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OPERATIONS AT ISLAND NO. 10 AND NEW MADRID—NAVAL BATTLE ON THE MISSISSIPPI—THE BLOODIEST BATTLE WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES—COMMENCEMENT OF BATTLE OF SHILOH, SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 1862—TERRIBLE LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES—TRAGIC DEATH OF GENERAL ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON—GENERALS WALLACE, HINDMAN, AND GLADDEN KILLED—GENERAL GRANT LEADING A REGIMENT—PUBLIC MISUNDERSTANDING REGARDING THIS GREAT BATTLE—INTERESTING INCIDENTS OF THE FIGHT—FATE OF CONFEDERACY DETERMINED AT SHILOH.

When the first line that the Confederates had attempted to establish from the mountains to the Mississippi was broken by the battle of Mill Springs and the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, their forces at Columbus were withdrawn down the river to the historic latitude of 36° 30'. Here the Mississippi makes a great sigmoid curve. In the first bend is Island No. 10 (the islands are numbered from the mouth of the Ohio southward); and at the second bend, on the Missouri side, is New Madrid. Both of these places were fortified, under the direction of Gen. Leonidas Polk, who had been Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Louisiana for twenty years before the war, but entered the military service to give the Confederacy the benefit of his West Point education. A floating dock was brought up from New Orleans, converted into a floating battery, and anchored near the island; and there were also eight gunboats commanded by Commodore George N. Hollins. The works on the island were supplemented by batteries on the Tennessee shore, back of which were impassable swamps. Thus the Mississippi was sealed, and a position established for the left (or western extremity) of a new line of defence.

CONSTRUCTING MILITARY ROAD THROUGH SWAMP.

Early in March, 1862, a National army commanded by Gen. John Pope moved down the west bank of the Mississippi against the position at New Madrid. A reconnoissance in force demonstrated that the place could be carried by storm, but could not be held, since the Confederate gunboats were able (the river being then at high water) to enfilade both the works and the approaches. General Pope went into camp two miles from the river, and sent to Cairo for siege-guns, meanwhile sending three regiments and a battery, under Gen. J. B. Plummer, around to a point below New Madrid, where in the night they sunk trenches for the field-guns and placed sharp-shooters at the edge of the bank, and next day opened a troublesome fire on the passing gunboats and transports. Four guns were forwarded promptly from Cairo, being taken across the Mississippi and over a long stretch of swampy ground where a road had been hastily prepared for the purpose, and arriving at dusk on the 12th. That night Pope's forces crowded back the Confederate pickets, dug trenches, and placed the guns in position. The enemy's first intimation of what was going on was obtained from a bombardment that opened at daylight. The firing was kept up through the day, and some damage was inflicted on both sides; but the next night, in the midst of a heavy storm, New Madrid was evacuated. The National forces took possession, and immediately changed the positions of the guns so as to command the river. On the 16th five Confederate gunboats attacked these batteries; but after one boat had been sunk and some of the others damaged, they drew off. On the 16th and 17th the National fleet of gunboats, under Commodore Andrew H. Foote, engaged the batteries on Island No. 10, and a hundred heavy guns were in action at once. The ramparts in some places had been weakened by the wash of the river, and the great balls went right through them. But the artillerymen stood to their work manfully, many of them in water ankle deep; and though enormous shells exploded within the forts, and one gun burst and another was dismounted, the works were not reduced. A gun that burst in the fleet killed or wounded fourteen men. The attack was renewed from day to day, and one of the batteries was cleared of troops, but with no decisive effect.

At the suggestion of Gen. Schuyler Hamilton, a canal was cut across the peninsula formed by the bend of the river above New Madrid. This task was confided to a regiment of engineers commanded by Col. Josiah W. Bissell, and was completed in nineteen days. The course was somewhat tortuous, and the whole length of the canal was twelve miles. Half of the distance lay through a thick forest standing in deep water; but by an ingenious contrivance the trunks of the trees were sawed off four and a half feet below the surface, and a channel fifty feet wide and four feet deep was secured, through which transports could be passed.

On the night of April 4th the gunboat Carondelet, Commander Henry Walke, ran down past the batteries of Island No. 10, escaping serious damage, and in the night of the 6th the Pittsburg performed the same feat. With the help of these to silence the batteries on the opposite shore, Pope crossed in force on the 7th, and moved rapidly down the little peninsula. The greater part of the Confederate troops that had been holding the island now attempted to escape southward, but were caught between Pope's army and an impassable swamp, and surrendered. General Pope's captures in the entire campaign were three generals, two hundred and seventy-three officers, and six thousand seven hundred men, besides one hundred and fifty-eight guns, seven thousand muskets, one gunboat, a floating battery, six steamers, and a considerable quantity of stores.

