CHAPTER IX. THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR 1862. CONQUESTS ON SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA COASTS - MISSOURI RELIEVED - D - KENTUCKY URING the year 1862, the conquests on the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia were considerably advanced. The most important of these, however, was the recapture of Fort Pulaski. It was one of the two principal fortifications which defended the approaches to Savannah from the sea, by the river. This achievement reflected great honor upon the enterprise and courage of the military and naval forces. Fort Pulaski is on a small island at the mouth of the Savannah River. Outside is Tybee Island. On this island, Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, commanding the Union forces, erected works with siege guns bearing on the fort. Capt. John Rogers, who was in command of the gunboats, contributed largely to the success of the operations. The bombardment of Pulaski took place on the 10th of April. It lasted eighteen hours, when the commander, Col. Charles H. Olmstead, of the First Georgia volunteers, surrendered. The capture of that fort put a stop to blockade-running at Savannah. An expedition was fitted out against the coast of Florida. The result was the capture of Fernandina, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and St. Mary's on the east coast, and Cedar Keys on the west. The command of the whole eastern coast of the state was secured. Darien and Brunswick, in Georgia, were also taken possession of without resistance. The spring of 1862 was signalized by several important Union victories in the Western States. In Missouri, General Curtis and Gen. Jefferson C. Davis drove back the Confederate forces under General Price, and took possession of Springfield. These operations took place on the 12th and 13th of February, and on the 18th General Price retreated across the Arkansas line. He was closely pursued by General Curtis, a skillful West Point soldier of rare endowments. On the 19th, Price formed a junction with the forces under Gen. Ben. McCulloch. With this re-enforcement he turned about to face the enemy at Sugar Creek, but soon gave way. On the 26th, Price and McCulloch were driven from a strong position at Cross Hollows. There they left their sick and wounded, after burning their barracks. Fayetteville, in Arkansas, was taken, with a large number of prisoners and military stores. Again the Confederates turned upon their pursuers, but they met with a great defeat at Pea Ridge, in northwestern Arkansas. They were commanded by General Van Dorn, aided by Generals Price, McCulloch, and McIntosh. The Confederates concede that the force under Van Dorn amounted to 20,000 men, while they hold that the Union force under General Curtis was 25,000. On the other hand, the Unionists claim that Curtis commanded only 10,500 men, and that the force of the enemy was twice as great. The battle was fought on the 7th and 8th of March. was one of the first signs of the value of a trained military commander and engineer. It resulted in the rout of the Confederates. They lost 1,000 in prisoners, and many killed and wounded. The Union loss was 212 killed, 926 wounded, and 124 missing. The Confederates retreated behind the Boston Mountain, and were not pursued. The effect of this victory seems to have been to push the seat of war west of the Mississippi, and from the soil of Missouri to that of Arkansas. The general officers under Curtis were Sigel, Jefferson C. Davis, and Asboth. Colonel Osterhaus was in command of a division and rendered important service. It The Union forces under Gen. George H. Thomas gained a signal victory on the 19th of January, over the Confederates under Gen. George B. Crittenden, at Webb's Cross Roads, near Mill Springs, in southeastern Kentucky. Among the Confederate killed was General Zollikoffer. He was GENERAL GRANT'S FIRST GREAT EXPLOIT. 175 second in command. He had been a member of the Thirty-fifth Congress. The forces which achieved this victory were sent out by General Buell, commanding the Ohio Department. They consisted of the Ninth Ohio, Colonel McCook; the Second Minnesota, Colonel Van Cleve; the Fourth Kentucky, Colonel Fry; the Tenth Indiana, Colonel Munson; the Fourteenth Ohio, Colonel Steadman; and the Tenth Kentucky, Colonel Haskin; with two batteries under Captains Stanhart and Wetmore. Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, near its mouth, was captured by Commodore A. H. Foote, on the 6th of February. The garrison consisted of four or five thousand men. They abandoned the fort soon after the fire from the gunboats commenced, and before the strong land force under General Grant could get up to it through the mud and high water which impeded its progress. They thus escaped, -except eighty-three men, including General Tilghman, but left behind a large amount of cannon, small arms, and stores. Only two Unionists were killed and nine wounded; while the Confederates lost but five killed and ten wounded. Commodore Foote and his men received the thanks of Congress for this exploit, which opened the Tennessee River to the forces of the Union. A fleet of gunboats, under Commander Phelps, immediately advanced up the river as far as the Muscle Shoals, in north Alabama. They destroyed the railroad bridges, and captured or destroyed several steamers and other Confederate property. The capture of Fort Donelson by the Union forces under General Grant took place on the 16th of February. It required hard fighting. It involved the loss of 1,200 men in killed and wounded on each side. Gen. John B. Floyd, the commander-in-chief of the Confederates, together with General Pillow, his second in command, departed, on the night of the 15th, taking with him some two or three thousand men. He turned over the command of the fort, with the bulk of his army, to Gen. S. B. Buckner; and from Murfreesborough, 200 miles away, he describes this desertion of his command, in his official report, as a heroic exploit. He states, that it was unanimously agreed in a council of war that to renew the conflict, after the slaughter of the day, would be vain. He thought, and announced, that a desperate onset upon the enemy's right, where the morning attack had been made, might result in the extrication of a considerable proportion of the command; but it was likewise agreed that it would result in the destruction of all who did not succeed in effecting their escape. It is not for the writer of these annals to make comparisons as to generals or battles. He proposes only to state results, not to criticise or impugn