Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/296

262 moved up the Tennessee River after the capture of Fort Donelson, and taken position at Pittsburg Landing. The Confederate army attacked General Grant on the 6th April, and the battle of Shiloh ensued. General Grant's army was saved by the opportune arrival of a portion of General Buell's army which had been marching to join it, and the Confederates retreated to Corinth. Their defeat rendered Island Number Ten untenable, and it was evacuated on the 7th; part of the garrison retiring to Fort Pillow, 130 miles farther down the river, and a part falling into the hands of General Pope as prisoners of war. Fort Pillow was bombarded by the gun-boats for several weeks, but it could not be attacked from the land side as long as the Confederates held possession of Corinth. At the end of May they evacuated Corinth, and the evacuation of Fort Pillow followed immediately. The Union fleet then steamed down the river, 70 miles to Memphis, where a Confederate fleet of seven gun-boats waited to defend the city. After a sharp battle, which was witnessed by the population of Memphis from the bluff on which that city stands, the Confederate boats were captured or destroyed, and the Union forces were in possession of the place.

Shortly after the capture of Memphis the Union flotilla descended the river to Vicksburg, finding no obstructions other than occasional light batteries which fired upon the gun-boats from the banks. While the army and flotilla had been making its way southward a national fleet, commanded by the intrepid Farragut, had passed the forts near the mouth of the Mississippi, emerged victorious from one of the greatest naval battles of the war, and compelled the surrender of New Orleans. A land force under General Butler arrived and took possession of the city, and soon afterwards Admiral Farragut sent a portion of his fleet under Commander Lee to ascertain what obstructions there might be to the navigation of the great river