On the very day of this bloodless victory, a little log church in southwestern Tennessee gave name to the bloodiest battle that has been fought west of the Alleghanies—Chickamauga being rather in the mountains. At Corinth, in northern Mississippi, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad crosses the Mobile and Ohio. This gave that point great strategic importance, and it was fortified accordingly and held by a large Confederate force, which was commanded by Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston (who must not be confounded with the Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston). His lieutenants were Gens. G. T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, and William J. Hardee. General Grant, who had nearly forty thousand men under his command, and was about to be joined by Gen. Don Carlos Buell coming from Nashville with as many more, proposed to move against Corinth and capture the place.

On Sunday, April 6th, Grant's main force was at Pittsburg Landing, on the west bank of the Tennessee, twenty miles north of Corinth. One division, under Gen. Lew Wallace, was at Crump's Landing, five miles farther north. The advance division of Buell's army had reached the river, opposite the landings, and the remainder was a march behind. For some days Johnston had been moving northward to attack Grant, and there had been skirmishing between the outposts. Early on the morning of the 6th he came within striking distance, and made a sudden and heavy attack. Grant's line was about two miles long, the left resting on Lick Creek, an impassable stream that flows into the Tennessee above Pittsburg Landing, and the right on Owl Creek, which flows in below. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss's division was on the left, Gen. John A. McClernand's in the centre, and Gen. William T. Sherman's on the right. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut's was in reserve on the left, and Gen. C. F. Smith's (now commanded by W. H. L. Wallace) on the right. There were no intrenchments. The ground was undulating, with patches of woods alternating with cleared fields, some of which were under cultivation and others abandoned and overgrown with bushes. A ridge, on which stood Shiloh church, formed an important key-point in Sherman's front.

General Grant, in his headquarters at Savannah, down the river, heard the firing while he was at breakfast, and hurried up to Pittsburg Landing. He had expected to be attacked, if at all, at Crump's Landing, and he now ordered Lew Wallace, with his five thousand men, to leave that place and march at once to the right of the line at Shiloh; but Wallace took the wrong road, and did not arrive till dark. Neither did Gen. William Nelson's advance division of General Buell's army cross the river till evening.

The attack began at daybreak, and was made with tremendous force and in full confidence of success. The nature of the ground made regularity of movement impossible, and the battle was rather a series of assaults by separate columns, now at one part of the line and now at another, which were kept up all day with wonderful persistence. Probably no army ever went into action with more perfect confidence in itself and its leaders than Johnston's. Beauregard had told them they should sleep that night in the camps of the enemy, and they did. He also told them that he would water his horse in the Tennessee, but he did not. The heaviest attacks fell upon Sherman and McClernand, whose men stood up to the work with unflinching courage and disputed every inch of ground. But they were driven back by overwhelming numbers, which the Confederate commanders poured upon them without the slightest regard to losses. The Sixth Mississippi regiment lost three hundred men out of its total of four hundred and twenty-five, and the Eighteenth Louisiana lost two hundred and seven. Sherman's men lost their camps in the morning, and retired upon one new line of defence after another, till they had been crowded back more than a mile; but all the while they clung to the road and bridge by which they were expecting Lew Wallace to come to their assistance. General Grant says of an open field on this part of the line, over which repeated charges were made, that it was "so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground. On our side National and Confederate troops were mingled together in about equal proportions; but on the remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which had evidently not been ploughed for several years, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. Not one of these was left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down."

Many of the troops were under fire for the first time; but Sherman's wonderful military genius largely made up for this deficiency. One bullet struck Sherman in the hand, another grazed his shoulder, another went through his hat, and several of his horses were killed. A bullet struck and shattered the scabbard of General Grant's sword. Gen. W. H. L. Wallace was mortally wounded. On the other side, Gens. Adley H. Gladden and Thomas C. Hindman were killed; at about half-past two o'clock General Johnston, placing himself at the head of a brigade that was reluctant to attempt another charge, was struck in the leg by a minie-ball. The wound need not have been mortal; but he would not leave the field, and after a time bled to death. The command then devolved upon General Beauregard.

