Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/531

 isea] His dilatory march on Corinth. 499 he placed under the command of Thomas ; that of Buell his centre, and that of Pope his left; while nominally he made Grant second in command under himself. In his dispatches he wrote confidently of being on the eve of a great battle, " and at the enemy's throat." But at this point the courage of the strategist gave way to the caution of the engineer. To make their attack at Shiloh, the Confederate army had marched from Corinth, a distance of twenty miles, in a little more than two days. Halleck, going over the same ground in reverse order, spent thirty-seven days digging his way with pick and shovel in a siege-like advance, only to find that Beauregard with his garrison of 50,000 Confederates had evacuated Corinth. It was a pitiful anti-climax, when we remember that the hundred thousand bayonets under Halleck's command could by a prompt march have captured both the works and the garrison. While the occupation of Corinth on May 30 was but the shell of a victory, it was still a success of considerable importance. The strong fortifications of Forts Pillow and Randolph on the Mississippi were hastily evacuated by the enemy; and the Unionist flotilla took possession of their deserted works on June 5. On the next day the combined flotilla of five Unionist gun-boats and six steam rams, which the talented engineer Colonel Charles Ellet, under the authority of the Secretary of War, had extemporised from strong river craft, made an attack upon eight Confederate gun-boats ranged in two lines abreast the city of Memphis, and in a fierce contest of twenty minutes, annihilated the enemy's fleet, only one of their gun-boats escaping. The damage to the Union flotilla was soon repaired; but Commander Ellet was wounded, and died two weeks later. That afternoon the Union flag floated over the city of Memphis. Tardy as had been Halleck's advance on Corinth, there still remained to him the chance of extending his campaign to a most brilliant con- clusion. While Halleck was yet on his way to Corinth, Farragut had ascended the Mississippi with the Union fleet, received the surrender of all the fortifications below Vicksburg, and arrived before that city on May 20. The Confederates placed such reliance on the fortifications of the upper Mississippi, that very little had been done to render Vicksburg secure. Serious work on its defences was not begun until May 12. The six batteries completed before Farragut's arrival were strong, not because of their number or armament, but because the guns of the fleet could not be elevated to bear on them, posted as they were on bluffs at the water's edge, two hundred feet high. As it was clear that a purely naval attack would have no chance of success, and military co-operation could not be obtained, the fleet withdrew, after vainly summoning the garrison of Vicksburg to surrender. Returning to New Orleans about June 1, Farragut received orders conveying the great desire of the Administration to have the river completely opened; and he again steamed up to Vicksburg, bringing OH. xv. 32 2