The Land We Live In Part 14

The Slavery Conflict.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Aggressiveness of Slavery--The Cotton States and Border States--The Fugitive Slave Law--Nullified in the North--Negroes Imported from Africa--The Struggle in Kansas--John Brown--Abraham Lincoln Pleads for Human Rights--Treason in Buchanan's Cabinet--Citizens Stop Guns at Pittsburg--Conditions at the Beginning of the Struggle--Southern Advantages--The Soldiers of Both Armies Compared--Conscription in the Confederacy--Southern Resources Limited--The North at a Disadvantage at First, but Its Resources Inexhaustible--Conscription in the North-- Popular Support of the War--Unfriendliness of Great Britain and France--Why They Did Not Interfere.

Slavery could not stand still. The Cotton States, so-called, which suffered least from the escape of slaves were the most aggressive in demanding a Fugitive Slave Law, while the Border States, where escapes were frequent, were not nearly as aggressive as their Southern neighbors.

Attachment to slavery in the Cotton States had become a pa.s.sion, springing from self-interest, but stronger than self-interest; while in the Border States the slaveholders were affected by propinquity to free communities, and the calculations of self-interest were softened by their surroundings; which shows, like many another chapter in history, that in the mighty impulses which guide the destinies of nations, the heart is above the head. The advocates of slavery felt insecure because they knew that even if legally right they were divinely and humanly wrong. They were not satisfied to have the Free States acquiescent and even submissive; they were determined, in their fever of unrest, to drive freedom to the wall, and to make the people of the North slave-catchers, if they would not consent to be slave-owners.

The South had the Const.i.tution on its side, and the Fugitive Slave Law could be met only by obedience or nullification. The Northern people simply decided to nullify the law. They did not meet in State conventions--like South Carolina in 1832--and declare the law void and of no effect. They were too sensible for that; but they would not obey the law. It was nullified in various ways. In Rhode Island, for instance, it was made a crime for an officer of the State to arrest a fugitive slave; in Ohio the ordinary statute against kidnappers was used to punish Federal officers and others attempting to carry slaves back into bondage, and in New York and other States mob law interfered to rescue and liberate the victims. The Fugitive Slave Law roused the spirit of freedom, and Northern defiance of the law inflamed the slaveholders. The Kansas-Nebraska bill, menacing the free States with a slave barrier West as well as South, and stretching to the Pacific as well as the Gulf, made civil war almost inevitable. Compromise became cowardice, and everyone who was not for freedom was against it. The Supreme Court of the United States supported the contentions of the slaveholders, but in vain for their cause. That higher tribunal--the conscience of a free and intelligent people--arraigned slavery as a crime against G.o.d and man, the Const.i.tution and the Supreme Court to the contrary notwithstanding. When Chief Justice Taney held that Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, but a thing, and could be carried by his master from one State to another, like a dog or a watch, and still be a slave, the Chief Justice only immortalized his own infamy; he did not immortalize slavery. Still greater was the shock when in defiance of the Const.i.tution and the laws the foreign slave trade was resumed, and negroes imported from Africa to the South. It is only just to state that, according to recently published narratives of these slave importations, with details that could not have been related at the time with safety for the parties concerned, the Federal authorities in the South seem to have made a sincere effort to bring the slave-traders to justice, and the planters apparently did not welcome the traffic.

The pioneers of the great struggle to come met on the plains of Kansas and several years of fierce border strife ended in victory for freedom.

John Brown, whom the world calls a fanatic, perished on the scaffold at Harper's Ferry in a vain attempt to liberate the slaves, and while editors vacillated and quibbled, and fawning time servers applauded, Th.o.r.eau, from his hermitage in the New England woods, paid eloquent tribute to the man who dared to die for the truth. Away in the West a figure was looming up, a gaunt, homely figure, born in and nurtured in hardship, but endowed as no other man of his age was endowed, with the ability to guide his country through the awful ordeal to come. He perceived the right, and he boldly declared it. "If it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth--let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right," said Abraham Lincoln to the friends who disapproved his celebrated declaration that the government could not endure half slave, half free. "In the right to eat the bread without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he (the negro) is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man"--was another sterling utterance which struck home to the North.

