Army of the Mississippi

“ On the 5th May the fiscal system of the insurgents must, he calculates, have exploded, and their military connections be everywhere broken. On 28th May the Federal Government is said to possess the Mississippi and all the other great natural highways. And on June 2—
“The war in the Mississippi valley may be deemed virtually ended.... The army of General M‘Clellan will be rapidly strengthened, although it is already deemed adequate to the capture of Richmond.... No American now indulges any doubt that the integrity of the Union will be triumphantly maintained.” ”

“ If, as now seemed probable, there should be no prospect of a successful resistance east of the Mississippi, I intended then to cross to the trans-Mississippi Department, where I believed Generals E. K. Smith and Magruder would continue to uphold our cause. That I was not mistaken in the character of these men, I extract from the order issued by General E. K. Smith to the soldiers of the trans-Mississippi Army on the 21st of April, 1865:
"Great disasters have overtaken us. The Army of Northern Virginia and our General-in-Chief are prisoners of war. ”

“ At the time the legislature assembled, the executive and judicial departments of the government were under the control of the Radical party, made up of and dominated by negroes, disreputable adventurers and carpet baggers. Adelbert Ames was seated in the executive chair. At the close of the war he was in Mississippi as a colonel in the Federal army, and after the State government set up by the white people was overthrown by Federal bayonets he was made military governor. ”

“ Thus, when at last the gray of the morning came, the Hartford and Albatross rode in safety above Port Hudson, while the Richmond, Monongahela, Genesee, and Kineo, all battered and more or less injured, lay at anchor once more near Prophet Island, and the Mississippi had perished in a blaze of glory. ”

“ About this time another force of twenty or twenty-five thousand men was collected on the west bank of the Mississippi, above Cairo, under the command of Major-General John Pope, designed to become the "Army of the Mississippi," and to operate, in conjunction with the navy, down the river against the enemy's left flank, which had held the strong post of Columbus, Kentucky, but which, on the fall of Fort Donelson, had fallen back to New Madrid and Island No. ”

“ The work of opening the Mississippi river, which had been so magnificently commenced and prosecuted by that portion of the army and fleet above Memphis, was destined to find an equally imposing, if not more brilliant counterpart, in the naval operations near the city of New Orleans, once more to open that important commercial point to the world, and restore its citizens to the protection of the national flag. As an important auxiliary to this grand enterprise, a fleet of mortar-boats was fitted out in Brooklyn, N. Y., and other places, which formed a rendezvous at Ship Island, awaiting orders. ”

“ The Union Army, now within a few miles of its long-sought objective, had, in the 18 days since it crossed the Mississippi, completed one of the most noteworthy campaigns of the war. Marching deep into enemy territory, the Army of the Tennessee had successfully lived off the country while fighting and winning five engagements and inflicting critical losses in men and equipment, had prevented Johnston and Pemberton from joining forces, and had driven the Army of Vicksburg into the defenses of the city. ”

“ Officers who lead the column of victory in this last assault may be assured of the just recognition of their services by promotion; and every officer and soldier who shares its perils and its glory shall receive a medal to commemorate the first great success of the campaign of 1863 for the freedom of the Mississippi. His name will be placed in General Orders upon the Roll of Honor. ”

“ A position must be gained in the rear. This seemed, and indeed proved, an almost impossible task. The Mississippi was unusually high, and the surrounding country a vast network of bayous and swamps. The winter passed away in fruitless labors to make some sort of a water passage to the rear of Vicksburg, either above, via the Yazoo, or around through Louisiana to some point below the city, whence the army could cross again to the Vicksburg side of the Mississippi and strike Pemberton’s stronghold from the southeast. ”

“ The Mississippi’s er powerful, big sapper an’ miner—the biggest kind of er one! It might be workin’ in the cellar like under Cape Jessamine this very minute. And then ergain it might not. Ain’ nobody kin really tell. Though nowadays it’s surely lucky to expect the worst. Yes, sah, the Mississippi’s er bigger sapper an’ miner than any they’ve got in the army!”
They went on, by the dense woodland, beneath the low sun. A cypress swamp ran back for miles. In this hour the vast, knotted knees, dimly seen, innumerable, covering all the earth, appeared like sleeping herds of an ancient monster. ”

“ We still had effective armies in the field, and a vast extent of rich and productive territory both east and west of the Mississippi, whose citizens had evinced no disposition to surrender. Ample supplies had been collected in the railroad depots, and much still remained to be placed at our disposal when needed by the army in North Carolina. ”

“ The opening of the mouth of the Mississippi has been a subject of interest to this country for more than a generation. Thirty-seven years ago the Engineer Department of the Army took the matter in hand, and for thirty-seven years they have been planning and reporting upon the matter, and scratching and scraping at the mouth of the Mississippi, and to-day the depth of water is no greater than it was then. ”

“ The rising waters were expected to render the largest of the bayous that connect the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi navigable for steamboats of small size and light draught. Of these there were, indeed, but few, so that the work of transporting troops from the one line to the other must have been, at the best, slow and tedious, yet, once accomplished, the army would have found itself, with the help of the navy, above and beyond Port Hudson, with a sufficient line of communications open to the rear, and the Mississippi and the Red River closed against the enemy. ”

“ In the West this branch of the army, as your readers are aware, has been organized into the corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi, under command of Brevet Major General Wilson, whose dash and splendid abilities, while eminently fitting him for the responsible position he holds, have fully warranted his promotion from Lieutenant Colonel to his present rank. The late complete successes of his command are evinced in those sure and substantial evidences of victory—prisoners, battle-flags and guns; and in this department no corps can show more of them than the cavalry. ”

