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1862

CHAPTER XII.

WAR OF THE REBELLION ISLAND No. 10- GEN-
ERAL POPE NEW ORLEANS - GENERAL BUTLER
FARRAGUT AND HIS MORTAR FLOTILLA-SHILOH
CORINTH PERRYVILLE STONE RIVER
STOOD THE GOD OF BATTLES.

WHERE

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
January 27, 1862.

"President's General War Order, No. 1.
"ORDERED, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be
the day for a general movement of the land and naval
forces of the United States against the insurgent forces.

"That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Mumfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready for a movement on that day.

"That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.

"That the heads of Departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General-in-Chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for the prompt execution of this order.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

This extraordinary order was founded on two or three important circumstances: the long inactivity

of the army on the Potomac under General McClellan; the wide-spread dissatisfaction on account of its inactivity, and the persistent and constant clamor for its movement; the change in the head of the War Department; and the growing sentiment of distrust in the intentions and ability of General McClellan, in which the President began to share.

On the 13th of January, 1862, Edwin M. Stanton, a Democrat of Ohio, had taken the place of Mr. Cameron as Secretary of War, and it was through his instigation that Mr. Lincoln, worn and out of patience with McClellan's delay, concluded to take the responsibility of ordering a general movement against the rebels. There had been a great outcry against the appointment of Mr. Stanton, there being many able Republicans selected for the place from which Mr. Cameron had been allowed to resign; but the President had followed his unaided inclination in the choice, and who will say to-day that he or any other man could have made a better with the whole world to select from?

A few days subsequently another war order was issued, in which the President directed the Army of the Potomac to be divided into five corps, under Irwin McDowell, E. V. Sumner, S. P. Heintzelman, E. L. Keyes, and N. P. Banks, and at once organized for the field. This was immediately succeeded by an order putting McClellan at the head of the Army of the Potomac in the field, and relieving him of the command of all other departments; Halleck the Commander of the Department of the Mississippi, and

Fremont of the Mountain Department of Virginia, being authorized to report directly to the Secretary of War. The President's order as to the movement of the Army of the Potomac was somewhat modified under General McClellan's representations, and so time passed on in comparative quietness on the Potomac.

While this state of affairs continues in the East, a brief glance may be made at a more active field. At the time of taking position at Columbus, Kentucky, the rebels had also occupied Island No. 10, in the Mississippi, some distance below that place. By their defenses here, at "Fort Pillow," and other strong points above Memphis, they hoped to be able to hold the great river below Columbus. But after the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, it was deemed politic to abandon Columbus. A part of the forces at this place went to Island No. 10, others were scattered along the river at New Madrid and other places, and some of them went to form the army A. S. Johnston was gathering to oppose Buell and Grant. With a view to the capture of Island No. 10, in February, 1862, General Halleck, at St. Louis, directed John Pope, with the army under him at Cairo, considerably outnumbering all the rebel forces from Columbus and Fort Pillow, to move down the river and march across the country to New Madrid. Pope reached this place on the 3d of March, a few days after Polk had abandoned Columbus. Finding the situation stronger and more difficult than he expected, he sent to Cairo for siege-guns. He also set to work, at the sugges

tion of General Schuyler Hamilton, to open a canal from below Island No. 8, twelve miles across the low marshy country to New Madrid. The river here makes two great, irregular, horseshoe bends, one pointing toward the south, with Island No. 10, and the other lower down, pointing to the north, having New Madrid at its toe on the Missouri side. In nineteen days Pope had this canal ready to give passage to his transports. In the meantime he had planted batteries along the river for several miles below, and had finally succeeded in scaring the rebels out of New Madrid. Some of them took refuge at Island No. 10, and others crossed the river. Large quantities of stores and arms here fell into the hands of Pope. About the middle of the month Commodore Foote had arrived, and begun to bombard the works on the island. On the 6th of April Pope's canal was finished, and by this time one or two of Commodore Foote's gun-boats had, on a dark night, very ingeniously contrived to run by the batteries and join Pope at New Madrid. At day-break on the 7th he began to cross the river with a large portion of his army, the rebels retreating before him and, at the same time, evacuating Island No. 10. The river was high, and at Tiptonville it was backed into the marshes on the Tennessee side, so that the rebels were completely hemmed in. Their case was now without a shadow of hope. The pursuit of the rebels was begun at once, and before daylight on the morning of the 8th of April the bulk of them, six thousand seven hundred, had thrown down their arms

and surrendered. On the same day Commodore Foote had taken possession of Island No. 10.

In his report to Halleck, on the 9th, General Pope said: "We have crossed this great river with a large army, the banks of which were lined with the batteries of the enemy to oppose our passage; have pursued and captured all his forces and material of war, and have not lost a man, nor met with an accident." This was, indeed, a wonderful performance, and General Halleck, who was very profuse in his praise where it was perfectly agreeable to him to apply it, said it was the most brilliant affair of the war up to that period.

This stroke gave new vigor and strength to the Union cause, and opened the Mississippi to Fort Pillow. It had been correspondingly severe to the rebels, who could poorly spare the little army and the large number of guns and vast amount of war supplies, to a great extent sacrificed by incompetency and cowardice. Two or three of their general officers were surrendered to Pope, but in this their cause hardly suffered, as the management, on their part, at Island No. 10 could not have been worse.

But, in the meantime, the question of the mastery of the Mississippi was about to be solved in another quarter. On the 25th of February General Benjamin F. Butler, with a small force, sailed from Fortress Monroe for the capture of New Orleans. Captain D. G. Farragut, who was to co-operate with him, had already sailed with his fleet for the rendezvous at Ship Island, in Mississippi Sound. This expedition

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