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EVACUATION OF CORINTH.

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to our front. But about six A. M., a cu- were still burning, and the ruins of warerious explosion, sounding like a volley houses and buildings containing commisof large siege pieces, followed by others sary and other Confederate stores were singly, and in twos and threes, arrested still smouldering; but there still remainour attention, and soon after a large ed piles of cannon balls, shells and shot, smoke arose from the direction of Cor- sugar, molasses, beans, rice and other inth, when I telegraphed to General property which the enemy had failed to Halleck to ascertain the cause. He an- carry off or destroy. Major Fisher, of swered that he could not explain it, but the Ohio 54th, was left in Corinth with ordered me to advance my division and a provost guard, to prevent pillage, and feel the enemy if still in my front.' I protect the public stores still left. From immediately put in motion two regiments the best information picked up from the of each brigade by different roads, and few citizens who remained in Corinth, it soon after followed with the whole divi- appeared that the enemy had for some sion, infantry, artillery and cavalry. days been removing their sick and valuSomewhat to our surprise, the enemy's able stores, and had sent away on railchief redoubt was found within thirteen road cars a part of their effective force hundred yards of our line of entrench- on the night of the 28th. But, of course, ments, but completely masked by the even the vast amount of their rolling dense forest and undergrowth. Instead stock could not carry away an army of of having, as we supposed, a continuous 100,000 men. The enemy was, thereline of entrenchments encircling Corinth, fore, compelled to march away, and behis defences consisted of separate re-gan the march by ten o'clock on the doubts, connected in part by a parapet and ditch, and in part by shallow riflepits; the trees being felled so as to give a good field of fire to and beyond the main road.

"General M. L. Smith's brigade moved rapidly down the main road, entering the first redoubt of the enemy at seven A. M. It was completely evacuated, and he pushed on into Corinth, and beyond to College Hill, there awaiting my orders and arrival. General Denver entered the enemy's lines at the same time, seven A. M., at a point midway between the wagon and railroads, and proceeded on to Corinth, about three miles from our camp; and Colonel McDowell kept further to the right, near the Mobile and Ohio railroad. By eight A. M. all my division was at Corinth and beyond. On the whole ridge extending from my camp into Corinth, and to the right and left, could be seen the remains of the abandoned camps of the enemy; flour and provisions scattered about, and everything indicating a speedy and confused retreat. In the town itself many houses

night of the 29th-the columns filling all the roads leading south and west all night; the rear guard firing the train which led to the explosion and conflagration, which gave us the first real notice that Corinth was to be evacuated. The enemy did not relieve his pickets that morning, and many of them have been captured, who did not have the slightest intimation of their purpose.

"Finding Corinth abandoned by the enemy, I ordered General M. L. Smith to pursue on the Ripley road, by which, it appeared, they had taken the bulk of their artillery. Captain Hammond, my chief of staff, had been and continued with General Smith's brigade, and pushed the pursuit up to the bridges and narrow causeway by which the bottom of Tuscumbia creek is passed. The enemy opened with canister on the small party of cavalry, and burnt every bridge, leaving the woods full of straggling soldiers. Many of these were gathered up and sent to the rear, but the main army had escaped across Tuscumbia creek, and farther pursuit by a small party would have

o'clock A. M. on the 30th. He destroyed the track in many places, both south and north of the town, blew up one culvert, destroyed the switch and track, burned up the depot and locomotives, and a train of twenty-six cars, loaded with supplies of every kind, destroyed ten thousand stand of small arms, three pieces of artillery, and a great quantity of clothing and ammunition, and paroled two thousand prisoners, whom he could not keep with his cavalry. The enemy had heard of his movements, and had a train of box cars, and flat cars, with flying artillery and five thousand infantry, running up and down the road to prevent him from reaching it. The whole road was lined with pickets for several days. Colonel Elliott's command subsisted upon meat alone, such as they could find in the country."*

been absurd, and I kept my division at College Hill until I received General Thomas's orders to return and resume our camps of the night before; which we did, slowly and quietly, in the cool of the evening. The evacuation of Corinth at the time and in the manner in which it was done was a clear back down from the high and arrogant tone heretofore assumed by the rebels. The ground was of their own choice. The fortifications, though poor and indifferent, were all they supposed necessary to our defeat, as they had had two months to make them, with an immense force to work at their disposal. If, with two such railroads as they possessed, they could not supply their army with reinforcements and provisions, how can they attempt it in this poor, arid and exhausted part of the country?" General Halleck, announcing the retreat of the enemy to the war department the day of the flight, reported his position and works in front of Corinth "exceedingly strong. He cannot occupy a stronger position in his flight. This morning he destroyed an immense amount of public and private property, stores, provisions, wagons, tents, etc. For miles out of the town the roads are filled with arms, haversacks, etc., thrown away by his fleeing troops; a large number of prisoners and deserters have been captured, estimated by General Pope at two thousand. General Beauregard evidently distrusts his army or he would have de-forcements and supplies. They called to fended so strong a position. His troops are generally much discouraged and demoralized. In all the engagements for the last few days their resistance has been slight."