the conduct of battles. But the writer has yet to see any defense of General Floyd's action on this occasion. The fall of Fort Donelson was one of the notable causes which helped to discourage the Confederacy. General Floyd's conduct on this occasion, has always seemed strange. While not unwilling to sacrifice the army under his command, and having, as he said, "the right individually to determine" that he "would not survive a surrender," why should he turn the command over to Buckner, and retreat in the night? Mr. Davis, in his message, dated March 11th, to the Confederate Congress, showed great dissatisfaction with the conduct of Floyd. He could not understand, with the incomplete returns at hand, "upon what authority or principles of action the senior general abandoned responsibility, by transferring the command to a junior officer." General Buckner surrendered about ten thousand men, with large military stores of heavy guns, small arms, ammunition, and provisions. This capital achievement of General Grant led to others. Bowling Green, in Kentucky, was abandoned. It was taken by General Buell. Nothing now intervened to prevent the gunboats from going up the Cumberland to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, situated in the heart of that populous and wealthy state. The legislature and governor, anticipating the speedy fall of the city, retired to Memphis, taking with them the state archives and the public money. In March, the Union forces, by land and water, under the command of General Pope at the head of 40,000 men, inflicted irreparable damage upon the Confederate cause by the capture of New Madrid and Island No. 10, on the Mississippi, about fifty miles below Cairo. These places were thoroughly fortified and defended by several thousand men. By their capture, 5,000 prisoners, with more than a hundred pieces of heavy ordnance, thousands of small arms, and a vast quantity of ammunition and commissary stores, fell into the hands of the Union forces. Clarksville, a considerable town on the Cumberland, half way between its mouth and Nashville, was taken by the gunboats under Commodore Foote. It was taken without resistance, and garrisoned by troops sent up by General Grant, under the command of Brigadier-General Smith. From this point General Smith, under the convoy of a gunboat and transports, proceeded up the river to Nashville. No opposition was made to his landing. On the same day, the advance of General Buell's force, from Bowling Green, Kentucky, arrived. The stars and stripes had been raised on the capitol on the 24th of February, and Andrew Johnson was a few days afterwards appointed military governor by President Lincoln, with the rank of brigadier-general. Nashville is situated in a section. of country of unsurpassed fertility. It had been made by the Confederates a principal depot for their arms and stores. These fell into the hands of the government forces. They supplied General Buell's army with an abundance of necessaries, after the toilsome march from Kentucky. The wedge had been deftly inserted. Its effect was to open the way to Memphis, and to the whole lower Mississippi. Upon the 4th of June, Forts Randolph and Pillow were evacuated by the Confederates, after a desperate struggle on the river between the gunboats of the opposing forces. In this engagement a Confederate ram well-nigh destroyed the principal boat of the government,the Cincinnati; but finally the rams and other boats of the enemy were silenced or destroyed. THE BATTLE AT PITTSBURG LANDING. 177 Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, is situated a few miles above the old town of Savannah, on the Tennessee River. A pivotal battle was fought here on the 6th and 7th of April. It resulted in a decisive victory for the Union forces under Generals Grant and Buell. There was a heavy loss of life on both sides. At the close of the first day the Confederates, who were certainly in stronger force, had driven the Unionists from nearly every foot of ground occupied by them in the morning. They captured all their heavy artillery, camp equipage, and 2,000 prisoners, including the commander of a division, General Prentiss. General Grant, however, rallied his forces, who were being driven back to the river, and held his ground until the timely arrival of two gunboats from below, and of General Buell with a re-enforcement of 20,000 men. The gunboats, by shelling the enemy, and promptly landing a portion of Buell's force, stop the advance of the foe. This revives the spirits of the Unionists, just as night is coming on. Early the next morning General Grant, with the aid of Buell's corps, and of the division commanded by General Lew. Wallace, which arrived during the night, is enabled to take the offensive. A simultaneous advance the whole line. A simultaneous advance upon the enemy is made along The Confederates make desperate efforts to hold their ground; but the odds are now against them. They are beaten back. Five o'clock in the afternoon finds them retreating south, in the direction of Corinth. No pursuit is made by the exhausted Union forces. Most of the guns, flags, and camp equipage captured by the Confederates the first day, are abandoned in their retreat. These spoils fall again into the hands of the Unionists. But the Union prisoners, 3,956 in number, are sent off. The Union loss was 1,735 killed, 7,882 wounded, and, as above stated, 3,956 prisoners; total, 13,573. The Confederate loss was 1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, and 959 missing; total, 10,699. The Confederates lost in this battle, their commander-in-chief, Albert Sidney Johnston. He was regarded by Jefferson Davis and others as their ablest general. On the 8th of June, Mr. Davis announces to the Confederate Congress, "that it has pleased Almighty God to crown the Confederate Arms with a glorious and decisive victory over our invaders." In the same message he deplores the loss of General Johnston as irreparable. Mr. Lincoln, on the 10th, with better reason, issues a congratulatory proclamation, saying: "It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion." Are there two Gods, a God of the hills and a God of the valley? On the 8th of June, Gen. William T. Sherman followed the retreating foe. He took the Corinth road. It was badly cut up, in consequence of heavy rain. He found the way strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, and camp equipage, and gave aid to a crowded Confederate hospital. -- Major-General Halleck, whose headquarters had been at St. Louis, now came to Pittsburg Landing. He assumed the command of the army. He |