All that beautiful Sabbath-day they fought, the Federals yielding ground slowly and reluctantly till the bank of the river was reached and Grant's artillery commanded the position. Here a stand was made until Buell came up, and shortly afterwards the Confederates fell back; but they had captured the Yankee camp entire, and many a boy in blue lost the nice warm woollen pulse-warmers crocheted for him by his soul's idol. It is said that over thirty-five hundred needle-books and three thousand men were captured by the Confederates, also thirty flags and immense quantities of stores; but the Confederate commander, General A.
S. Johnston, was killed. The following morning the tide had turned, and General P. G. T. Beauregard retreated unmolested to Corinth.
General Halleck now took command, and, as the Confederates went away from there, he occupied Corinth, though still retaining his rooms at the Arlington Hotel in Washington.
The Confederates who retreated from Columbus fell back to Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River, where Commodore Foote bombarded them for three weeks, thus purifying the air and making the enemy feel much better than at any previous time during the campaign. General Pope crossed the Mississippi, capturing the batteries in the rear of the island, and turning them on the enemy, who surrendered April 7, the day of the battle of Shiloh.
May 10, the Union gun-boats moved down the river. Fort Pillow was abandoned by the Southern forces, and the Confederate flotilla was destroyed in front of Memphis. Kentucky and Tennessee were at last the property of the fierce hordes from the great coarse North.
General Bragg was now at Chattanooga, Price at Iuka, and Van Dorn at Holly Springs. All these generals had guns, and were at enmity with the United States of America. They very much desired to break the Union line of investment extending from Memphis almost to Chattanooga.
Bragg started out for the Ohio River, intending to cross it and capture the Middle States; but Buell heard of it and got there twenty-four hours ahead, wherefore Bragg abandoned his plans, as it flashed over him like a clap of thunder from a clear sky that he had no place to put the Middle States if he had them. He therefore escaped in the darkness, his wagon-trains sort of drawling over forty miles of road and "hit a-rainin'."
September 19, General Price, who, with Van Dorn, had considered it a good time to attack Grant, who had sent many troops north to prevent Bragg's capture of North America, decided to retreat, and, General Rosecrans failing to cut him off, escaped, and was thus enabled to fight on other occasions.
The two Confederate generals now decided to attack the Union forces at Corinth, which they did. They fought beautifully, especially the Texan and Missouri troops, who did some heroic work, but they were defeated and driven forty miles with heavy loss.
October 30, General Buell was succeeded by General Rosecrans.
The battle of Murfreesboro occurred December 31 and January 2. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the whole conflict, and must have made the men who brought on the war by act of Congress feel first-rate. About one-fourth of those engaged were killed.
An attack on Vicksburg, in which Grant and Sherman were to co-operate, the former moving along the Mississippi Central Railroad and Sherman descending the river from Memphis, was disastrous, and the capture of Arkansas Post, January 11, 1863, closed the campaign of 1862 on the Father of Waters.
General Price was driven out of Missouri by General Curtis, and had to stay in Arkansas quite a while, though he preferred a dryer climate.
General Van Dorn now took command of these forces, numbering twenty thousand men, and at Pea Ridge, March 7 and 8, 1863, he was defeated to a remarkable degree. During his retreat he could hardly restrain his impatience.
Some four or five thousand Indians joined the Confederates in this battle, but were so astonished at the cannon, and so shocked by the large decayed balls, as they called the shells, which came hurtling through the air, now and then hurting an Indian severely, that they went home before the exercises were more than half through. They were down on the programme for some fantastic and interesting tortures of Union prisoners, but when they got home to the reservation and had picked the briers out of themselves they said that war was about as barbarous a thing as they were ever to, and they went to bed early, leaving a call for 9.30 A.M. on the following day.
The red brother's style of warfare has an air about it that is unpopular now. A common stone stab-knife is a feeble thing to use against people who shoot a distance of eight miles with a gun that carries a forty-gallon caldron full of red-hot iron.