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On the 30th, General Sherman issued a congratulatory order to his troops, thanking them "for the courage, steadiness, and great industry they had displayed during the past month." Reviewing the recent events, he said: “But a few days ago a large and powerful rebel army lay at Corinth, with outposts extending to our very camp at Shiloh. They held two railroads extending north and south, east and west, across the whole extent of their country with a vast number of locomotives and cars to bring to them speedily and certainly their rein

their aid all their armies from every
quarter, abandoning the sea-coast and
the great river Mississippi, that they
might overwhelm us with numbers in the
place of their own choosing. They had
their chosen leaders, men of high reputa-
tion and courage, and they dared us to
leave the cover of our iron-clad gunboats
to come to fight them in their trenches,
and still more dangerous swamps and am-
buscades of their Southern forests. Their
whole country from Richmond to Mem-

Corinth, Miss., June 1, 1862.
General Pope, to Secretary Stanton, Camp, near

ROUT OF THE ENEMY.

phis and Nashville to Mobile rung with their taunts and boastings, as to how they would immolate the Yankees if they dared to leave the Tennessee river. They boldly and defiantly challenged us to meet them at Corinth. We accepted the challenge and came slowly and without attempt at concealment to the very ground of their selection; and they have fled away. We yesterday marched unopposed through the burning embers of their destroyed camps and property, and pursued them to their swamps, until burning bridges plainly confessed they had fled and not marched away for better ground. It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in history, and every officer and soldier who lent his aid has just reason to be proud of his part.'

443

over 20,000, and General Buell at beween 20,000 and 30,000. A person who was employed in the Confederate Commissary Department says they had 120,000 men in Corinth, and that now they cannot muster much over 80,000. Some of the fresh graves on the road have been opened and found filled with arms. Many of the prisoners of war beg not to be exchanged, saying they purposely allowed themselves to be taken. Beauregard himself retreated from Baldwin on Saturday afternoon to Okolona."

General Beauregard, not long after, on reading in the Mobile News, General Halleck's dispatch of June 5, just cited, addressed to that journal a communication denying the alleged achievements of General Pope, and protesting against the assumption of the "farmer" of his "frantic" conduct. "General Pope," says he, "must certainly have dreamed of having taken 10,000 prisoners and 15,000 stand of arms, for we positively never lost them; about one or two hundred stragglers would probably cover all the prisoners he took, and about five hundred damaged muskets all the arms he got; these belonged to a convalescent camp, (four miles south of Corinth), evacuated during the night, and were overlooked on account of the darkness. The actual

The enemy were pursued in their retreat southerly, along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, as far and as rapidly as the nature of the country and the roads and bridges, broken up by the fugitives, would allow. On the 4th of June General Halleck informed the Secretary of War: "General Pope, with 40,000 men, is thirty miles south of Corinth, pushing the enemy hard. He already reports 10,000 prisoners and deserters from the enemy, and 15,000 stand of arms captured. Thousands of the enemy are throw-number of prisoners taken during the reing away their arms. A farmer says treat was about equal on both sides, and that when Beauregard learned that Col- they were but few." In this way freonel Elliott had cut the railroad on his quently does some notable military exline of retreat, he became frantic, and ploit of war expand or dwindle as it is told his men to save themselves the best recorded with more or less of policy or way they could. We have captured integrity by one side or the other. Who nine locomotives and a number of cars. shall reconcile the ordinary discrepancies One of the former is already repaired, of statement when commanders-in-chief and is running to-day. Several more-men drilled in the calculations of warwill be in running order in two or three days. The result is all I could possibly desire." And again on the 9th: "The enemy has fallen back to Tusila, fifty miles from here by railroad, and near seventy miles by wagon road. General Pope estimates the rebel loss from casualties, prisoners, and desertion at

fare-thus widely differ? General Beauregard, in reference to the farmer's story, says that General Halleck ought to know that the burning of two or more cars on a railroad is not enough to make "Beauregard frantic," while he charges Colonel Elliott with barbarously consuming four sick persons in the building which he set

fire to at Booneville." These rough accusations were met by General Granger, who led the pursuit from Corinth with a body of cavalry. He denied utterly the charge brought against Colonel Elliott, while he represents the wretched state in which the rebels left their sick at Booneville. "Two thousand sick and convalescent, found by Colonel Elliott, were in the most shocking condition. The living and the putrid dead were lying side by side together, festering in the sun, on platforms, on the track, and on the ground, just where they had been driven off the cars by their inhuman and savage comrades. No surgeon, no nurses were attending them. They had had no water or food for one or two days, and a more horrible scene could scarcely be imagined. Colonel Elliott set his own men to removing them to places of safety, and they were all so removed before he set fire to the depot and cars, as can be proved by hundreds." The exact number of cars destroyed by Colonel Elliott was twenty-six, laden with small arms, ammunition, officers' baggage, etc.*

