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STREIGHT'S RAID INTO GEORGIA.

Union force of 4,500 men, under Gen. Gordon Granger, Van Dorn, with a superior force, assailed," with intent to capture it; but was easily beaten off, with a loss of 200 or 300, including 80 prisoners; our loss being 37 only.

A few days later, Maj.-Gen. J. J. Reynolds pushed out," with his division and two brigades of cavalry, to McMinnville; whence he drove out Morgan, taking 130 prisoners, destroying a large amount of Rebel stores, and returning" without loss.

Col. Watkins, 6th Kentucky, with 500 cavalry, surprised "a Rebel camp on the Carter's creek pike, 8 miles from Franklin; capturing 140 men, 250 horses and mules, and destroying a large amount of camp equipage.

Col. A. D. Streight, 51st Indiana, at the head of 1,800 cavalry, was next dispatched" by Rosecrans to the rear of Bragg's army, with instructions to cut the railroads in northwestern Georgia, and destroy generally all dépôts of supplies and manufactories of arms, clothing, &c. Having been taken up the Tennessee on steamboats from Fort Henry to Eastport, Ala., where he was joined by an infantry force under Gen. Dodge, they attacked and captured Tuscumbia, inflicting considerable loss on the Rebels; and, while Gen. Dodge made a sweeping raid through North Alabama, returning ultimately to his headquarters at Corinth, Col. Streight struck for Northern April 20. "April 26.

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40 April 10.

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Georgia, expecting to swoop down
successively on Rome and Atlanta,
destroying there large manufactories,
machine-shops, and magazines. He
was hardly well on his road, however,
before Forrest and Roddy, with a
superior force of Rebel cavalry, were
after him; following sharply, and
easily gaining upon him, through a
running fight of over 100 miles;
when, his ammunition being ex-
hausted and his men nearly worn out,
Streight surrendered, when 15 miles
from Rome. His men were treated as
other captives and exchanged; while
Streight and his officers were retained
for a time in close prison, on a de-
mand of Gov. Brown, of Georgia,
that they be treated as felons, under
a law of that State, which makes the
inciting of slaves to rebellion a high
crime. The specific charge was that
negroes were found among their men
in uniform and bearing arms; which
was strenuously denied: the few
negroes with them being claimed as
servants of officers; and the only
one who was armed insisting that he
was carrying his employer's sword,
as an act of duty. After a long con-
finement, Streight, with 107 other of
our officers, escaped" from Libby
Prison, Richmond: 60 of them, in-
cluding Streight, making their way
to our lines. He estimates his loss in
killed and wounded during this raid
at 100, including Col. Hathaway,
killed; and puts the Rebel loss at
five times that number.
rendered, in all, 1,365 men.

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12 April 27. * April 29. 44 Feb. 9, 1864.

XIV.

OPERATIONS AGAINST VICKSBURG.

son, having in 1862 pronounced it indispensable to the Confederacy that the control of the Mississippi should not be surrendered to Federal power

it were early set on foot among the Union commanders above. Gen. Grant's department of West Tennessee having been so enlarged' as to include Mississippi, he at once commenced preparations for an advance; transferring,' soon after, his headquarters from Jackson to Lagrange; whence he pushed out Gen. McPherson, with 10,000 infantry, and 1,500 cavalry, under Col. Lee, to Lamar, driving back the Rebel cavalry. At length, all things being ready, Grant impelled' a movement of his army down the great Southern Railroad from Grand Junction through Holly Springs to Oxford; our cavalry advance, 2,000 strong, being pushed forward to Coffeeville, where it was suddenly confronted and attacked by Van Dorn,' with a superior infantry force, by whom it was beaten back three miles, with a loss of 100 men.

VICKSBURG, on the lower Missis- |-Jefferson Davis, in a speech at Jacksippi, about midway between Cairo and its mouth, was the natural center and chief citadel of the Slaveholders' Confederacy. Located on an almost unique ridge of high, rolling-fresh preparations to "repossess " land adjoining the great river, surrounded by the richest and best cultivated Cotton region in America, whereof the slave population considerably outnumbered the free, it had early devoted itself, heart and soul, to the Rebel cause. Its natural strength and importance, as commanding the navigation of the great artery of the South-west, were early appreciated; and it was so fortified and garrisoned as to repel-as we have seen the efforts of our fleets and expeditions, which, after the fall of New Orleans and that of Memphis, assailed it from below and from above respectively and conjointly. Being the chief outlet for the surplus products of the State of Mississippi, connected with Jackson, its capital, 44 miles east, by a railroad, and thus with all the railroads which traverse the State, as also with the Washita Valley, in northern Louisiana, by a railroad to Monroe, while the Yazoo brought to its doors the commerce of another rich and capacious valley, Vicksburg, with 4,591 inhabitants in 1860, was flourishing signally and growing rapidly until plunged headlong into the vortex of Rebellion and Civil War.

