718

WITH PRICE EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

Mississippi, and Louisiana , “ Beauregard must have reenforcements to meetthe vast accumulation of the enemy before him. The necessity is imminent,the case of vital importance. Send forward to Corinth all the armed menthat you can furnish.” The Confederate Congress supported all this activityby enacting in haste on the 22d of April a stringent law for conscripting everywhite male between the ages of 18 and 35.

Halleck was at St. Louis , getting ready in his elaborate way to go to theTennessee , when he was startled by learning that Grant had been attackedat Shiloh and had barely escaped a great disaster. Hastening to the front,he assumed command in person of the forces in the field on the 11th ofApril, and proceeded to execute deliberately his long-conceived plan ofcampaign.

Preeminently cautious by nature, and the more cautious now because hewas sure of ultimate success, and averse always to the unnecessary sheddingof human blood, Halleck, instead of advancing boldly against Beauregard asGrant would have done and risking all upon the hazard of a battle whose issuewould have been uncertain, first fortified his position on the left bank of theTennessee , and then began to strengthen his army by bringing to it all theavailable forces of his immense Department.

Pope was recalled from before Fort Pillow, which he was preparing to attack,and reached the Tennessee with the Army of the Mississippi on the 21st ofApril. He came flushed with his victories at New Madrid and at Island No.Ten—the last of which Halleck pronounced “ a splendid achievement, exceed-ing in boldness and brilliancy all other operations of the war,” and one that“would be memorable in military history and admired by future genera-tions.” Halleck did not then know how weakly the place had been defendedby the officer to whom Beauregard had intrusted its defense.

Though the main body of the army with which Curtis had defeated VanDorn at Elkhorn was still dragging itself slowly over the mountains, orfloundering through the swamps of Arkansas , it, too, sent reenforcements tothe Tennessee .

At length, toward the last of April, Halleck had assembled on the banks ofthe Tennessee an army of one hundred thousand men.

Remarkable and imposing as this great army was for its numbers and theexcellence of its personnel , it was still more remarkable for its array of dis-tinguished leaders. Among them were the future generals-in-chief of thearmies of the United States, — Halleck himself, and after him the three mostsuccessful of all the soldiers that fought for the Union—Grant, Sherman, andSheridan; and with them were George H. Thomas , whom Greeley believedto be the greatest soldier of them all, and Buell, and Pope , and Rosecrans,and many others that rose to high command. With it, but not of it, werealso the great War Governor of Indiana, Oliver P. Morton , and the AssistantSecretary of War, Colonel Thomas A. Scott, the railway king of the future,who had come to advise and assist Halleck; while in commands more or lessimportant were McClernand , Palmer, Oglesby, Hurlbut, John A. Logan, andColonel Robert G. Ingersoll , Illinoisians all.