Such, then, was the evaucation of Corinth, though falling short of the expectations of the public in the easy escape of the rebel army, yet an important success in its influence upon the conduct of the war, being followed, as a necessary sequence, after an interval of a few weeks, by the fall of Memphis, by which Tennessee was interposed as an effectual barrier against the armies of the South, and essential military operations in this

Letter of General Granger, Army of the Mississippi,

July 4, 1862. Rebellion Record v., p. 269.

quarter were transferred to the States of the Gulf.

Following these events at Corinth, the strong position of the Cumberland Gap, at the point of junction of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where a notch or depression of the Cumberland chain is protected on either side by high precipitous mountain walls, was on the approach of the Union General George W. Morgan, on the 18th of June, found evacuated by the Confederate garrison, which had held it for several months. General Morgan occupied the Gap, and remained in possession till the autumn, when the invasion of Kentucky, by cutting off his supplies, compelled him to retreat.

General Mitchel, who, for his services. in this campaign, was raised to the rank of a major general of volunteers, continued in command in Tennessee till July, when he was relieved and returned to the east. He was succeeded in his command by General Rousseau, of Kentucky. With a larger force he might have been successful in carrying out his plans for the permanent occupation of Chattanooga, and the restoration of East Tennessee to the Union. As it was, after several encounters with the enemy, running through May and June, the Federal troops were compelled to retire from the outposts which his little army had so resolutely taken possession of.

General Halleck also left the charge of the department in July to General Buell, being called by the President to Washington, to the command of the army as general-in-chief.

CHAPTER LXVII.

NAVAL ACTIONS AT FORT WRIGHT AND MEMPHIS, APRIL-JUNE, 1862.

vanced about seven o'clock towards the vessels of the Union fleet which were lying at the time tied up to the bank, three on the castern and four on the western side of the stream. The rebel squadron was supposed to be commanded by Commodore Hollins. The leading vessels made directly for mortar boat No. 16, Acting Master Gregory, who fought "with great spirit," and was presently supported by the gunboats Cincinnati and the Mound City. The action lasted an hour at close quarters, and ended in the enemy "retiring precipitately under the guns of the fort."*

COMMODORE FOOte, with his squadron | eight in number, rounding the point, adand coöperating land forces, having cleared the Mississippi of the formidable batteries at Island No. 10, proceeded down the river to the vicinity of Fort Wright or Pillow, where, and at the neighboring Fort Randolph, the enemy had erected at the Chickasaw Bluffs, at convenient bends of the stream, their next series of defences, about seventy miles above Memphis. The gallant commodore, though suffering severely from the wound in his ankle which he had received at Donelson, and requiring the use of crutches, was ready as ever for action, and in conjunction with General Pope, was, a few days after his recent victory, about to execute a combined attack upon the fortifications at Fort Wright, when the land force was called away by General Halleck to recruit the army on the Tennessee after the battle of Pittsburg Landing. The fleet, however, remained at its station watching the enemy, who had mustered a considerable fleet of gunboats to the support of their works. A few weeks after, Flag Officer Foote, in consequence of his wound, was relieved of his command by the department, being succeeded, on the 9th of May, by Captain Charles H. Davis. The new commander had scarcely time to look about him when he was called into action. On the 10th, the day after his arrival, the enemy made an attack which had been expected by Commodore Foote, and for which every preparation had been made. The morning was fair, with a promise of a fine day, though, as was not unusual at the season, a thick blue haze was gathered over the river, through which the rebel gunboats,

An eye witness describes in detail the action: "The Cincinnati, which lay off the Arkansas shore, and nearest to the point, as a guard of the mortar boats, was approached by the largest rebel gunboat, provided with a sharp iron prow, and known as the McRae. She was formerly a schooner, has her engines protected by railway iron, is mounted with heavy guns at the bow and stern, and probably has several others, but they were not visible. She was defended by bales of cotton piled some six feet above her deck, and had a soiled and tattered ensign, designed, no doubt, for the secession colors, flying from one of her two masts. The McRae did not fire any of her pieces, but ran with great force in the direction of the Cincinnati, evidently designing to sink her. As she was within twenty feet of the Cincinnati, the latter discharged her bow gun at her, but without any seeming effect, and then swinging round, let off a broadside. At that mo

*Captain Commanding Davis to Secretary Welles. Flagship Benton, off Fort Wright, May 10 and 11, 1862

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