Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/611

 Fiske : Jllississippi I'alley in tlic Civil Jl'ar 60 1 undisciplined troops and untrained commanders, occurring contempo- raneously but without any concert or understanding, throughout the vast region wherein, according to the mathesis of war, there should have been intelligent co-operation and linked, sustained endeavor ; and it shows how, when finally such intelligent direction and energy was fur- nished, the overwhelming power of the North broke down the desperate resistance, but feebler resources of the South. Commencing with the abortive attempts of those in sympathy with the South to take Kentucky and Missouri into the Confederacy, and the petty skirmishes which marked incipient hostilities, it concludes with the tremendous battles and vast campaigns which shattered the Confederate strength and prestige in the West. Mr. Fiske has given an exceedingly clear and comprehensive account of how the superior numbers and material, at all times possessed but not always properly applied by the Federal commanders, were ultimately utilized and rendered effective. The justice of his criticism of some of the commanders, on both sides, and his estimate of the relative impor- tance of some of the minor actions and movements he narrates may, per- haps, be disputed ; and his statements regarding the comparative numerical strength of the contending armies in the greater battles — that perennial subject of controversy — will, of course, be challenged. But, in the main, his account is not only explicit and coherent but convincing. There are few who will not agree with him that Halleck's retention in chief com- mand of the Union armies paralyzed their efficiency in the West, and that success became possible only when Grant and his able subordinates were given a free hand. No writer has so well shown how conducive, indispensable indeed, to Federal success was the service performed by the Federal fleets on the inland waters. But for the aid so rendered in the matter of transporta- tion, and the part taken by the gun-boats in many offensive operations wherein the military and naval efforts were combined, the Union arms would never have completely triumphed in the valley of the Mississippi. Efficient naval co-operation assured the reduction of the forts which guarded the Tennessee and the Cumberland, whose capture forced Albert Sidney Johnston's premature abandonment of the line of the Cumberland and the fertile region of middle Tennessee. It compelled also the evacu- ation of all the formidable defenses of the upper Mississippi. To Farra- gut's daring passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip was solely due the early fall of New Orleans ; and the use of the lower Mississippi and the Red river opened the trans-Mississippi to Federal occupation. The army of Rosecrans, cooped up in Chattanooga after the battle of Chickamauga, and the reinforcements brought by Grant to its assistance, would have been compelled to disastrous retreat if supplies had not been furnished by water craft plying the Tennessee river ; and the subsequent march to At- lanta and from Atlanta to the sea might have been indefinitely postponed, or have never been made. Undoubtedly the two most interesting chap- ters of the book are those entitled " The Vicksburg Problem " and "The