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made a strong attempt to retrieve his disasters by renewing a concentration of his troops at Frayser's farm.

From the time of these two principal battles, all pretensions of the enemy's retreat to strategy must cease. Iis retreat was now unmistakable; it was no longer a falling back to concentrate troops for action; it is, in fact, impossible to disguise that it was the retreat of an enemy who was discomfited and whipped, although not routed. He had abandoned the rail. roads; he had given up the strongholds which he had provided to secure him in case of a check; he had destroyed from eight to ten millions dollars' worth of stores; he had deserted his hospitals, his sick and wounded, and he had left in our hands thousands of prisoners and innumerable stragglers.

Regarding all that had been accomplished in these battles; the displays of the valor and devotion of our troops; the expenditure of blood; and the helpless and fugitive condition to which the enemy had at last been reduced, there was cause for the keenest regrets that an enemy in this condition was permitted to secure his retreat. It is undoubtedly true, that in failing to cut off McClellan's retreat to the river, we failed to accomplish the most important condition for the completion of our victory. But although the result of the conflict had fallen below public expectation, it was sufficiently fortunate to excite popular joy, and grave enough to engage the most serious speculation as to the future.

The mouth of the Yankee government was shut from any more promises of a speedy termination of the war; the powers of Europe saw that the Southern Confederacy was not yet crushed, or likely to be crushed, by its insolent foe; and the people of the South had again challenged the confidence of the world in the elasticity of their fortunes and the invincible destiny of their independence.

The fortune of events in other parts of the Confederacy, taking place about the time of the relief of Richmond, or closely following it, although less striking and dramatic, was not unpropitious. These events, a rapid survey of which takes us from the seacoast to the Mississippi frontier, added to the exultations which the victories of the Chickahominy had occasioned, and, although qualified by some disasters, enlarged and enlightened the prospects of the future.

A few days before the great battles had been joined around Richmond, a brilliant success over the Yankees had been obtained in an engagement on James Island in the neighborhood of Charleston. The battle of Secessionville, as it was called, occurred on the 16th of June. About four o'clock in the morning of that day, the enemy, taking advantage of the negligence of our pickets, drove them in, or captured them, some eight hundred yards in front of the battery at Secessionville, and, advancing rapidly upon this work in line of battle, arrived within a few hundred yards of it before we could open upon him. The men, however, were at their guns, which were at once well and rapidly served, while the infantry was moved promptly into position under the orders of Col. J. G. Lamar, the heroic commander of the post. It was not long after getting the infantry into position, that the enemy were driven back in confusion. They were soon, however, reinforced, and made another desperate charge, when they were again driven back; a third time they came, but only to meet with the most determined repulse. They then made a flank movement on our right, on the west of Secessionville, where they were gallantly met by the Charleston battalion, which was soon reinforced by the Louisiana battalion. Three times had the heroic band of Confederates repulsed (often at the point of the bayonet) a force thrice their strength, under the fire of three gunboats and four land batteries. About ten o'clock the enemy retreated in great confusion, leaving their dead and wounded on the field, a number lying in our trenches. The loss of the enemy was at least four hundred in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Their dead in front of the Secessionville works numbered one hundred and sixty-eight. Our loss was forty killed, and about twice that number wounded.

In the situation in the West some important changes had transpired in the early months of the summer.

The evacuation of Corinth was determined upon by Gen. Beauregard, after having twice offered the enemy battle outside of his intrenched lines, and was accomplished on the 30th of May. The transparent object of the Yankee commander was to cut off our resources, by destroying the Mobile and Ohio and Memphis and Charleston railroads. This was substantially foiled by the evacuation and withdrawal of our forces along

the line of the former road. Remaining in rear of the Tus cumbia and its affluents, some six miles from Corinth, long enough to collect stragglers, Gen. Beauregard resumed his march, concentrating his main forces at Baldwin. On June 7th he left Baldwin, it offering no advantages of a defensive character, and assembled the main body of his forces at Tupelo. On the morning of the evacuation of Corinth, our effective force did not exceed forty-seven thousand men of all arms; that of the enemy, obtained from the best sources of information, could not have been less than ninety thousand men of all arms. The story of the evacuation was flourished by the Yankees as a great success on their side, and coupled with an audacious falsehood reported by Gen. Pope to Gen. Halleck, then in command of the enemy's forces in the West, to the effect that he had taken ten thousand prisoners and fifteen thousand stand of arms. The facts are, that the retreat was conducted with great order and precision; and that, despite the boasts of the North to the contrary, we lost no more prisoners than the enemy did himself, and abandoned to him in stores not more than would amount to one day's expense of our army.

