place you deem it important to hold, or if it forces you to give up or weaken or delay the expedition against Chattanooga. To take and hold the railroad at or east of Cleveland, in East Tennessee, I think fully as important as the taking and holding of Richmond.

Federals at

Vicksburg.

Williams, unable to carry out his instructions in regard to taking Vicksburg, set his men to work on the canal, and employed a force of about 1200 negroes to help them. Davis received Farragut's message' at Memphis on the 28th, on the 29th, he started down the river, and on the Ist of July, arrived just above Vicksburg and joined Farragut with four gunboats and six mortar boats. The united squadrons, except those vessels which had not passed up on the 28th of June, remained together just above Vicksburg and about four miles below the mouth of the Yazoo.

2

Confederate

ram "Ar

kansas."

It was reported that somewhere on this river, the Confederates were building a ram called the Arkansas, superior in armor and armament to any vessel in the Federal fleets and especially designed for ramming. Only a few months before, the ironclad Merrimac had made sad havoc with the Federal fleet in the Chesapeake, and might have destroyed it but for the timely arrival of the little "Monitor." On the 15th of July, a reconnoitring expedition of two of Davis's gunboats and one of Ellet's rams was sent into the Yazoo to learn how the work was progressing. When only six miles up the river, they met the Arkansas coming down. One gunboat was disabled, and the Arkansas followed the other and the ram down to the Mississippi. Both fleets were lying ' Davis's Davis, 257; 3 B. & L., 554-555. Mahan's Farragut, 191; G. & I. W., 99.

helplessly at anchor, without steam. The smoke-stack of the Arkansas, however, was shot away, and her speed so reduced that she could not use her ram, and could hardly steer. She drifted down with the current and passed through both fleets before they could get up steam, and took refuge under the guns of Vicksburg. This changed the whole situation. To save the ships which lay below the town, Farragut determined to follow the Arkansas, and endeavor to destroy Farragut takes his her with the guns of his squadron as it went fleet below by. It was dark, however, before his squadVicksburg. ron was ready. He passed the batteries without inflicting or receiving any serious damage. On the 27th, Davis sent down the ironclad "Essex" with one of Ellet's rams, which attacked the Arkansas at her moorings, without much effect. The ram rejoined the upper squadron; but the "Essex" was so slow that to return against the current would expose her too long to the fire of the batteries at Vicksburg. The "Essex" and the ram "Sumter," which had run down with Farragut on the 15th, remained with the lower squadron.

Farragut and Williams

I

On the 9th of July, orders were received from the Navy Department for Porter to take his mortar flotilla to Hampton Roads; and on the 20th, for Farragut to get his fleet below Vicksburg, with as little injury as possible. On the 24th down the Farragut started for New Orleans, leaving Mississippi. three gunboats with the "Essex" and the "Sumter" to look after the river between Vicksburg and Baton Rouge. Williams's troops had suffered ter

go

13 B. & L., 558. Until Nov. 8th, Ellet was independent of the naval commander.

Mahan's Farragut, 193.

ribly from exposure to heat in that unhealthy climate. He had brought with him 3200 men, of whom 2400 were dead or in the hospital. This alone would have forced him to leave; but under orders from Butler,' whose force had been reduced by sickness and other causes from 13,500 to about 8000 men, he returned with Farragut, and landed at Baton Rouge on the 26th. Farragut left five vessels with Williams, and went with the rest to New Orleans.

2

Davis was much disappointed. He had expected to blockade Vicksburg on both sides, keeping communication between the two detachments of his squadron, by building a railroad across the Davis goes neck. Now that Williams had "deserted" Mississippi. him, the vessels below Vicksburg would have

4

up the

to go to Baton Rouge or New Orleans for supplies. Davis's communications in the rear3 were threatened and could be kept open only by gunboats, forty per cent. of his men were sick, his vessels needed repair, and he returned up the river.

So ended the second attempt to capture Vicksburg. The first had failed because a detachment of a few hundred men was too weak to carry and hold a fortress in the heart of the enemy's country defended by twice its number. The second attempt failed because Butler could not send a large force up the river without endangering New Orleans and Farragut's fleet, as well as his own army, and because Halleck divided up the great army he had assembled at Corinth, so that he was too weak to co-operate with Farragut. The first two volumes have told of the failure of the administration to co-ordinate the movements of the armies in

121 R., 31.

3 Davis's Davis, 267–269.

2

* Irwin, 50.

4 Mahan, Farragut, 194.

the several theatres of operations; in another chapter we will consider the relative importance of each; suffice it now to say that if troops could not be spared for the capture of Vicksburg, the fleets should not have been allowed to make the attempt.

CHAPTER II.

CONFEDERATE ADVANCES IN MISSISSIPPI: BATON

ROUGE, IUKA, AND CORINTH.

ON the 21st of July, Bragg began to move1 the Confederate Army of the Mississippi, for Chattanooga, by rail via Mobile. He left Price with about Confederate 14,000 men, 2 in command of the District of the Army, Tennessee, with orders to hold the line of the July, 1862. Mobile and Ohio railroad, and above all to watch Grant, and prevent him from sending reinforcements to Buell; and Van Dorn3 with about the same number, with orders to hold the line of the Mississippi, and also to consult freely and co-operate with Price, without waiting for instructions from Bragg. Price and Van Dorn had a hard problem before them; but they held the interior lines, and we shall see how skilfully Van Dorn took advantage of them to throw his forces successively on each of the armies that were surrounding him.

As soon as the Federals left Vicksburg, Van Dorn resolved to strike a blow before they had time to or

1 Part II., 394.

32 B. & L., 726; 25 R., 655, 656.

25 R., 654; 2 B. & L., 725.

On the 16th of July, there were reported present for duty in the Army of the Mississippi, 31,200; Army of the West, 10,900; at Columbus, 3200; near Abbeville, 3400.-25 R., 648.

5 21 R., 16.