While Lincoln was pleading the cause of human rights, and a.s.serting that the Declaration of Independence was meant for black as well as white, members of President Buchanan's cabinet, holding in their grasp the reins of National Government, were plotting the nation's overthrow. Even down to the very moment that John B. Floyd left the War Office, and when South Carolina was already in rebellion, this plotting was continued. As late as the beginning of January, 1861, an attempt was made under an order from Floyd to remove one hundred and fifty cannon from the Allegheny a.r.s.enal, at Pittsburg, to the South, to be used against the Union. "Our people are a unit that not a gun shall be shipped South," said the _Dispatch_ of that city, and without violence, without the shedding of a drop of blood or the drawing of a weapon against national authority, the citizens obtained the reversal of the order, and the guns, some of which were already under convoy to the wharf, were returned to the a.r.s.enal. The "Rebellion Records," published by the government, should not begin with 1861. They should go back to the time when the plot originated to strip the national a.r.s.enals for the benefit of the nation's enemies, to disarm the Union that it might fall a prey to secession. This was the treason which should never be forgotten. The men who fought bravely and openly in the field for the Confederate cause can be respected for their sincerity and honored for their valor; but not so with the men who before the war violated their trust as guardians and armor bearers of the Union to betray the nation to its conspiring foes.

The conditions at the beginning of the war were much more favorable to the South than a mere comparison of population would indicate. The loyal States had a population of 23,000,000; the seceded States 8,000,000, of whom about one-half were slaves. These slaves counted, however, for about as much effective strength as if they had been whites, for the soil had to be cultivated, the armies fed, fortifications built and other necessary services performed, and the negroes, while all who were bright enough to understand the situation wished for the success of the Union, worked for their masters faithfully, as a rule, until the approach of the national armies gave an opportunity to escape. Besides, the negroes in attendance on the Confederate troops performed many duties to which on the Northern side soldiers were a.s.signed, and in this way the blacks were useful in even a strictly military sense. In short, the negroes did everything for the Confederacy but fight for it, and this, too, although they loved the blue uniform, and gave loyal a.s.sistance to the Union troops whenever occasion offered. The Southern forces, it should also be remembered, were on their own ground. They knew every thicket and road and stream; they had the sympathy of the white, as well as the service of the black inhabitants. They were led by a brilliant group of commanders whom Jefferson Davis, when Secretary of War, had brought together probably with this object in view, and they were thoroughly armed and equipped at the expense of the very government against which they were contending. It is needless to say that no better soldiers ever bore rifle or sabre than the men of the Southern Confederacy. They were, like most of their northern antagonists, Americans of the same blood as those who carried the redoubts at Yorktown and stormed the hill of Chapultepec, and their courage in the Civil War fully maintained the prestige gained in battle against alien foes. In intelligence, or at least in education, however, the rank and file of the Confederate armies were inferior to the native Americans in the Union armies. The Confederate troops captured at Vicksburg were no doubt equal to the average, and of the 27,000 men then made prisoners and paroled two-thirds made their marks, not being able to write their names. This is not so surprising when it is remembered that there was no common school system in the South before the war, and that the "twenty-negro law," exempting the owner of twenty negroes from conscription, excused from military service the cla.s.s which had an opportunity to be educated, and which also had most at stake in the contest.

Before the close of the war, however, all exemptions in the Confederacy were virtually swept away, and the government enlisted every one able to bear a musket, from the boy hardly in his teens to the old man tottering to the grave. Those not able to go to the front did duty in the rear, and the whole male population, excepting cripples and children, was in the ranks, or the civil service. If any escaped the net of conscription they were likely to be caught in the round-up made every now and then after the fashion of the old English press-gang, when all who happened to be in sight were gathered in, and sent to the army, unless they clearly proved a t.i.tle to freedom. In one of these round-ups, says Jones, in his "Diary of a Rebel War Clerk"--the Postmaster-General of the Confederacy, John H.

Reagan, was carried along with the rest, and detained for some time before released. Thus the prophecy of Houston was strikingly fulfilled.

Of course, the refugees and deserters, of whom there were a very large number in the swamps and woods of the South, are excepted from the statement that the whole population was in arms for the Confederate cause.

