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General
Henry W. Halleck1 arrived and took command in the
department. Before the end of the year the rebels were in full
retreat towards the Arkansas border.
24. Meanwhile the enemy had
fortified a camp at Belmont, nearly opposite
Columbus,2 Kentucky. General Ulysses S.
Grant3 transported from Cairo, Illinois, nearly three
thousand men to the Missouri shore, and, November 7, attacked the
Confederate works. The rebels were at first driven from their
camp, and their camp equipage was destroyed; but
reënforcements reaching them from Columbus, the Union troops
withdrew to their transports, and, protected by gunboats, returned
to Cairo.
25. In New Mexico Major
Isaac Lynde followed the example set by Twiggs4 months
before, and disgracefully surrendered to the Confederates Fort
Fillmore,5 with about seven hundred men. The rebel
leaders had stirred up sedition among the Indians on the
south-western frontier, and added the scalping-knife of the savage
to the horrors of civil war.6
26. Kentucky7 was
always loyal by a great majority, but the secessionists within her
borders had influence enough to hold her neutral for a time. As
was the case with all the border states, she had citizens enlisted
both in the national and the Confederate armies. Early in
September the Confederates, under General Leonidas
Polk,8 took possession of Hickman and
Columbus; and General Grant,3 with national
troops from the camp at Cairo, occupied Paducah. Kentucky
now unreservedly espoused the Union cause.9
27. General Anderson,10
the hero of Fort Sumter, first appointed to command in this
state, was soon compelled, on account of ill health, to give
place to General William T. Sherman,11 who was
succeeded by General Don Carlos Buell.12 Meanwhile
rebel troops had been pouring into the State from Tennessee. On
the 21st of October, General Zollicoffer,13 who had
invaded it by way of Cumberland Gap, attacked the Unionists at
Camp Wildcat, under General Schoepf, and was repulsed with
severe loss. Early the next month General William
Nelson14 came upon the Confederates at Piketon,
thoroughly routed them, and frustrated their designs in Eastern
Kentucky. In the central portion of the state, General
Buckner,15 a disloyal Kentuckian, was in command of a
large rebel army.
1 See p. 271, ¶ 39. 2 See ¶ 26, below. 3 See p. 217, note 2; 308, ¶ 52. 4 See p. 229, ¶ 14.
5 In New Mexico, on the east side of the Rio Grande, near the boundary line of Texas.
6 See p. 238, ¶ 15. 7 See p. 212, ¶ 5. 8 See p. 297, ¶ 24.
9 The late vice-president, John C. Breckinridge (see p. 224, ¶ 6), finding that he could not carry his state to the Confederacy, openly joined the rebels, with whom he had all along, been plotting.
10 See p. 240: ¶ 2. 11 See p. 309, ¶ 56. 12 See p. 217, note 2, and p. 258, ¶ 14. 13 See p. 255, ¶ 5.
14 See p. 255, ¶ 6. 15 See p. 254, ¶ 54
QUESTIONS. -- What of the rebels before the end of the year? 24 Give an account of Grant's attack upon Belmont? 25. What happened this year in New Mexico? What among the Indians? -- 26. What is said of Kentucky? What of her citizens in common with those of all the border states? What is said of the Confederate occupation of Kentucky? Of the Federal occupation? What did Kentucky soon do? 27. Who were successively appointed to command in this state? Give some further particulars of military operations in Kentucky.
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28. Tennessee
had been dragged into secession by the complicity of her rulers
with treason. But in East Tennessee1 the
Confederates could not crush out the devoted loyalty of the
people, even with the iron hand of military despotism.
Squads of rebel cavalry and infantry
scoured this region, destroying the crops and other property, and
inflicting upon the inhabitants every species of indignity;
arresting those suspected of attachment to the Union, and dragging
them off to rebel camps, or giving them up to rebel
mobs.2
29. The rebels had got control of the
Mississippi River, from Columbus3 to its mouth, by
seizing the forts, and erecting batteries at commanding points.
The national government had in view the opening of this highway,
thus severing the Confederacy.
In September a Union force landed on
Ship Island4 and made it the base of operations
on the Lower Mississippi. The next month the Confederates made an
attempt to destroy the blockading vessels at the entrance of
the Mississippi. An iron-plated ram, attended by gunboats and
fireships, came down from New Orleans before daylight. The Union
vessels, though taken by surprise, moved out of the way of the
fire-ships, and with but little damage to themselves beat off the
ram and gunboats.