*

The capture of Memphis was another step towards the realization of the enemy's great object of opening the navigation of the Mississippi, which was persistently demanded by the Northwestern States, as the price of their contributions to the war, and their support of the administration at Washington. This city had been formally surrendered to the Yankees after a naval engagement in front of it on the 6th of June, in which our loss was eighty killed and wounded and seventy-five taken prisoners, and four gunboats sunk.

* The Board of Trade of St. Louis published a paper on this subject, which assumed the ground that the object of the Confederacy was to hold the entire and exclusive control of the Mississippi. It went into detail to show how great a loss the present obstruction of that highway was to the "loyal" Western States. It was the natural outlet to the produce of the Upper Valley. During the year 1860, the shipments from Cairo and points above the Mississippi and its tributaries, by way of the lower Mississippi, amounted to a million of tons, o which 400,000 went from St. Louis. It averred that the difference in cost o freight by the river and the railroad was ten dollars a ton; also, that this, with the return freight, would amount to a total of $15,000,000 tax on the Westeru people by reason of the closing of the river.

The occupation of Memphis by the enemy was a serious dis aster to the South, although it did not open the Mississippi, for it gave him extraordinary facilities for almost daily reinforcements of men and supplies, and for the preparation or expeditions to penetrate to the heart of the Confederacy.

But the enemy received a check on the Mississippi where he had least expected it. On the 24th of June, his combined fleet retired, and abandoned the siege of Vicksburg, without accomplishing any thing, after a siege of six weeks. No injury was sustained by any of the batteries at Vicksburg. The number of shells thrown into the city and at the batteries amounted to 25,000. The casualties in the city were one woman and one negro man killed, and among the soldiers on guard and at the batteries there were twenty-two killed and wounded. The lower bombarding fleet, under command of Coms. Farragut and Porter, consisted of 18 gun and mortar boats, 5 sloops-of-war and 70 transports; the upper fleet consisted of 11 gunboats and rams, and 13 transports, under command of Com. Davis.

The people of the South found in the defence of Vicksburg a splendid lesson of magnanimity and disinterested patriotisin. For several weeks the city had resisted successfully the attack of the enemy's gunboats, mortar fleets, and heavy siege guns. She was threatened by powerful fleets above and below, and yet, with unexampled spirit, the Queen City of the Bluffs sustained the iron storm that was rained upon her for weeks with continued fury.

New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Memphis were in the hands of the Yankees, and their possession by the enemy might have furnished to Vicksburg, in its exposed and desperate situation, the usual excuses of timidity and selfishness for its surrender. But the brave city resisted these vile and unmanly excuses, and gave to the world one of the proudest and most brilliant illustrations of the earnestness and devotion of the people of the South that had yet adorned the war.

The fact that but little hopes could be entertained of the eventual success of the defence of Vicksburg against the powerful concentration of the enemy's navy heightened the nobility of the resistance she made. The resistance of the enemy in circumstances which afford but a feeble and uncertain pros

pect of victory requires a great spirit; but it is more in valuble to us than a hundred easy victories; it teaches the enemy that we are invincible and overcomes him with despair; it exhibits to the world the inspirations and moral grandeur of our cause; and it educates our people in chivalry and warlike virtues by the force of illustrious examples of self

devotion.

But the people of the South had the satisfaction of witnessing an unexpected issue of victory in the siege of Vicksburg, and had occasion to learn another lesson that the history of all wars indicates, that the practical test of resistance affords the only sure determination whether a place is defensible or not. With a feeling of inexpressible pride did Vicksburg behold two immense fleets, cach of which had been heretofore invincible, brought to bay, and unable to cope with her, kept at a respectful distance, and compelled to essay the extraordinary task of digging a new channel for the Mississippi.

In the month of July occurred the remarkable expedition of the celebrated John Morgan into Kentucky. The expedition of this cavalier was one of the most brilliant, rapid, and successful raids recorded in history. Composed of a force less than one thousand, consisting of Morgan's own regiment, with some partizan rangers from Georgia, and a Texas squadron, to which was attached two companies of Tennessee cavalry, it penetrated as far as Cynthianna. It was Morgan's intention to make a stand at Richmond, Kentucky, to await reinforcements, as he was persuaded that nearly the whole people of that State was ready to rise and join him; but finding that the enemy were endeavoring to envelope him with large bodies of cavalry, he was compelled to fall back. On reaching Somerset, he took possession of the telegraph, and very coolly countermanded all the previous orders that had been given by Gen. Boyle at Louisville to pursue him.

He had left Knoxville on the fourth day of July with nine. hundred men, and returned to Lexington on the 28th with nearly twelve hundred. In twenty-four days he had penetrated two hundred and fifty miles into a country in full pos session of the Yankees; captured seventeen towns; met, fought and captured a Yankee force superior to his own in numbers. captured three thousand stand of arms at Lebanon; and, from

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