In the beginning of the war the North was at a disadvantage. Mr. Lincoln found the little army of the United States scattered and disorganized, the navy sent to distant quarters of the globe, the treasury bankrupt and the public service demoralized. Floyd and his fellow-conspirators had done their work thoroughly. It did not take long for the people of the North to rally to the defence of the government, and for an army to be formed capable not only of defending the loyal States, but of striking a blow at the Confederacy. With the National credit restored, an abundance of currency provided for national needs, and the public departments cleared of Southern sympathizers, the North entered upon a conflict which could have but one ending should the North remain steadfast.

The weakness of the South, from a military standpoint, was in the fact that men lost could not be replaced. The North could replenish its depleted armies; the South could not. With men therefore of the same race and equal in soldierly qualities arrayed against each other, one side within measurable distance of exhaustion and the other with inexhaustible human resources to draw upon, the war became an easy sum in arithmetic, provided the stronger party should not cry "enough" before the weaker had reached the exhaustion point. The battles on comparatively equal terms were fought, therefore, in the early part of the war, the decisive battles in 1863, and the closing struggle between the gasping Confederacy and the Union stronger than ever, in the last fifteen months of the conflict.

In the North, notwithstanding the immense armies put in the field, there never was a time except in brief periods of riot and disorder, when the usual bustle of humanity was absent from the cities and towns. Commerce and industry went on with accustomed activity. While Southern cities looked like garrisoned graveyards the North had never worn a busier or more prosperous appearance. With such a large population there should have been no reason for conscription, but when conscription was deemed requisite, there ought to have been no exemption on the ground of wealth.

Every able-bodied drafted man ought to have been obliged to serve, without the privilege of a subst.i.tute, and no money payment should have secured release from service. The obligation to defend the country rests upon all, but if there is any distinction, the rich man has more interest in protecting the government which shields him and his possessions from danger than the poor man. European nations make no exemption on account of wealth or position, and the American Republic certainly should not have given such an example.

The people of the North, however, with comparatively few but very troublesome exceptions, gave earnest and enthusiastic support to the National Government. Committees were formed everywhere to aid the armies in the field, to provide for the wounded and the sick and to a.s.sist the families of absent soldiers. In the darkest days of the struggle the people never lost faith in the ultimate triumph of the Union. While statesmen and editors professing to be superior to their fellows in knowledge and foresight saw only the gloomy side and predicted the defeat and downfall of the Republic, the popular heart was true and confident and courageous. Upon the people's arms Lincoln could always lean in times of severest trial and anxiety, a.s.sured of comfort, support and strength.

The unfriendliness of Great Britain and France was a most serious and ever-present danger to the United States throughout the whole period of the war, and was prolific of injury to American interests. From the first Great Britain showed a conscious unfriendly purpose. That government privately proposed to France, even before Queen Victoria's proclamation recognizing the insurgents as belligerents, to open direct negotiations with the South, and the British Legation at Washington was used for secret communications with the Confederate President. When the Confederate agents, James M. Mason and John Slidell and their secretaries, were taken from the British mail-steamer Trent by Captain Wilkes, of the American warship San Jacinto, the course of the British Cabinet indicated an unfriendliness so extreme as to approach a desire for war. Peremptory instructions were sent to Lord Lyons, the British Minister at Washington, to demand the release of the men arrested, and to leave Washington if the demand was not complied with in seven days. Vessels of war were fitted out by the British, and troops pressed forward to Canada. The official statement of the American Minister at London that the act had not been authorized by the American Government was kept from the British people, and public opinion was encouraged to drift into a state of hostility toward the United States. The surrender of Mason and Slidell removed all excuse for war, much to the disgust, doubtless, of the ruling cla.s.s in Great Britain. Leading English statesmen made public speeches favoring the Confederacy. Lord Russell, himself, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, stated in the House of Lords that the subjugation of the South by the North "would prove a calamity to the United States and to the world." The Alabama and other privateers went forth from British ports to prey on American commerce, and the builder of the Alabama was cheered in the House of Commons when he boasted of what he had done. Even Mr. Gladstone--before Vicksburg and Gettysburg--declared that "the restoration of the American Union by force is unattainable."