Grant was, with his main body, still at Oxford, preparing to move on to Jackson and Vicksburg, when Van Dorn struck' a damaging blow at his communications. The railroad having by this time been repaired and operated to Holly Springs, that village had been made our temporary dépôt of arms, provisions, and munitions, which had here been accumu

Both parties to the struggle having early recognized its importance 'See pages 57 and 101. Oct. 16, 1862. Nov. 4. Nov. 8. Nov. 28. Dec. 5. Dec. 20.

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VAN DORN CAPTURES HOLLY SPRINGS.

lated, while the railroad farther south was being repaired, to such an extent that they were estimated by the enemy as worth at least $4,000,000. The post was in charge of Col. R. C. Murphy, 8th Wisconsin, who had over 1,000 men under his command; while bales of cotton and barrels of flour by thousands proffered the readiest means of barricading its streets and keeping out ten times his force, until it could be reduced by heavy guns and regular approaches, or at least consumed by volleys of shells.

Grant had warned Murphy of his danger the night before, and did not imagine his capture a possibility; but no preparation had been made for resistance, no street barricaded; not even our men posted to resist an assault; when, at daybreak, Van Dorn burst into the town with his wild cavalry, captured the imbecile or traitorous wretch who should have defended it, and burned all but the little plunder his men were able to carry off, including a large hospital full of our sick and wounded soldiers, which his Adjutant had promised to spare. Our cavalry (2d Illinois) refused to surrender, and cut their way out by a resolute charge, in which they lost but 7 men, disabling 30 Rebels. Murphy filled up the measure of his infamy by accepting paroles, with his men; so as to prevent their recapture and relieve the enemy of the trouble of guarding them. The Rebels claim to have captured

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Richmond Dispatch, Jan. 15, 1863. The enraptured writer elsewhere says: "The scene was wild, exciting, tumultuous. Yankees running; tents burning; torches flaming; Confederates shouting; guns popping; sabers clanking; Abolitionists begging for mercy; 'Rebels' shouting exultingly; women, en disha bille, clapping their hands, frantic with joy, crying, 'Kill them! kill them!'-a heterogeneous

287

and paroled 1,800 men and 150 offi-
cers; but this must include the sick
and wounded whom they found in
the hospital. Two locomotives and
40 or 50 cars were among
the prop-
erty destroyed; the Rebels coming
prepared with cans of spirits of tur-
pentine to hasten the conflagration:
the burning arsenal blowing up, at 3
P. M., with a concussion which shat-
tered several buildings, while 20 men
were wounded by flying balls and
shell. The Rebels left at 5, after a
stay of ten hours, which they had
improved to the utmost: thence pro-
ceeding to assail, in rapid succes-
sion, Coldwater, Davis's Mill, Mid-
dleburg, and Bolivar, farther north;
but, though the defenders of each
were fewer than Murphy might have
rallied to his aid at Holly Springs,
each was firmly held, and the raiders
easily driven off. Murphy, it need
hardly be added, was dismissed from
the service in a stinging order' by
Gen. Grant-said order "to take ef-
fect from Dec. 20th, the date of his
cowardly and disgraceful conduct."

Grant had seasonably dispatched 4,000 men by rail to the relief of Holly Springs or rather, to guard against the possibility of its capture, so vital was its importance; but they were stopped midway by some obstruction on the track, and only arrived two hours after the enemy had departed.

Thus, by the baseness of one miscreant, were not only 2,000 men and

mass of excited, frantic, frightened human beings-presented an indescribable picture, adapted to the pencil of Hogarth."

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several millions' worth of property | defenses had been transformed into

sacrificed, but the fair promise of an important expedition utterly blighted. By the loss of his stores and trains, Grant was completely paralyzed, and compelled to fall back to Grand Junction: thence moving westward to Memphis, so as to descend by the river to Vicksburg.

Gens. A. P. Hovey and C. C. Washburne, with some 3,000 men, had crossed" the Mississippi from Helena simultaneously with Grant's advance; taking post near the head of Yazoo Pass, capturing a Rebel camp, and moving down the Coldwater and Tallahatchie rivers, with intent to rëenforce Grant; but this was now frustrated, and their force recalled to the Mississippi.