In the afternoon a gap occurred between General Prentiss's division and the rest of the line, and the Confederates were prompt to take advantage of it. Rushing with a heavy force through this gap, and at the same time attacking his left, they doubled up both flanks, and captured that general and two thousand two hundred of his men. On this part of the field the day was saved by Col. J. D. Webster, of General Grant's staff, who rapidly got twenty guns into position and checked the Confederate advance. They then attempted to come in on the extreme left, along the river, by crossing a ravine. But more guns were brought up, and placed on a ridge that commanded this ravine, and at the same time the gunboats Tyler and Lexington moved up to a point opposite and enfiladed it with their fire. The result to the Confederates was nothing but a useless display of valor and a heavy loss.

A FEDERAL GUNBOAT.

FINAL STAND OF THE ARMY OF GENERAL GRANT, APRIL 6, 1862, NEAR PITTSBURG LANDING.

The uneven texture of Grant's army had been shown when two green colonels led their green regiments from the field at the first fire; and the stragglers and deserters, having no opportunity to scatter over the country, necessarily huddled themselves together under the bank of the river at the landing, where they presented a pitiful appearance. General Grant says there were nearly five thousand of them. There was about an equal number of deserters and stragglers from Johnston's army; but the nature of the ground was not such as to concentrate them where the eye could take them all in at one grand review. With the exception of the break when Prentiss was captured, Grant's line of battle was maintained all day, though it was steadily forced back and thirty guns were lost.

Beauregard discontinued the attack at nightfall, when his right was repelled at the ravine, intending to renew it and finish the victory in the morning. He knew that Buell was expected, but did not know that he was so near.

Lew Wallace was now in position on the right, and Nelson on the left, and all night long the boats were plying back and forth across the Tennessee, bringing over Buell's army. A fire in the woods, which sprang up about dusk, threatened to add to the horrors by roasting many of the wounded alive; but a merciful rain extinguished it, and the two armies lay out that night in the storm. A portion of the Confederates were sheltered by the captured tents, but on the other hand they were annoyed by the shells constantly thrown among them by the gunboats.

At daylight Grant assumed the offensive, the fresh troops on his right and left moving first to the attack. Beauregard now knew that Buell had arrived, and he must have known also that there could be but one result; yet he made a stubborn fight, mainly for the purpose of holding the road that ran by Shiloh church, by which alone he could conduct an orderly retreat. The complete upsetting of the Confederate plans, caused by the death of Johnston, the arrival of Buell, and Grant's promptness in assuming the offensive, is curiously suggested by a passage in the report of one of the Confederate brigade commanders: "I was ordered by General Ruggles to form on the extreme left, and rest my left on Owl Creek. While proceeding to execute this order, I was ordered to move by the rear of the main line to support the extreme right of General Hardee's line. Having taken my position to support General Hardee's right, I was again ordered by General Beauregard to advance and occupy the crest of a ridge in the edge of an old field. My line was just formed in this position when General Polk ordered me forward to support his line. When moving to the support of General Polk, an order reached me from General Beauregard to report to him with my command at his headquarters."

SHILOH LOG CHAPEL, WHERE THE BATTLE OF SHILOH COMMENCED, APRIL 6, 1862.

The fighting was of the same general description as on the previous day, except that the advantage was now with the National troops. Sherman was ordered to advance his command and recapture his camps. As these were about Shiloh church, and that was the point that Beauregard was most anxious to hold, the struggle there was intense and bloody. About the same time, early in the afternoon, Grant and Beauregard did the same thing: each led a charge by two regiments that had lost their commanders. Beauregard's charge was not successful; Grant's was, and the two regiments that he launched with a cheer against the Confederate line broke it, and began the rout. Beauregard posted a rear guard in a strong position, and withdrew his army, leaving his dead on the field, while Grant captured about as many guns on the second day as he had lost on the first. There was no serious attempt at pursuit, owing mainly to the heavy rain and the condition of the roads. The losses on both sides had been enormous. On the National side the official figures are: 1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded, 2,885 missing; total, 13,047. On the Confederate side they are: 1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, 957 missing; total, 10,699. General Grant says: "This estimate must be incorrect. We buried, by actual count, more of the enemy's dead in front of the divisions of McClernand and Sherman alone than are here reported, and four thousand was the estimate of the burial parties for the whole field." At all events, the loss was large enough to gratify the ill-wishers of the American people, who were looking on with grim satisfaction to see them destroy one another. The losses were the same, in round numbers, as at the historic battle of Blenheim, though the number of men engaged was fewer by one-fourth. If we should read in to-morrow's paper that by some disaster every man, woman, and child in the city of Concord, N. H., had been either killed or injured, and in the next day's paper that the same thing had happened in Montgomery, Ala., the loss of life and limb would only equal what took place on the mournful field of Shiloh.