Napoleon the Third--that crow in the eagle's nest--was cordially with Great Britain in all efforts to injure the American Union. He had long cherished the design to establish a va.s.sal empire in Mexico, and in our Civil War he saw his opportunity. A Southern Confederacy would form a grand barrier between a Franco-Mexican dominion and the United States, and while the French emperor treated the government at Washington with diplomatic courtesy, he never ceased to exert his influence in favor of the South, so far as he could, without an actual rupture. Napoleon was ready and anxious to recognize the Confederacy, and he only waited for the South to win victories that would give him an excuse for action. "His course toward us," says Bigelow, "from the beginning to the end of the plot was deliberately and systematically treacherous, and his ministers allowed themselves to be made his pliant instruments."[1] General Grant declared at City Point, in 1864, that as soon as we had disposed of the Confederates we must begin with the Imperialists, and after Appomattox he expressed the opinion that the French intervention in Mexico was so closely allied to the rebellion as to be a part of it.

[1] France and the Confederate Navy.

Neither England nor France interfered directly in behalf of the South.

Louis Napoleon waited for England to act, and the British Cabinet felt that the British ma.s.ses would not justify a war in defence of slavery.

The American Government, while it met with firm and dignified protest Great Britain's disregard of international obligations, was careful to abstain from giving any excuse for British hostility. "One war at a time," said Abraham Lincoln, in deciding to surrender Mason and Slidell.

But Americans kept careful account of every item of outrage on the part of England, and in due time the bill was presented--and paid. And in due time also Napoleon was told to go out of Mexico--and he went.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

The Confederate Government Organized--Fort Sumter--President Lincoln Calls for 75000 Men--Command of the Union Forces offered to Robert E.

Lee--Lee Joins the Confederacy--Missouri Saved to the Union--Battle of Bull Run--Union Successes in the West--General Grant Captures Fort Donelson--"I Have No Terms but Unconditional Surrender"--The Monitor and Merrimac Fight--Its World-Wide Effect--Grant Victorious at Shiloh--Union Naval Victory Near Memphis--That City Captured--General McClellan's Tactics--He Retreats from Victory at Malvern Hill--Second Bull Run Defeat--Great Battle of Antietam--Lee Repulsed, but Not Pursued-- McClellan Superseded by Burnside--Union Defeat at Frederickburg-- Union Victories in the West--Bragg Defeated by Rosecrans at Stone River --The Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation.

The new Confederate Government was organized at Montgomery, Ala., February 4, 1861, by delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected President and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President. The border States, which would be the battlefield of war, still hoped for peace, and hesitated to yield to the importunities of those who had already crossed the Rubicon. In Charleston harbor, the American flag floated over a little fortress called Sumter, so named after the "South Carolina Gamec.o.c.k" of the Revolution, and commanded by Major Robert Anderson. In the gray of the morning on April 12, the Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort. For nearly two days the Stars and Stripes waved defiantly amid the storm of shot and sh.e.l.l. Then further resistance being useless and hopeless, the brave garrison evacuated the fort, carrying away the flag which they had so resolutely defended. Two days later President Lincoln called for 75,000 men to put down armed resistance to national authority. The North sprang to arms, and from East and West regiments started on their way to Washington. The governors of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri declined to obey the call of the President, and the secession of all these States from the Union followed, except Kentucky and Missouri.

On April 17, the Virginia Convention pa.s.sed the Ordinance of Secession.

President Lincoln had desired to give the command of the troops to be called into the field to Colonel Robert E. Lee, of the First United States Cavalry, but that officer declined to accept the offer, resigned his commission, and joined the Confederacy. It should be needless to say that the qualities displayed by Lee, at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia, amply justified President Lincoln's measure of his capacity.

The seat of the Confederate Government was removed from Montgomery to Richmond, and the latter city was thenceforward the headquarters of the rebellion.

Of the other border States Maryland remained in the Union, and Kentucky, after an attempt to maintain an impossible neutrality, yielded to the influence of mountain air, and espoused the cause of freedom. Missouri's disloyal government sought to drag the State into secession, but Francis Preston Blair, a lawyer of St. Louis, and Captain Nathaniel Lyon, commandant of the United States a.r.s.enal in that city, took vigorous action against the rebel sympathizers, and saved the State to the Union.

The German element in Missouri was so loyal to the old flag that "Unionist" and "Dutchman" were synonymous terms in that region during the war. Captain Lyon, promoted to brigadier-general, was defeated and killed at the battle of Wilson Creek. It is believed that he resolved to win the battle or die. Of such stuff were the men who rescued the Southwest.

