th of September Bishop Leonidas Polk, with a considerable rebel force, took possession of Hickman and Columbus, in Kentucky, on the Mississippi River, and speedily began fortifications at the latter, with a view of commanding the river. U. S. Grant, who had just come into command at Cairo, hearing of the movements of Polk, sailed on the next night with a small force, and on the morning of the 6th landed at Paducah, Lloyd Tilghman and a few rebels under his command, who had also arrived for the purpose of claiming that place, withdrawing without resistance.

On the 6th of November, under instructions from St. Louis, General Grant left Cairo with about three thousand men aboard some transport boats, conveyed by two gun-boats, for the purpose of occupying the attention of the rebels about Columbus, but with no design of bringing on an engagement. Opposite Columbus, in easy range of the guns of General Polk, was Belmont, a river station. A rebel camp was located at this point, having a battery and several hundred men. Grant concluded to land several miles above, and, by a detour through the woods, fall upon and take this camp before assistance could reach it from Columbus. But Bishop Polk was not the kind of man to be caught asleep while an enemy was known to be lurking around. Early on the morning of the 7th Grant landed, and led his small force of less than three thousand men to attack Belmont. But Polk had discovered the movement, and sent

victors

over several regiments under Gideon J. Pillow, who awaited his approach with a force outnumbering his own. A stubborn fight ensued, in which the rebels were defeated and put to flight, leaving their guns. and camp material behind. Strangely enough, the now turned into speech-making, congratulating themselves, and gathering up such spoils as appeared worthy of attention. But all this time Polk, having discovered that no attack was designed on his side of the river, was sending re-enforcements to Pillow, whose routed troops were reformed, and increased to the number Grant brought with him. With difficulty the Union troops were now thrown into line, and began to retrace their way to the transports. But Pillow was found ready to dispute the passage, and at this moment some of General Grant's pestiferous orators began to feel that the whole thing was likely to end in an ignominious surrender to the Grant had two remarkable qualities, then

double

rebels.

not very well known-one for getting into difficulties, and one for getting out of difficulties. He now said they had fought their way in, they would fight their way out. And this they did; and gained the transports and gunboats eftar a severe struggle, the

General himself being among the last to quit the

land.

In this worthless affair nearly five hundred lost on the Union side, and a greater number on the other.

were

Soon after Grant took possession of Paducah, General C. F. Smith, by the suggestion or order of General Fremont, stationed a small force at the

mouth of the Cumberland River, twelve miles above. The mouths of both the Tennessee and Cumberland were now in the hands of the Federals, as well as the whole of the Ohio; and military men began to get some glimpses of the course events were likely to take. Political considerations were dropped, to a great extent, and armies, battles, and results were mainly brought into the calculations. The location of the Federals at the outlets of the two Southern rivers greatly annoyed the rebels. This had been a very fortunate movement on the war board, and to Grant the credit of making it was due, and at least at so early a moment, and when it could be done without the expense of pushing anybody else out. This movement aided somewhat in defining the general situation in a military sense. On the Cumberland River the rebels had established themselves in an exceedingly strong position, called Fort Donelson, on the left or east bank of the river; and opposite the southern border of Kentucky, on the right or west bank of the Tennessee, they had built Fort Henry. The strip of country between these two points was not over twelve miles wide, and two rough roads connected them.

Soon after Polk planted himself at Columbus, Felix K. Zollicoffer, with a small force, entered Kentucky; and about the middle of September, Simon Bolivar Buckner, a West Point graduate, recently commander of Governor Magoffin's State guards, having become a general in the rebel cause, engaged in collecting an army at Bowling Green. It now began