30. In October a body of
Confederates surprised a Union camp on Santa Rosa Island,
and plundered and destroyed it; but, assistance being sent from
Fort Pickens,5 they were driven off, with severe loss.
The latter part of the next month Fort Pickens opened fire
upon Fort McRae, and other forts and batteries, and the navy-yard,
then in the hands of the Confederates. The bombardment continued
through the next day, silencing Fort McRae, seriously damaging the
navy-yard, and nearly destroying the adjoining village of
Warrington.6
31. During the summer and
autumn of this year the national government gained a foothold on
the coast of both the Carolinas and of Georgia. On
the 29th of August a military and naval expedition, under General
Butler7 and Commodore Stringham, captured the
Confederate works8 at Hatteras Inlet, with their
garrisons and munitions of war. On the 7th of November a powerful
Federal fleet, commanded by Commodore Du Pont, captured the
forts9 at Port Royal Entrance. The fleet was
1 That part of the state east of the Cumberland Mountains.
2 See p. 254, ¶ 4. 3 See p. 250, ¶ 26. 4 See p. 261, ¶ 21. 5 See p. 228, ¶ 12.
6 See p. 264, ¶ 23. 7 see p. 243, ¶ 8. 8 Forts Clark and Hatteras.
9 Forts Beauregard and Walker.
QUESTIONS. -- 28. What is said of Tennessee? Of East Tennessee? -- Of the operations of rebel cavalry and infantry in this region? 29. What is said of the rebels on the Mississippi? What had the national government in view? -- When and why was a Union force landed on Ship Island? Give an account of the attempt to destroy the blockading vessels at the entrance of the Mississippi. 30. Of the affair on Santa Rosa Island. Of the bombardment by Fort Pickens. 31. Where did the national government gain a foothold? Give an account of the capture of the works at Hatteras Inlet of the forts at Port Royal Entrance.
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accompanied by an army, under General Thomas W.
Sherman,1 who immediately occupied the forts. A few
days
later Du Pont took possession of Tybee Island at the mouth
of the Savannah.
These successes, besides gaining
important bases for future operations, gave control of much of the
coast of North Carolina, of the town of Beaufort and the best
harbor on the South Carolina coast, of the mouth of the Savannah,
and of the islands where is cultivated the valuable staple known
as Sea-Island cotton.2
32. At the beginning of
the struggle there were but twelve ships of war available for
service at home.3 Before the end of the year the
Federal navy had become sufficiently powerful to guard the
whole Gulf and Atlantic coast of the rebellious states, three
thousand miles in length, and render efficient aid in the
restoration of the national authority; yet vessels freighted with
valuable cargoes would frequently elude the vigilance of the
blockade,4 and run into Confederate ports.
33. A few Confederate vessels got to sea,
and, as privateers,4 inflicted great injury on Federal
commerce.
These rovers, without a harbor at home
into which they could enter, found protection in foreign ports, --
England setting the example,5 -- the same as if they
belonged to a recognized power. The first privateer to get to sea
was the schooner Savannah, from Charleston (June 2). She
was captured after she had been out but a day or two, and had
taken but a single prize. Another from the same port, the
Petrel, bore down upon the United States frigate St.
Lawrence, supposing her to be a large merchant-vessel. When
the privateer came within fair range, the frigate gave her a
broadside with such effect that she sunk in a few moments. The
last day of June the steamer Sumter, Captain Raphael
Semmes,6 escaped from New Orleans, and began to capture
and burn American merchant vessels. But early the next year her
piratical career came to an end. Having ran into the Bay of
Gibraltar, she was closely blockaded there by a national gunboat,
and being unable to escape, she was sold in
port.
34. Russia alone, of European powers,
extended to the Federal government sympathy in its struggle for
life with armed treason. England, and following her lead, France
and Spain, acknowledged the rebellious states as
belligerents.
1 See p. 213, note 1. 2 See p. 264, ¶ 24.
3 Of the forty-two vessels in commission March 4, 1861, only twelve were at home, and but four of these were in northern ports. See p. 239, ¶ 1.
4 See p. 242, ¶ 7. 5 See ¶ 34, below. 6 See p. 301, ¶ 34.
QUESTIONS. -- What of Tybee Island? -- What is said of these successes? 32. What is said of the navy at the beginning of the war? Yet what would frequently happen? 33 What is said of Confederate vessels? Where did these rovers find protection? What is said of the Savannah? Of the Petrel? Of the Sumter? 34. What of European powers with reference to the rebellion?