The battle of Bull Run, when General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the Confederates, defeated General McDowell with serious loss, and sent the Union army in disorderly retreat toward Washington, taught the Northern people that the war was not a parade, and that the overthrow of the Confederacy would tax all the energies of the loyal States. Fortunately, General George H. Thomas won an important victory for the Union at Mill Spring, Kentucky, in January, 1862, and the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, in the following month, by General Ulysses S. Grant, aided by Commodore Foote and his gunboats, tended to efface the depression caused by defeat in Virginia. General Grant's reply to the Confederate General Buckner, when the latter wished to make terms for the surrender of Fort Donelson, was on every tongue in the North. "I have no terms but unconditional surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works,"

was a message that spoke the man. Nearly sixteen thousand prisoners were captured. They belonged mostly to the working cla.s.ses of Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas.

John Ericsson's Monitor, in March, 1862, sent a thrill of relief and joy through the North by its wonderful victory over the Merrimac. The Confederates cut down a United States frigate at the Norfolk navy yard, and transformed it into an ironclad ram, with a powerful beak. This monster they sent against the Union fleet of wooden warships in Hampton Roads. Broadsides had no effect on the Merrimac. The floating fortress attacked the c.u.mberland, ramming that vessel, and breaking a great hole in its side. The c.u.mberland sank with all on board. The Congress was driven aground and compelled to surrender. Then the monster rested for the night, intending to continue its mission of destruction on the morrow. It seemed that not only the Union fleet, but the ports and commerce of the North would be at the mercy of this novel and terrible engine of destruction. The telegraph carried the news everywhere, and in dread and anxiety the people awaited the fate of another day. When morning came at Hampton Roads a small nondescript vessel, looking like an oval raft with a turret, interposed between the Merrimac and its prey. It was the Monitor, the invention of Captain John Ericsson, and it had arrived during the night of March 8. The Monitor had been constructed at Greenpoint, Long Island, and was towed to Hampton Roads by steamers. Her turret was a revolving, bomb-proof fort, in which were mounted two 11-inch Dahlgren guns. As the turret revolved the great guns kept up a steady discharge, battering the sides of the Merrimac. The latter hurled enormous ma.s.ses of iron on the Monitor, but made no impression whatever on the little craft, and the duel continued until the Merrimac gave up the fight, and ran back to shelter at Norfolk. Ericsson's praise was on every tongue. The great Swedish engineer whose sanity had been questioned when he submitted his ideas to the Navy Department, not only saved the Union navy from destruction, and Northern harbors from devastation, but he also revolutionized naval warfare.

Their first line broken in the Southwest, and now compelled to fight within secession territory, the Confederates made a stand along a second line from Memphis to Chattanooga, their forces being ma.s.sed at Corinth.

In the great battle of Shiloh (April 6 and 7) 100,000 men were engaged; the National loss in killed, wounded and prisoners was about 15,000, and that of the Confederates over 10,000. The latter fought more desperately than on any previous field, and for a time they had the advantage. The usual ethics of defeat had, however, no place in General Grant's military education, and the enemy were at length forced to give way. General Albert Sydney Johnston, one of the ablest Confederate commanders, was killed, and General Beauregard retreated, leaving his dead and wounded in Union hands. The second line of defence was broken. An amusing incident of this battle--if anything can be amusing in war--was a message sent by General Beauregard to General Grant explaining why he had withdrawn his troops. General Grant was strongly tempted to a.s.sure Beauregard that no apologies were necessary.

The capture of New Orleans in the latter part of April, and of Island Number Ten in the same month gave the National forces control of the Mississippi nearly up to Vicksburg and down to Memphis. The Confederate flotilla was defeated and destroyed in a sharp engagement by the Union river fleet, two miles above Memphis, on June 6, the battle occurring in full view of that city. It was one of the most dramatic spectacles of the war. The combat lasted just one hour and three minutes, and as the Union fleet landed at Memphis, a number of newsboys sprang on sh.o.r.e from the vessels, shouting: "Here's your New York _Tribune_ and _Herald_!"--before the city had been formally surrendered. The Unionists received the National troops like brothers, and one lady brought out from its hiding place in her chimney a National flag concealed from the beginning of the war. "We found Memphis," wrote a correspondent, "as torpid as Syria, where Yusef Browne declared that he saw only one man exhibit any sign of activity, and he was engaged in tumbling from the roof of a house." Salt was rubbed into the wounds of the vanquished by the military a.s.signment of Albert D. Richardson and Col. Thomas W. Knox, representatives of the _Tribune_ and _Herald_, to edit the bitterest secession newspaper in the town.