General Grant, in the first article that he ever wrote for publication, remarks that "the battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, has been perhaps less understood, or, to state the case more accurately, more persistently misunderstood, than any other engagement between National and Confederate troops during the entire rebellion. Correct reports of the battle have been published, but all of these appeared long subsequent to the close of the rebellion, and after public opinion had been most erroneously formed." No battle is ever fought that it is not for somebody's interest to misrepresent. In the case of Shiloh there were peculiar and complicated reasons both for intentional misrepresentation and for innocent error. The plans of the commanders on both sides were to some extent thwarted and changed by unexpected events. One commander was killed on the first day, and his admirers naturally speculate upon the different results that might have been attained if he had lived. The ground was so broken as to divide the engagement practically into several separate actions, and what was true of one might not be true of another. The peculiarity of the position also brought together in one place, under the river-bank, all who from fright or demoralization fled to the rear of the National army, which produced upon those who saw them an effect altogether different from that of the usual retreating and straggling across the whole breadth of a battle line. Then there was the circumstance of Buell's army coming up at the end of the first day, and not coming up before that, which could hardly fail to give rise to somewhat of jealousy and recrimination. And finally this action encounters to an unusual extent that criticism which reads by the light of after-events, but forgets that this was wanting to the actors whom it criticises.

The point on which popular opinion was perhaps most widely and persistently wrong was, that the defeat of the first day arose from the fact that Grant's army was completely surprised. Public opinion, throughout the war, was formed in advance of the official reports of generals in three ways. There were many press correspondents with every army, and the main purpose of most of them was to construct an interesting story and get it into print as soon as possible. The National Government adopted the wise policy of giving the armies in the field such mail facilities as would keep the soldiers in close touch with their homes, and they wrote millions of letters every year. All that a soldier needed was some scrap of paper and some sort of pen or pencil. If he happened to have no postage stamp, he had only to mark his missive "Soldier's letter," and it would be carried in the mails to its destination, and the postage collected on delivery. After a battle every surviving soldier was especially anxious to let his family know that he had escaped any casualty, and he naturally filled up his letter with such particulars as had most impressed him in that small part of the field that he had seen, and sometimes with such exaggerated accounts as in the first excitement had reached him from other parts. Finally, the journalists were not few who assumed to be accomplished strategists, and talked learnedly in their editorial columns of the errors of generals and the way that battles should have been fought. And some of them had political reasons for writing up certain generals and writing down certain others.

MAP SHOWING ROADS AND POSITION OF CAMPS BEFORE AND DURING THE BATTLE OF SHILOH..

A good instance of innocent misapprehension is probably furnished in what Lieutenant-Colonel Graves, of the Twelfth Michigan, wrote: "On Saturday General Prentiss's division was reviewed. After the review Major Powell, of the Twenty-fifth Missouri, came to me and said he saw Butternuts [Confederate soldiers] looking through the underbrush at the parade—about a dozen. Upon the representation of Major Powell and myself, General Prentiss ordered out one company of the Twelfth Michigan as an advance picket. About 8.30 o'clock Captain Johnson reported from the front that he could see long lines of campfires, hear bugle sounds and drums, which I reported to General Prentiss, and he remarked that the company would be taken if left there; that it was merely a reconnoissance of the enemy in force, and ordered the company in. About ten o'clock I went with Captain Johnson to the tent of General Prentiss, and the captain told him what he saw. The general remarked that we need not be alarmed, that everything was all right. To me it did not appear all right. Major Powell, myself, and several other officers went to the headquarters of Colonel Peabody, commanding our brigade, and related to him what had transpired. He ordered out two companies from the Twelfth Michigan and two from the Twenty-fifth Missouri, under command of Major Powell. About three o'clock in the morning the advance of the enemy came up with this body of men, who fought them till daylight, gradually falling back till they met their regiments, which had advanced about fifty rods. There the regiments met the enemy, and fought till overpowered, when we fell back to our color line and re-formed. General Prentiss was so loath to believe that the enemy was in force, that our division was not organized for defence, but each regiment acted upon its own hook, so far as I was able to observe. The point I wish to make is this: that, had it not been for these four companies which were sent out by Colonel Peabody, our whole division would have been taken in their tents, and the day would have been lost. I shall always think that Colonel Peabody saved the battle of Shiloh."

