relieved from command, and Major-General Rosecrans put in his place.

There is but one place in which General Buell did effective service during his entire command, and that was on the second day of the battle of Shiloh. Everywhere else he manifested an irrepressible reluctance to strike the Confederates but with feeble and ineffective blows, and everywhere acted as if he had a special mission to protect the persons and property of acknowledged Rebels, and particularly to enable them to hold fast to their slaves.

It would seem that the progress of events in the history of this war up to the time of which we are now speaking, must have revealed to our commanders in the field, and to the military authorities at our national capital, just wherein the great strength of the Confederacy did lie, and what was necessary to be done in order to destroy that power. The military eye of Europe looked on, saw just where this power lay, and the world wondered that our commanders and military authorities did not comprehend the situation. Europe saw that the power of the Confederacy lay, not in Richmond, Nashville, Corinth, Chattanooga, or Vicksburg, nor in its seaports, but wholly in two armies-the one commanded by General Lee, and the other, at the time of which we are now speaking, by General Bragg; and that all we had to do was to wipe out these two armies, and the war was ended. With us, on the other hand, the great power under consideration lay, not in these armies, but in the cities and ports referred to. Hence our vast armies and navies and national resources were occupied and expended for years in vain endeavours to settle mere side issues, without a serious attempt to settle the two main ones upon which all others depended. On this account our war has no parallel in history. In all others, the issues of war have had but two centres, the locations of the hostile armies, each making the other its issue and the location of the other its centre. With us, the repossession of territory and the capture of all the enemy's strongholds was the first issue to be attended to, and the wiping out of the armies the very last, if that were thought of at all. Take the palpable facts of this Western Department in illustration. When the Confederates held

Central and Southern Kentucky, one thought held exclusive possession of the minds of our commanders,-not the capture of these scattered forces, which could most readily have been done, but the pushing of them out of Kentucky and Tennessee. When these forces were concentrated at Corinth, the capture, not of the enemy there, but of the mere position it occupied, became the exclusive aim of our authorities. When that post was occupied, two objects of supreme importance now presented themselves, objects neither of which was the Confederate army at Tupelo, just south of us, but Chattanooga, away off to the west, and Vicksburg at the south. Hence our great army, three or four times as numerous as that of the enemy, was divided into three parts; one sent in the direction of Chattanooga, the other in the direction of Vicksburg, and the third was broken up and scattered about and located in distant localities, and in such small bands as to be powerless for anything, leaving the enemy perfectly free to make raids. all around us, to break up our communications, to make a second invasion of Kentucky, and there to inflict upon us a loss of more than 20,000 brave men, and property to an untold amount. What were the results of the policy that was pursued? After a campaign of more than a year subsequent to the capture of Corinth, having lost in such bloody battles as Murfreesboro' and Chickamauga, in marches, and sieges, by sickness and accident, not far from 100,000 men, we found ourselves the triumphant possessors of Chattanooga, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, with the Confederate army intact and strong as ever. We had succeeded in opening the Mississippi, and created thereby the necessity of keeping in garrisons, on its banks, 100,000 men to keep it open; but we had not settled a single issue of the war.

Suppose, now, that when General Bragg had invaded. Kentucky, all our forces south of the State had been turned. upon his rear, and that for the purpose of preventing his return and capturing his army; we placing upwards of 100,000 men between him and his 45,000 troops and Tennessee,-moving, at the same time, upon him from the north with all the regular and volunteer forces that could have been collected. We know well that in such a case

not a debris of that army could have escaped. We know, also, that that army being captured, all the Confederate States between the Mississippi and Savannah rivers, with all their strongholds and rivers, would have been at our mercy. So. at any time, if all our vast forces in this department had been concentrated upon this one army, with the absolute determination not to rest, nor let it rest, until it was swept out of existence, the same results as above indicated, our forces being so overwhelmingly superior to those of the enemy, must have followed in a very short period. Then the Carolinas, with all their ports, would have fallen at once into our power, as our great western army would have turned to the east, where, as it entered Virginia and came up on Lee's rear, the only remaining army of the Confederacy would have been taken, and the Rebellion would have collapsed at once.

