lature had been faithless to their will; that instead of enforcing neutrality, they had sought to make the State a fortress in which the armed forces of the United States might securely prepare to subjugate alike the people of Kentucky and of the Southern States. He declared that the Confederate troops occupied Bowling Green as a defensive position, and that he renewed the pledge previously given by their commanders, to retire as soon as the Federal forces would in like manner withdraw.

But the first serious collision of arms in Kentucky was to occur in the neighbourhood of the waters of the Ohio and the Tennessee; and to that end of the line of operations we must now take the attention of the reader.

THE BATTLE OF BELMONT.

Gen. Polk had for some time been strengthening his position at Colum bus, and had also occupied Belmont, a small village on the Missouri shore, so as to command both banks of the stream.

With a view of surprising the small Confederate force on the west bank, Gen. U. S. Grant collected a fleet of large river steamboats, and embarking at night, steamed down the river unobserved. Within a few miles of Columbus and Belmont the river makes a sudden bend, and behind this bend Grant disembarked his forces, and began to advance towards Belmont, through the woods. When the morning of the 7th of November broke, the action commenced; the first intimation of the ene my's presence being a succession of rapid volleys. The troops were soon under arms, but the sudden surprise precluded all idea of a regular line or plan of battle.

It appears that when the enemy was reported landing troops a few miles above, the garrison in Belmont consisted of only two regiments. Gen. Pillow, with four regiments, immediately crossed, and assumed command. He had scarcely done so, when Grant's advance opened fire, and the fight soon became fierce and obstinate. The enemy made a desperate attempt to turn the left wing of the Confederates, but was defeated by the destructive fire of Beltzhoover's battery. This wing was severely taxed, as was also the right. Finding that they stood firm and unbroken, and, anxious for decisive action before reinforcements could reach Pillow, Grant repeatedly hurled his strongest force at the Confederate centre, which was in the open field.

The centre evidently faltered under these heavy and repeated attacks. Pillow ordered a charge, and the first line of the enemy was driven upon their reserves. But ammunition now began to fail, and word came that the wings could not maintain their position if the centre gave in, as thero was every reason to fear it would do. Again a charge was ordered, which

THE BATTLE OF BELMONT.

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proved no less successful than the first. It was now found that the only battery of the Confederates had not a cartridge remaining, and most of the troops were similarly circumstanced; there was no alternative but to fall back until reinforcements should arrive from Columbus.

In moving back to the river bank, the Confederate line was more or less broken and disorganized; and the enemy appeared to be master of the field. He was already in full possession of the Confederate camps, and was burning them. But at the critical moment three regiments, which had crossed the river from Columbus, were ordered to move up the river bank, through the woods, and get in the enemy's rear. The enemy had seen the boats crossing with reinforcements, and played on them with a heavy battery; but the guns at Columbus replied, and in a few moments the enemy's pieces were silenced. Finding that Polk himself was crossing, and landing troops far up the river on his line of retreat, Grant immediately began to fall back, but had not proceeded far when he encountered Louisianians, Mississippians, Tennesseans, and others, formed on his flanks, subjecting him to loss every moment, while the guns at Columbus continued rapidly firing across the river, and from the high position of the works, telling with deadly effect. Under these circumstances resistance was hopeless, and Grant reluctantly ordered a retreat; but while conducting it, he was subjected to a terrific cross-fire from the Confederates, while Polk in person was pushing the rear vigorously, capturing prisoners and arms every yard of the road. The confusion, noise, and excitement were terrible, the Federals rapidly retreating to their boats, and the advance columns of their pursuers pouring deadly volleys into them. A defeat was suddenly and almost miraculously converted into a glorious triumph of Confederate arms.