ADVANCE OF THE FEDERAL TROOPS ON CORINTH—GENERAL HURLBUT'S DIVISION FORCING THEIR WAY THROUGH THE MUD.

GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT.

Such was the testimony and opinion, undoubtedly honest, of an officer of a green regiment which there for the first time participated in a battle. The truth was, the generals of the National forces were not ignorant of the near approach of the enemy. Reconnoissances, especially in Sherman's front, had shown that. They were only waiting for all their forces to come up to make an attack themselves, and when Buell arrived they did make that attack and were successful. General Prentiss's division, so far from being unorganized, kept its lines, received the shock of battle, and stood up manfully to the work before it until the divisions on both sides of it drew back, leaving its flanks exposed, when the Confederates poured through the gaps, struck it on both flanks at once, and captured a large part of it. On the ground along its line and in its front more men were struck down in an hour than on any other spot of equal extent, in the same time, in the whole war.

The Confederates were successful on the first day, not because of any surprise, but simply because they had the greater number of men and persistently hurled them, regardless of cost, against the National lines. There was also one other reason, which would not have existed later in the war. After the first year no army would occupy any position on the field without intrenching. The soldiers on both sides learned how, in a little while, to throw up a simple breastwork of earth that would stop a large proportion of the bullets that an enemy might fire at them. Grant's army at Shiloh had its flanks well protected by impassable streams, and if it had had a simple breastwork along its front, such as could have been constructed in an hour, the first day's disaster might have been averted. As it was, the men fought in the open field, with no protection but the occasional shelter of a tree trunk, and at one point a slightly sunken road. The habit of Grant's mind was such that he always thought of his army as assuming the offensive and hence having no use for intrenchments, and his green regiments did not yet appreciate the power of the spade. Shiloh was a severe lesson to them all.

A FIELD HOSPITAL.

Some of the most interesting incidents of the battle are given by Col. Douglas Putnam, Jr., of the Ninety-second Ohio Infantry, in a paper read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion: "With the consent of General Grant, I was permitted to accompany him to the field as a volunteer aid. As we approached Crump's Landing, where the division of Gen. Lew Wallace was stationed, the boat was rounded in and the engines stopped. General Wallace, then standing on the bank, said, 'My division is in line, waiting for orders.' Grant's reply was, that as soon as he got to Pittsburg Landing and learned where the attack was, he would send him orders. … After getting a horse, I started with Rawlins to find General Grant; and to my inquiry as to where we would likely find him, Rawlins's reply, characteristic of the man, was, 'We'll find him where the firing is heaviest.' As we proceeded, we met the increasing signs of battle, while the dropping of the bullets about us, on the leaves, led me in my inexperience to ask if it were not raining, to which Rawlins tersely said, 'Those are bullets, Douglas.' When, on meeting a horse through which a cannon-ball had gone, walking along with protruding bowels, I asked permission to shoot him and end his misery, Rawlins said, 'He belongs to the quartermaster's department; better let them attend to it.' We soon found General Grant. He was sending his aids in different directions, as occasion made it necessary, and he himself visited his division commanders one by one. He wore his full uniform, with the major-general's buff sash, which made him very conspicuous both to our own men and to those of the enemy. Lieut.-Col. J. B. McPherson, acting chief of staff, remonstrated with him, as did also Rawlins, for so unnecessarily exposing himself, as he went just in the rear of our line of battle; but he said he wanted to see and know what was going on. About eleven o'clock he met General Sherman on what was called Sherman's drill-ground, near the old peach orchard. The meeting was attended with but few words. Sherman's stock had become pulled around until the part that should have been in front rested under one of his ears, while his whole appearance indicated hard and earnest work. The bullets were plenteous here. Sherman told Grant how many horses he had had killed under him, showing him also the marks of bullets in his clothing. When Grant left Sherman, I think I was the only aid with him. Riding toward the right, the General saw a body of troops coming up from the direction of Crump's Landing, and exclaimed with great delight and satisfaction, 'Now we are all right, all right—there's Wallace.' He was of course mistaken, as the troops he saw were not those he so earnestly looked for, and of whose assistance he was beginning to feel the need. About two o'clock, at one point were gathered General Grant and several of his staff. The group consisted of Grant, McPherson, Rawlins, Webster, and others. This evidently drew the attention of the enemy, and they received rather more than a due share of the fire. Colonel McPherson's horse having been shot under him, I gave him mine, and under directions went to the river on foot. The space under the bank was literally packed by thousands, I suppose, of men who had from inexperience and fright 'lost their grip,' or were both mentally and physically, as we say, let down—however, only temporarily. To them it seemed that the day was lost, that the deluge was upon them. The Tennessee River in front, swamps to the right and swamps to the left, they could go no farther, and there lay down and waited. I remember well seeing a mounted officer, carrying a United States flag, riding back and forth on top of the bank, pleading and entreating in this wise: 'Men, for God's sake, for your country's sake, for your own sake, come up here, form a line, and make one more stand.' The appeal fell on listless ears. No one seemed to respond, and the only reply I heard was some one saying, 'That man talks well, don't he?' But eighteen hours afterward these same men had come to themselves, were refreshed by meeting other troops, and assured that all was not lost, that there was something still left to fight for, and helped also by the magic touch of the elbow, they did valiant service. A group of officers was gathered around General Grant about dusk, at a smouldering fire of hay just on the top of the grade. The rain was falling, atmosphere murky, and ground covered with mud and water. Colonel McPherson rode up, and Grant said, 'Well, Mac, how is it?' He gave him a report of the condition as it seemed to him, which was, in short, that at least one-third of his army was hors de combat, and the rest much disheartened. To this the General made no reply, and McPherson continued, 'Well, General Grant, under this condition of affairs, what do you propose to do, sir? Shall I make preparations for retreat?' The reply came quick and short: 'Retreat? No! I propose to attack at daylight, and whip them.'"