“ These, especially the work-shops and factories, and the innumerable river and bayou steamers that thronged the levee, were destined to prove of the greatest military value, at first to the Confederacy, and later to the forces of the Union. For food and fuel, however, New Orleans was largely dependent upon the North and West. Finally, beside her importance as the guardian of the gates of the Mississippi, New Orleans had a direct military value as the basis of any operations destined for the control or defence of the Mississippi River. ”

“ If we assume northwest to be an error for northeast, ‘the first five miles over a dry ridge to a lick’ would bring the army to the lick at Lick School-house in Deerfield township, Warren county; and the next ‘five miles through a low swampy country to a branch of the waters of the Little Miami’ would be over the swampy land of early times in the vicinity of Mason, and there is a tradition that the army stopped for a time on Little Muddy creek, on the farm formerly owned by Joseph McClung, north of Mason. ”

“ He advocated converting certain forts into schools of instruction for the military of the States. War having begun with Mexico, he determined to reënter military life, and promptly resigned from Congress in June, 1846, and accepted the position of colonel of the First Mississippi Volunteer Rifles, to which he had been unanimously elected. He joined his regiment at New Orleans, and proceeded with it to the Rio Grande to reënforce the army under Gen. ”

“ The population of Mississippi at that time was of a very mixed sort, being made up of Spaniards, Frenchmen, Indians, negroes, half-breeds of all grades of parentage, renegade Americans and British, and at the same time [500] a ruling class of exceptional uprightness and intelligence. The fact that the better element was outnumbered by the heterogeneous class beneath them, fully justified the governor’s apprehension of lawless outbreaks, which he sought to forestall by urging the organization and arming of a strong militia force. ”

“ With the end of the war it is to be hoped that the character of Mississippi travel will be improved.
In May, 1861, the Rebels blockaded the Mississippi at Memphis. In the same month the National forces established a blockade at Cairo. In July, '63, the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson removed the last Rebel obstruction. The Imperial was the first passenger boat to descend the river, after the reopening of navigation. ”

“ Since the fall of the Great Soldier the nations have incessantly risen against their rulers, and more than a million of men now stand in arms to restrain the people and serve the passions of monarchs and their cabinets. Only sixty years ago the entire valley of the Mississippi was still a desert, a wide wilderness, with hardly here and there a settlement. ”

“ All who could wield a spade, or carry a musket, were either put to work upon the fortifications, or trained in the art of defending them. The Mississippi, upon the eastern bank of which New Orleans stands, flows to the ocean in several channels; one, leaving the main stream above the city, runs east of it, and forms in its course lake Pontchartrain and lake Borgne. Early in December, the British entered this channel, with a force of about eight thousand men, a part of whom had just left the shores of the Chesapeake, the remainder having arrived direct from England. ”

“ Their strategy consists in keeping quiet till they have their troops well in hand, in such numbers and discipline as shall give them fair grounds for expecting success in any campaign with the United States troops. They are preparing with vigor to render the descent of the Mississippi impossible, by erecting batteries on the commanding levees or embankments which hem in its waters for upward of eight hundred miles of bank, and they are occupying, as far as they can, all the strategical points of attack or defence within their borders. When everything is ready, it is not improbable that Mr. ”

“ In the South, a reign of military despotism prevailed, which made every man and boy capable of bearing arms a soldier; and those who could not bear arms in the field acted as provosts for collecting deserters and returning them. This enabled the enemy to bring almost his entire strength into the field.
The enemy had concentrated the bulk of his forces east of the Mississippi into two armies, commanded by Generals R. E. Lee and J. E. Johnston, his ablest and best generals. ”

“ If at a certain period of the world’s life a foreign substance, no larger than a man’s boot, had been thrust into it, the course of the mighty Mississippi would have been changed. Who can estimate the incalculable blessing to this nation produced by a single man coming forward at exactly the right moment with the real bone and sinew of war in his hands. He bought the blankets, and tincups, and loaves of bread for the new recruits, whilst General Jim Lane was guarding Abraham Lincoln. ”

“ General McPherson was at Vicksburg and General Hurlbut at Memphis, and from them I had the regular reports of affairs in that quarter of my command. The rebels still maintained a considerable force of infantry and cavalry in the State of Mississippi, threatening the river, whose navigation had become to us so delicate and important a matter. ”

“ The prisoners embraced, including those on the island surrendered to the navy, seven regiments and one battalion of infantry, one of the regiments having twelve companies—eleven com [Pg 90] panies of heavy and one of light artillery, two companies of cavalry, the officers and crews of the floating battery and the steamboats, and laborers and employees.
The Mississippi was now open to Fort Pillow. General Halleck telegraphed to General Pope: "I congratulate you and your command on your splendid achievement. It exceeds in boldness and brilliancy all other operations of the war. ”

“ The uprising of the people of Mississippi against Negro rule was a most magnificent example of that spirit of Southern patriotism that animated the hearts; first of such men as Walthall, Lamar, George, Featherston, Stone, Lowry and Harris, and then spread to the hearts of every true man in Mississippi. The young men of the State, the rising generation, have the greatest reverence and love for the brave men who fought such a gallant fight for the preservation of white supremacy in Mississippi. ”

“ At that place the Mississippi furnishes a good water power. It has a spacious and tidy hotel, several stores, mechanics' shops, a saw-mill, &c. At Belle Prairie we begin to see something of the Chippewas. The half-breeds have there some good farms, and the school-house and the church denote the progress of civilization. It was near sunset when we reached Fort Ripley. The garrison stands on the west bank of the Mississippi, but the reservation extends several miles on both sides. The stage crosses the river on the ferry to leave the mail and then returns. ”