In this obstinate conflict, in which the Confederates fought by detachments, and always against superiour numbers, it was officially stated that their loss in killed, wounded, and missing, was 632, while that of the enemy was claimed to have been treble in extent. He had been driven under a devouring fire, and even after he had reached the river, his crowded transports were assailed with the fire of thousands of deadly rifles. In Northern newspapers, Belmont was put down as "another Union victory." The style and effrontery of the falsehood was characteristic. The first part of the day, when Grant pushed the Confederates to the river, was glowingly described; but the subsequent flank movement which converted his early success into a defeat and a rout, and was, indeed, the event of the day, was dismissed in the briefest and most indifferent terms. Grant wrote: "The rebels followed in the rear to our place of debarkation." Such was the method of Northern misrepresentation. It is remarkable that, by ingenious suppression, or by the rouged falsehood of official reports, the North claimed, after Manassas, every event of the war as a Fed

eral victory, unless where some political animosity brought out the details, or some personal rivalry extorted the truth.

With the Confederate victory of Belmont, we leave for the present the story of military operations in the West. We shall soon recur to that theatre, to find there some of the largest and most important events of the war. We shall discover that the enemy, in fact, conceived a new plan of invasion of the South, through Kentucky and Tennessee, by means of amphibious expeditions, composed of gunboats and land forces; and that war which the Southern people supposed lingered on the Potomac, was suddenly transferred and opened with imposing scenes on the western waters.

CHAPTER XI.

THE FICKLE PUBLIC OF THE NORTH.-GEN. SCOTT.-THE CLAMOUR FOR M'OLELLAN.-HIS EXALTATION IN THE NEWSPAPERS.-THE THEATRICAL AND SENSATIONAL MIND OF THE

NORTH.-ADVANCE OF THE CONFEDERATES TOWARDS THE POTOMAC.-M'OLELLAN'S

DESIGNS.-THE CONFEDERATES FALL BACK TO CENTREVILLE.-THE BATTLE OF LEESBURG.-M'CLELLAN'S MOVEMENT ON THE CONFEDERATE LEFT.-EVANS' BRIGADE.— FORTUNATE CAPTURE OF A FEDERAL COURIER.-THE FEDERALS CROSS THE POTOMAC AND OCCUPY BALL'S BLUFF.-SPLENDID CHARGE OF THE CONFEDERATES.-DEATH OF COL. BAKER. THE ENEMY DRIVEN INTO THE RIVER.-AN APPALLING SPECTACLE OF DEATH.-MISREPRESENTATIONS IN WASHINGTON.-MORALE OF M'CLELLAN'S ARMY.-THE AFFAIR AT DRANESVILLE.-DEFEAT OF STUART.—" STONEWALL" JACKSON'S NEW COMMAND. HIS EXPEDITION FROM WINCHESTER.-TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF HIS COMMAND. -HIS DEMONSTRATION AT BATH.-HIS MOVEMENT TO ROMNEY, AND RETURN TO WINCHESTER.-CLOSE OF THE FIRST YEAR'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.-NAVAL OPERATIONS IN 1861.-THE ENEMY'S IMMENSE ADVANTAGE IN HIS NAVY.-STATISTICS OF THE FEDERAL NAVY.-IMPROVIDENCE OF THE CONFEDERATES IN COAST AND RIVER DEFENCES. SECRETARY MALLORY.-THE CONFEDERACY TO LOSE ALL HER SEAPORTS.-TWO NAVAL EXPEDITIONS DOWN THE CAROLINA COAST.-ENGAGEMENT AT HATTERAS INLET.-AN UNEQUAL COMBAT.-THE PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION. CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL.-VALUE OF THIS FEDERAL SUCCESS.-THE "TRENT" AFFAIR.-CAPTURE OF COMMISSIONERS MASON AND SLIDELL.-AN ENGLISH COMMANDER'S PROTEST.-GREAT INDIGNATION IN ENGLAND.-PREPARATIONS THERE FOR WAR.-CONCEIT AND EXULTATIONS OF THE NORTH.-TRIBUTES AND ATTENTIONS ΤΟ САРТ. WILKES.-CONCERN AMONG THE CONFEDERATES.-WHAT RICHMOND ORATORS SAID.-SEWARD'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.-HIS COLLAPSE. THE LAST RESORT OF DEMAGOGUEISM.-DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE CONFEDERATES IN THE TERMINATION OF THE TRENT AFFAIR.-EARL RUSSELL'S DECLARATION IN PARLIAMENT.-MR. GREGORY'S REPLY.-THE TREATY OF PARIS AND THE FEDERAL BLOCKADE.