The same writer tells of a conversation that he held with General Beauregard some years after the war. "To my query that it had always been a mystery why he stopped the battle when he did Sunday night, when the advantage, on the whole, seemed to be with him, and when he had an hour or more of daylight, General Beauregard replied that there were two reasons: first, his men were, as he put it, 'out of hand,' had been fighting since early morn, were worn out, and also demoralized by the flush of victory in gathering the stores and sutlers' supplies found in our camps. As one man said, 'You fellows went to war with cheese, pigs' feet, dates, pickles—things we rebs had forgotten the sight of.' 'In the second place,' he said, 'I thought I had General Grant just where I wanted him, and could finish him up in the morning.'"

After the battle, General Halleck took command in person, and proceeded to lay siege to Corinth, to capture it by regular approaches. Both he and Beauregard were reinforced, till each had about one hundred thousand men. Halleck gradually closed in about the place, till in the night of May 29th Beauregard evacuated it, and on the morning of the 30th Sherman's soldiers entered the town.

Some military critics hold that the fate of the Confederacy was determined on the field of Shiloh. They point out the fact that after that battle there was nothing to prevent the National armies at the West from going all the way to the Gulf, or—as they ultimately did—to the sea. In homely phrase, the back door of the Confederacy was broken down, and, however stubbornly the front door in Virginia might be defended, it was only a question of time when some great army, coming in by the rear, should cut off the supplies of the troops that held Richmond, and compel their surrender. Those who are disposed to give history a romantic turn narrow it down to the death of General Johnston, declaring that in his fall the possibility of Southern independence was lost, and if he had lived the result would have been reversed. General Grant appears to dispose of their theory when he points out the fact that Johnston was killed while leading a forlorn hope, and remarks that there is no victory for anybody till the battle is ended, and the battle of Shiloh was not ended till the close of the second day. But, indeed, there is no reason why the fatal moment should not be carried back to the time when the line of defence from the mountains to the Mississippi was broken through at Mill Spring and Fort Donelson, or even to the time when the Confederates, because of Kentucky's refusal to leave the Union, were prevented from establishing their frontier at the Ohio. The reason why progress in conquering the Confederacy was more rapid at the West than at the East is not to be found so much in any difference in men as in topography. At the West, the armies moving southward followed the courses of the rivers, and their opponents were obliged to maintain artificial lines of defence; but the Eastern armies were called upon to cross the streams and attack natural lines of defence.

Back of all this, in the logic of the struggle, is the fact that no defensive attitude can be maintained permanently. The belligerent that cannot prevent his own territory from becoming the seat of war must ultimately surrender his cause, no matter how valiant his individual soldiers may be, or how costly he may make it for the invader; or, to state it affirmatively, a belligerent that can carry the war into the enemy's country, and keep it there, will ultimately succeed. In most wars, the side on whose soil the battles were fought has been the losing side; and this is an important lesson to bear in mind when it becomes necessary to determine the great moral question of responsibility for prolonging a hopeless contest.