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Thus the
Confederacy was put, as a war power, on the same footing with the
national government, and the insurgents were encouraged to hope
for assistance from foreign powers.
35. An occurrence, known as the
Trent affair, for a time gave the Confederates high hopes
of foreign aid. Messrs. Mason and Slidell were appointed
commissioners by the rebel government, the former to Great
Britain, the latter to France. Having run the blockade, they
embarked, November 7, at Havana, on board the British mail-steamer
Trent. The next day Captain Charles Wilkes,1 in
the United States steamer San Jacinto, intercepted the
Trent, took from her the rebel commissioners, and brought them as
prisoners to the United States. News of this affair created great
excitement in England, and there was danger of war with that
country. But the prudence of Mr. Seward, the secretary of state,
warded off this calamity. The commissioners were surrendered to
the British government, and amicable relations restored. Still the
loyal people generally approved at once the diplomacy of Mr.
Seward and the act of Captain Wilkes, who was received with
acclamations of gratitude.
II.
FROM THE BEGINNING OF
THE YEAR 1862 TO
THE CLOSE OF THE
YEAR 1863 -- THE
REBELLION IN ITS
STRENGTH. -- Events of 1862. -- 1.
The Federal government this year prohibited slavery
in all the territories of the United States; abolished it in the
District of Columbia, giving compensation to loyal owners of
slaves; and authorized the enlistment of colored
troops.2 A test oath was also enacted, which
required every person appointed to office under the national
government to swear that since being a citizen of the United
States he had never voluntarily aided or encouraged any hostile
combination or government, and that he would support and defend
the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
2. At the beginning of 1862 the
Federal armies in the field numbered more than five hundred
thousand men,3 who confronted the enemy from the
Potomac to Kansas. This number was more than kept good by repeated
calls2 of the president for additional troops.
1 See p. 203, ¶ 3. and p. 286, ¶ 78. 2 See p. 311, note 1.
3 Not far from two hundred thousand of the Federal troops were under the immediate command of General McClellan, and chiefly in the vicinity of Washington. In Central and Eastern Kentucky General Buell had about one hundred thousand men. In Western Kentucky, at Cairo, and in Missouri, General Halleck had about as many more, the portion east of the Mississippi being under the immediate command of General Grant. The remainder of the whole force was in South Carolina, under General Thomas W. Sherman; at Fortress Monroe, under General Wool; on the Lower Potomac. under General Hooker; on the Upper Potomac, under General Kelley; in West Virginia, under General Rosecrans; and in garrisons or organizing for expedition on the Atlantic coast, and on the western frontier.
QUESTIONS. -- 35. Give an account of the Trent affair and its Settlement II. 1. What was the action of the Federal government in regard to slavery? In regard to colored troops? In regard to a test oath? 2. What is said of the number and position of Federal troops at the beginning of the year? How was this number more than kept good?
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If the troops called
for should not be promptly supplied by volunteers, the president
was authorized to 
order
a draft to make up the deficiency. Owing, however, to the efforts
made to obtain volunteers, especially to the high bounties paid by
states, towns, and individuals, to all who would enlist,
comparatively few troops were raised this year, or indeed
throughout the war, by draft.
3. The Confederate government, at
first provisional, was organized in February, with the same
president and vice. president, under a constitution adopted the
preceding year.1 The Confederate armies numbered
not far from three hundred and fifty thousand men, and were
increased by a sweeping conscription,2 during the year,
so that early in the next year they were larger than at any
previous or subsequent period.
The Confederates held nearly all of
Virginia, a part of West Virginia south of the Kanawha River, half
of Kentucky, part of Missouri, and all the rest of the Southern
States except Fort Pickens, the Tortugas, and Key West, and such
portions of the Atlantic coast as were gained by the
expeditions3 of the preceding year.
4. The first operations
in the west, east of the Mississippi,4 had for
their object the driving of the rebels from Kentucky. This
was effected by a series of brilliant successes, beginning with a
victory gained over the Confederates, January 19, at Mill
Springs,5 by General George H. Thomas,6
who commanded an advance division of the army now under General
Buell.7 Next followed the capture of Fort Henry,
on the Tennessee River, February 6, by a fleet of
gunboats,8 under Commodore Andrew H. Foote.9
Ten days afterwards, Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland
River, surrendered its strong garrison to the army under General
Grant,10 after a bombardment of three days. Bowling
Green was evacuated by the rebels during the siege of Fort
Donelson, and Columbus shortly afterwards.