In the beginning of the war, General Winfield Scott had been entitled in Northern newspapers "the Greatest Captain of the Age." After the disaster of Manassas the same newspapers derided him as an imbecile; and in the meanest humiliation General Scott publicly announced himself an "old coward" for having yielded to popular clamour in fighting the battle, and thus sought by the most infamous confession the mercy of men prompt to insult his fallen fortunes.

The fickle course of popular applause in the North was to exalt a new

idol, and to designate a new victim. The clamour was for young com. manders. Gen. George B. McClellan had been lifted into a sudden popularity by the indifferent affair of Rich Mountain. He was a graduate of West Point; had been one of the Military Commission sent to the Crimea; and just before the war had been employing his genius as superintendent of a railroad. He was now to take command of the Federal forces on the line of the Potomac, and to find himself suddenly exalted iL the newspapers to comparisons with Alexander, Cæsar, Hannibal and Napoleon the Great.

The volatile, superficial and theatrically-inclined miad of the North is, perhaps, in nothing more strikingly displayed than in its demonstrations towards its public men. Yankee fame has come to be one of the curiosities of the world. Scott was "the Greatest Captain of the Age." But McClellan was "the Young Napoleon." The name of the new hero appeared on placards, on banners, and in newspaper headings. Reporters stretched their ears to catch the least word he uttered; artists of illustrated journals dogged his steps; his eyes, hair, mouth, teeth, voice, manner and apparel were carefully described in newspaper articles. Every store of flattery and praise was exhausted upon a man who found himself famous by nothing more than the caprice of the multitude.*

For months after the battle of Manassas an almost unbroken quiet extended along the line of the Potomac. McClellan had tolerated the advance of the Confederate lines to Munson's Hill, within a few miles of Alexandria; and every attempt to draw him out into a general engage ment proved unavailing. Northern politicians complained of his inactivity;

There has been a curious Yankee affectation in the war. It is to discover in the infancy or early childhood of all their heroes something indicative of their future greatness, or of the designs of Providence towards them. Thus their famous cavalry commanders rode wild horses as soon as they could sit astraddle; and their greatest commander in the latter periods of the war-Ulysses S. Grant-when an infant in arms desired a pistol to be fired by his ear, and exclaimed, frick again—thus giving a very early indication of his warlike disposition. The following, told of McClellan in a Washington newspaper, during the days of his popularity, is characteristic:

"THE INFANT NAPOLEON.-An incident which occurred in the city of Philadelphia in the winter of 1826-7, is particularly worthy of record in our present crisis, inasmuch as it relates to the early history of one who fills a position commanding the attention and admiration of the world, and particularly of our own country. I will premise by saying I was in Philadelphia in the winter spoken of, attending medical lectures under a distinguished surgeon, then a professor in one of the institutions of the city. A son was born to our professor, and the event scarcely transpired before the father announced it to his delighted pupils. Scales were instantly brought from a neighboring grocer. Into one dish he placed the babe, into the other all the weights. The beam was raised, but the child moved not! The father, emptying his pockets, threw in his watch, coin, keys, knives and lancets, but to no purpose-the little hero could not be moved. He conquered every thing! And at last, while adding more and more weight, the cord supporting the beam gave way, and broke rather than the giant infant would yield! The father was Dr. McClellan, and the son-General McClellan! our young commander on the Potomac. The country will see a prophetic charm in this incident."