In the East the Union cause made no progress. General George B.

McClellan, in command of the Army of the Potomac, was endeavoring to play the part of a Turenne in a field utterly foreign to European strategy.

Generals Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston and Thomas Jonathan ("Stonewall") Jackson, the three great Confederate commanders in Virginia, proved themselves easily the superiors of their antagonists in the tactics best fitted for American warfare, and but for the stubborn valor of the Union soldiers at Fair Oaks and in the seven days' battles ending at Malvern Hills, the Army of the Potomac would probably have been destroyed. When Malvern Hills was won by the splendid fighting of the National troops, without any agency of their commander, and when they were enthusiastic for a forward movement upon Richmond, McClellan consulted his tactical horoscope, and ordered them to retreat just as if they had been beaten. The second battle of Bull Run, with General John Pope in command on the Union side, and Generals Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson and James Longstreet leading the Confederates, stopped short of being as disastrous a defeat for the National arms as the first Bull Run, but that was all.

Lee pushed into Maryland with about 45,000 troops, and encountered McClellan at Antietam, on September 17, with 85,000. McClellan was "cautious," as usual, but fighting had to be done, and the rank and file of the Union forces were, as ever, anxious to fight. Lee was repulsed after a fearful conflict, in which about 20,000 men were killed and wounded. General Joseph Hooker, known as "Fighting Joe Hooker," was under McClellan at Antietam, and behaved most gallantly. Wounded before noon, Hooker was carried from the field. "Had he not been disabled," wrote a war correspondent, "he would probably have made it a decisive conflict.

Realizing that it was one of the world's great days, he said: 'I would gladly have compromised with the enemy by receiving a mortal wound at night, could I have remained at the head of my troops until the sun went down.'" McClellan neglected to take advantage of the success achieved at the cost of so many brave lives, and Mr. George W. Smalley, then of the _Tribune_, who was on the field, is authority for the statement that General Hooker was privately requested in behalf of a number of Union officers, to a.s.sume command and follow up the victory. In Hooker's condition this was impossible, even had he been inclined to take a step so serious in its possible consequences for himself.

McClellan was superseded in November by General Ambrose E. Burnside, who had distinguished himself at Antietam, as he always did in a subordinate command. On December 13, General Burnside suffered a fearful defeat at Fredericksburg, with a loss of 12,000 men. It was one of Lee's most brilliant victories, and on the Union side it was a useless sacrifice of life. "Lee's position," says General Fitzhugh Lee, "was strong by nature and was made stronger by art. No troops could successfully a.s.sail it, and no commanding general should have ordered it to be done."[1] Burnside was superseded by Hooker, and the armies in Virginia did but little more until spring.

[1] Life of General Robert E. Lee. D. Appleton & Co.

After the battle of Shiloh the Confederates made Chattanooga, Tenn., the base of their operations in the Southwest. General Braxton Bragg, who succeeded Beauregard in command in that region, invaded Kentucky, and sought to drive the inhabitants into the Confederate service. A sanguinary battle at Perryville resulted in the complete repulse of the Confederates, who retreated into Tennessee, carrying with them a vast quant.i.ty of plunder. General William Starke Rosecrans now came to the front as a successful Union commander. With Grant's left wing he defeated the Confederates at Iuka, September 19, and Corinth, October 3 and 4, and as chief of the Army of the c.u.mberland, he fought one of the great battles of the war with General Bragg at Murfreesboro, or Stone River, December 31 and January 2. Never during the four years of conflict did the troops on both sides fight more resolutely. The first day was rather favorable to the Confederates. Little was done on New Year's Day, but on January 2 the struggle was renewed more fiercely than before. The western armies had caught Grant's instinct of never recognizing defeat. Charge after charge was made, first by the Confederates, then by the Union troops, and at length the Confederate line fell back, and did not charge again. At midnight of January 4 Bragg retired in the direction of Chattanooga. The killed, wounded and missing numbered over 20,000, probably about evenly divided.