The day after the Holly Springs disaster, Gen. W. T. Sherman had left Memphis with the Right Wing of the "Army of the Tennessee". some 30,000 strong-on boats which passed down the Mississippi and 12 miles up the Yazoo to Johnston's Landing, where the troops were debarked," and a general assault was made next day on the well-manned fortifications and batteries which defended Vicksburg o the north. The ground between the Yazoo and the precipitous bluffs whereon the Rebels were fortified, is agreeably (to alligators) diversified by 'swamps,' 'sloughs,' lagoons,' and 'bayous;' and is in the main a profound mire, resting on quicksand. 'Chickasaw Bayou,' connecting the two rivers, is its most salient feature; but much of it had been a cedar swamp, or boggy thicket, whereof so much as lay directly in front of the Rebel

10 Nov. 20.

abatis, covering rifle-pits. Unknown. to Sherman, Grant's recoil from Oxford had liberated the Rebel army previously confronting him; which had forthwith been apprised" of the cloud gathering on the Mississippi. Gen. Pemberton, who was in chief command at Grenada, had at once faced about; and, three days later, having definite advices that Sherman's gunboats had reached the mouth of the Yazoo, he began to send his men southward by rail; following himself next day. Thus, expeditious as were Sherman's movements, most of the Rebel forces in all that region, except Van Dorn and his cavalry, were on hand to resist him.

Sherman's army was uniquely Western; and, with the West, the reopening of the Mississippi was an absorbing passion. It was brave, well officered, and ably commanded; while Com. Porter's gunboats were ready to render it every assistance that gunboats could; it encountered none of those unforeseen, fortuitous mischances, against which even Genius is impotent, and Valor fruitless; it fought superbly, and piled the earth with its dead and wounded; yet it failed, simply because such defenses as it was required to assail are, when fairly armed and manned, absolutely impregnable to simple assault. They may be overcome by regular approaches; they may be mastered by the surprise of some unguarded but vital point; they must yield at last to famine, if closely and persistently invested; but to hurl column after column of infantry upon them is simple, useless slaughter.

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SHERMAN APPROACHES THE YAZOO BLUFFS.

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Yet this nowise impeaches the ger | reconnoitered, and found even more eralship of Sherman, who could not difficult than rumor had made them. tell what they were, nor who were Chickasaw bayou was conclusively behind them, until he had given ascertained to be passable but at two them a trial. points-one a narrow levee; the

Let us condense the painful de- other a sand-bar-each completely

tails:

Gen. Sherman was quite aware of the natural strength of the Rebel line of defense, and that the labor of thousands of slaves had for months been devoted to its increase, by the digging of trenches and rifle-pits, the planting of batteries, felling of trees for abatis, &c., &c. But, he reasoned, that line is at least 15 miles long, from Vicksburg to Haines's Bluff; there are but about 15,000 men behind it, which is but 1,000 to the mile; and it must be that a series of vigorous attacks will develop some point whereon an instant and overwhelming superiority of numbers can be made to tell. And so it would, had not the bayous, lagoons, and swamps-but more especially Chickasaw bayou-so protected the entire Rebel front that there were but four points at which it could be reached from the Yazoo; and these were so covered and enfiladed by hostile batteries, rifle-pits, &c., that approach was all but certain destruction. The knowledge of this impregnability was one of the costly lessons of the war.

commanded by the enemy's sharpshooters, who were thoroughly covered by their rifle-pits and other defenses; while batteries, trenches, and rifle-pits rose, tier above tier, up the steep bluffs beyond, which were crowned by still heavier batteries. And Gen. Steele, whose division, except Blair's brigade, had been debarked above the junction of the bayou with the Yazoo and the cypress swamp and slough beyond, on advancing next day," found his progress barred by an impassable swamp, traversed only by a long corduroy causeway, so thoroughly swept and enfiladed by Rebel batteries and rifle-pits that he could hardly hope to take across it half the men who made the attempt; which he properly declined, and was justified by Sherman in so doing.

Meantime, Gen. Geo. W. Morgan's division had advanced, under cover of a dense fog and the fire of its artillery, against the center of the Rebel defenses: reaching the bank of the bayou where it runs nearest to the bluffs, whereby its progress was completely arrested; but it held its ground through the ensuing night.

During the 26th and 27th, our men were debarked without resistance, Gen. Morgan L. Smith's division on the south bank of the Yazoo; simultaneously advanced over less and, being formed in four columns, favorable ground, considerably to the gradually pushed forward, driving right; its leader being disabled beback the enemy's pickets, toward the fore noon by a sharp-shooter's bullet frowning bluffs southward. During through his hip, while reconnoiterthe ensuing night, the ground and ing; when his command devolved obstacles in our front were carefully on Gen. David Stuart. A narrow

VOL. II.-19

13 Dec. 28.

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