MOVEMENTS OF GENERAL GRANT.

It is with pain that we turn from such considerations as these, to notice the course which the campaign did take under the immediate direction of General Grant. From the time when the command of the Western Department, of Tennessee and Mississippi, specially fell into his hands, Vicksburg was the central object of all his aims. After the delay caused by the invasion of Kentucky by General Bragg had been terminated, our commander bent all his energies to the settlement of what he and most of our military authorities regarded as the main issue of the war. All things being ready, General Grant moved his main army from the Grand Junction to Oxford, Mississippi. While he lay here preparing to move upon Vicksburg, the Confederates, under General Van Dorn, did what might have been expected, their armies being left intact-made a damaging movement upon our communications. Holly Springs, on the railroad between Grand Junction and Oxford, had been made our present depôt of provisions, arms, and munitions. Van Dorn captured this place, and with it nearly 2,000 prisoners and some $4,000,000 worth of provisions and other property, which they carried off or destroyed before our forces arrived to retake the place.

By this disaster General Grant was, or supposed himself, necessitated to retrace his steps, move west to Memphis, and take his army down the river to Vicksburg.

The day following our disaster at Holly Springs, General Sherman moved from Memphis down the river, by our fleet, with our right wing, about 30,000 strong, sailed up the Yazoo some twelve miles, and having landed his forces there, moved them up to attack Vicksburg on the land side. Deploying his army into line, he sent his men, as Burnside led his at Fredericksburg, directly upon the fortifications in his front. As was inevitable, about 2,000 brave men were vainly slaughtered in the mad assault, the Confederates losing in all but 207. After obtaining leave to bury our dead and remove our wounded, General Sherman, all hope being abandoned of capturing the city by even a combined attack with the fleet from below, embarked his army, and sailed down to Milliken's Bend. When he had returned to this point, his superior in command, General McClernand, arrived, and while waiting the coming of General Grant with our main army, made an expedition up the Arkansas river, and captured and dismantled Fort Hindman, taking there, as he reports, about 5,000 prisoners. Thus matters stood until General Grant arrived, and commenced the siege in due form. As the conduct of this siege belongs to the order of events in 1863, we turn to consider our naval operations up to the close of the year 1862.

CHAPTER XV.

EXPEDITIONS ON THE SEABOARD AND OCEAN.

Expedition to North Carolina.

We have already noticed General Burnside's expedition into North Carolina. Others of greater or less importance now claim attention. August 26th, 1861, General Butler, with three 50-gun frigates, four smaller vessels, and two steam transports having on board 800 soldiers, sailed from Fortress Monroe on a secret expedition. At the entrance, through Hatteras Inlet, of Pamlico Sound, they captured Forts Hatteras and Clark, with 715 prisoners, 25 cannon, 1,000 stand of arms, and a considerable quantity of provisions and stores. Such expeditions as these, while they affected little for the general cause, acted as irritants upon the surface of the Rebellion, and sent far more volunteers into the field against us than we captured from the enemy.

Expedition to Port Royal, South Carolina.

On the 29th October of the same year, an expedition of great importance sailed from the same point as that above designated. This expedition consisted of a land force of 10,000 men commanded by General T. W. Sherman, and a naval force under Commodore Dupont, consisting of the steam frigate Wabash, 14 gun boats, 22 first-class and 12 smaller steamers, and 26 sailing vessels. After a stormy passage our fleet approached Port Royal, South Carolina, and after proper soundings and reconnoissances, found the entrance to the harbour barred by a fort on each side, that on Hilton Head Island, called Fort Walker, and that on Philip's Island, named Fort Beauregard. On the 7th November, at 9 a.m., the bombardment commenced, and presented one of the most sublimely awful spectacles