1 See p. 228, ¶ 11, and note 1.
2 In April a conscription act went into effect in the Confederacy, which declared that, with few exceptions, all between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five should be held in the military service till the end of the war, and annulled all former contracts with those who had enlisted for a limited time. This extreme and despotic measure met with much opposition in the south. Still harsher laws were afterwards enacted to obtain soldiers. Before the close of the war all between the ages or seventeen and fifty were held to military service.
3 See p. 251, ¶ 31. 4 See pp. 250, ¶ 26--251, ¶ 28.
5 The battle fought here is variously known as the baffle of Mill Springs, Logan Cross Roads, Webb's Cross Roads, Fishing Creek, and Somerset.
6 See p. 197, note 3; p. 213, note 1; and p. 306, ¶ 47. 7 See p. 250, ¶27, and p. 253, note 3.
8 See p. 248, ¶ 20. 9 See p. 260, ¶ 19. 10 See p. 250, ¶¶ 24, 26.
QUESTIONS. -- What is said of obtaining Federal troops by draft? 3. What is said of the Confederate government? Of the Confederate armies at the beginning and close of this year? -- What did the Confederates hold? 4. What was the object of the first operations in the west, east of the Mississippi? How was this effected? What can you tell of the victory at Mill Springs? Of the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson? What of Bowling Green and Columbus?
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5. In Kentucky,
the insurgents, at the beginning of the year, occupied Paintville,
and held strong positions on a line of defence extending from Mill
Springs, through Bowling Green, to Columbus. Early in January a
body of Union troops, under Colonel James A. Garfield, forced the
Confederates to retire from Paintville and Eastern
Kentucky. Next followed the battle of Mill Springs, which
resulted in the total rout of the enemy, who numbered with their
killed Felix Zollicoffer,1 one of their generals. At
the reduction of Fort Henry, the general in command of the
garrison, Lloyd Tilghman, his staff and some sixty men, were taken
prisoners, but the main body of the enemy escaped to Fort
Donelson, twelve miles distant. The investment of this fort,
where Generals Floyd,2 Pillow,3 and
Buckner1 had collected a large garrison, began on the
13th. On the night of the 15th, finding it impossible to hold out
against the fierce onsets of the Union troops, who had already got
possession of the outer works, Floyd and Pillow stole away, with a
number variously estimated at from twenty-five hundred to five
thousand men, leaving Buckner to surrender the next morning, the
survivors of the garrison remaining with him, some ten thousand
men.4 The gunboats entered into the action, but were
forced to retire, and leave to the army the honor of completing
the capture.
6. After the fall of Fort Henry,
Federal gunboats proceeded up the Tennessee, and penetrated
Northern Alabama as far as Florence, seizing or destroying
steamers and other property belonging to the enemy. The capture of
Fort Donelson led, in a few days, to the occupation of
Nashville, by Federal troops under General
Nelson.1 Soon after, Andrew Johnson,5 alone
faithful of the United States senators from the rebel states, was
appointed military governor of Tennessee.
7. Grant6 next embarked his
victorious army, now increased to nearly forty thousand men, on
board steamers, and moved them up the Tennessee to Pittsburg
Landing.7 Early on the morning of April 6, over
forty thousand Confederates, under Generals Albert Sydney Johnston
and Beauregard,8 made a sudden attack upon them,
encamped near the landing, and, during the day, drove them back to
the river with great slaughter, and an immense loss in prisoners
and material of war.
1 See p. 250, ¶ 27. 2 See p. 247, ¶ 17. 3 See p. 217, note 2.
4 Buckner addressed a note to the Federal general, proposing an armistice to agree upon terms of surrender, to which Grant replied, "No terms other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Which reply has given to U. S. Grant the popular sobriquet, Unconditional Surrender Grant.
5 See p. 309, ¶ 55. 6 See p. 254, ¶ 4, and p. 252, note 3.
7 The battle fought here is also called the battle of Shiloh. 8 See p. 243, ¶ 11.
QUESTIONS. -- 5. What was the condition of the insurgent troops in Kentucky at the beginning of the year? From whence were they first forced to retire? What more is said of the battle of Mill Springs? Of the reduction of Fort Henry? Of Fort Donelson? 6. What was done by Federal gunboats after the fall of Fort Henry? To what did the capture of Fort Donelson lead? Who was appointed military governor of Tennessee? 7. Give an account of the battle of Pittsburg Landing.
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