Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/529

1862] Battle of Shiloh : Northern victory. 497 and their lines were speedily ready to meet the onslaught in a hotly contested fight, lasting throughout the entire day. The ground was very irregular, and concerted movements of large bodies were impossible. On the whole, however, the Confederates steadily gained ground from breakfast to sundown. One entire Federal division was captured; Johnston, the Confederate commander, was killed in the afternoon. When the battle ceased at night, the Federal lines had been driven back two miles, close to the banks of the Tennessee. A turn had however come in the fortunes of the battle. While the fight was going on, BuelTs army at length arrived on the opposite bank ; his advance division was ferried across the river, and, with the expiring volleys of the evening, was being deployed in front of the advancing enemy. At dawn of Monday, the 7th, the battle was renewed, and though retreating with stubbornness, the Confederates were slowly driven back from the ground they had gained, and by nightfall their forces were returning in a disordered rout to Corinth. Among the Unionist officers, Brigadier-General Sherman, commanding a division, was especially con- spicuous by his gallantry. It was his first fighting since, with the rank of Colonel, he had commanded a brigade in the battle of Bull Run in July of the previous year. The casualties were: on the Union side, 1754? killed, 8408 wounded and 2885 missing; on the Confederate side, 1728 killed, 8012 wounded and 959 missing. Besides the battle of Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh, as it is more commonly called, Halleck had yet another important victory to report. Since the evacuation of Columbus, the Confederates had with great skill and energy erected defences at the next strategical point on the Mississippi river, Island No. 10, which lies opposite the town of New Madrid in Missouri, seventy-five miles below Cairo. At that point the Mississippi river makes a double bend, while swamps and lakes so fill the adjacent country as to leave but little dry land on either side of the river. The island, the Tennessee shore, and the town of New Madrid were strongly fortified, and occupied by considerable garrisons, numbering about 3000 at the first, and 5000 at the last place. Towards the end of February, 1862, General John Pope, acting under orders from Halleck, organised an expedition, and, with an army of 20,000 men, appeared before New Madrid early in March. Investing the town, he secured a lodgment for batteries nine miles below, which closed the river at that point, causing the Confederates to evacuate New Madrid on March 13. There still remained the problem of dislodging them from Island No. 10, but this was happily accomplished by two novel military devices. On April 4 Commander Henry Walke, courageously ran the gun-boat Carondolet past the Confederate batteries at night during a thunder- storm a feat which was imitated by the gunboat Pittsburgh on the following night, and many times afterwards elsewhere by other armed vessels, during the war. The river being very high, and the surrounding C. M. H. VII. CH. XV. #2