batteries were brought to bear on the Federal position. Grant fell back and retired to Cairo, where he prepared to attack Forts Henry and Donelson. After Bull Run the government concerned itself first of all with the defenses of Washington. The autumn of 1861 was a season of depression to the Union cause. A reaction came, however, for with the subsidence of the panic the administration redoubled its energies. Volunteers came in great numbers from the Northern States, and the first two calls were quickly filled. The aged General Scott, commander-in-chief of the armies, found himself unable longer to bear the burden resting upon him and retired from active duty. General George B. McClellan was called over from West Virginia and put in command of the Army of the Potomac. The event showed that the young general as an organizer and disciplinarian had no superior. The forces under his command were by the middle of October increased to a hundred and fifty thousand men. The army was no longer one of undisciplined volunteers, but a compact, well disciplined and powerful engine of war. On the 21st of October a force of two thousand Federals under Colonel Baker crossed the Potomac at Ball's Bluff, where they were attacked by the Confederates under General Evans and driven back to the river. Colonel Baker was killed and his force routed with a loss of fully eight hundred men. One of the first tasks imposed on the Federal government was to gain full command of the seacoast. In the summer of 1861 several naval expeditions were sent out to maintain the authority of the United States along the Con federate sea-border. Commodore Stringham and General Butler sailed to the coast of North Carolina, and the 29th of August captured the forts at Hatteras Inlet. On the 7th of November an armament under Commodore Dupont and General Thomas W. Sherman took Forts Walker and Beauregard at the entrance of Port Royal. Hilton Head, a point most advantageous for operations against Charleston and Savannah, thus fell into the power of the government. A blockade was successfully established around the whole Confederate coast, and soon became so rigorous as to cut off all communication between the Confederate States and foreign nations. A serious difficulty arose at this juncture on account of the blockade between the Federal government and Great Britain. One of the chief reliances of the Confederacy was the cotton crop or the Southern States. American cotton had become a virtual necessity to the factories of England. To have the cotton supply cut off suddenly was in the nature of a calamity to the industrial interests of Great Britain. A state of feeling supervened in that country unfavorable to the United States and sympathetic with the Confederacy. The British government desired the success of the rebellion. The Confederate administration played well to this sentiment. James M. Mason and John Slidell, formerly Senators of the United States, were appointed ambassadors of the Confederate States to France and England. Before they left America, however, the Union squadron had closed around the Southern ports, and the ambassadors were obliged to make their escape from Charleston harbor in a blockade runner. Making their way from that port, they reached Havana in safety and were taken on board of the British mail-steamer Trent for Europe. The Trent sailed, but on the 8th of November was overtaken by the United States frigate San Jacinto, under Captain Wilkes. The Trent was unceremoniously hailed and boarded. The two ambassadors and their secretaries were seized, transferred to the San Jacinto, carried to Boston and imprisoned. The Trent was allowed to proceed on her way to England. The story of the insult to the British flag was told, and the whole kingdom burst out in a blaze of wrath. The sequel showed how little disposed nations are to regard consistency and right when their prejudices are involved. For nearly a half century the United States had stoutly contended for the exemption of neutral flags on the high sea. The American theory had always been that the free flag makes free goods, contraband of war only excepted. Great Britain, on the other hand, had been im. memorially the most arrogant of all civilized nations in the matter of search and seizure. She had in the course of her history insulted almost every flag seen on the ocean. But in this particular instance the position of the parties was suddenly reversed. The people of the United States loudly applauded Captain Wilkes; the House of Representatives passed a vote of thanks to him, with the presentation of a sword. Even the administration was disposed to defend his action. Great Britain, with equal inconsistency, flung herself into a furious passion for the alleged insult to her flag and sovereignty. For a short time it appeared that war between the two nations was inevitable. This peril, however, was avoided by the adroit and far. reaching diplomacy of William H. Seward, Secretary of State. When Great Britain demanded reparation for the insult and immediate liberation of the prisoners, he replied in a mild, cautious and very able paper. It was conceded that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was not in accordance with the law of nations. A suitable apology was accordingly made, and the Confederate ambassadors were sent to their destination abroad. The peril of war was averted, and Great Britain was unwittingly committed to a policy respect. ing the rights of neutrals which she had hitherto denied, and which the United States had always contended for. CHAPTER XXVII. THE beginning of 1862 found the government with an army of about four hundred and fifty thousand men. Nearly two hundred thousand of these composed the Army of the Potomac under General McClellan. Another division, under General Don Carlos Buell, was stationed at Louisville, Kentucky; and it was in this department that the campaigns of the year were begun. Early in January the Confederate Colonel Humphrey Marshall, commanding a force on Big Sandy River, in eastern Kentucky, was attacked and defeated by a detachment of Unionists under Colonel James A. Garfield. Ten days later an important battle was fought at Mill Spring, Kentucky. Mill Spring was on the south side of the Cumberland. The battle was ten miles north of the river, at Logan's Cross-Roads, on Fishing Creek. The Confederates were led by Generals Crittenden and Zollicoffer, and the Federals by General George H. Thomas. Both sides lost heavily, and the Confederates were defeated; General Zollicoffer was among the slain. Operations much more important soon followed on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. The Tennessee, at the southern border of Kentucky, was commanded by Fort Henry, and the Cumberland by Fort Donelson, ten miles south of the Tennessee line. At the beginning of the year the Federal officers planned the capture of both these places. Commodore Foote was sent up the Tennessee with a flotilla of gunboats, and at the same time General Grant moved against Fort Henry. Before he reached his destination, however, the gunboats compelled the evacuation of the fort, the Confederates escaping to Fort Donelson. The flotilla now dropped down the Tennessee, took on sup- plies at Cairo, and then ascended the Cumberland. Grant crossed the country from Fort Henry to Donelson, and found the place well defended by about twenty thousand Confederates, under General Simon B. Buckner. Grant's forces were fully twenty-five thousand strong; but the weather was extremely bad, and the assaults on the fortifications must be made at great peril and disadvantage. On the 14th of February, 1862, the gunboats in the Cumberland were repulsed with considerable losses. On the next day the garrison of Fort Donelson attempted to break through Grant's lines, but were driven back with much slaughter. On the 16th Buckner was obliged to capitulate, and surrendered 14,623 men, some 200 were killed and wounded, and about 3,000 escaped under Forrest and Floyd. All the magazines, stores and guns of the fort fell into the hands of the Federals. The immediate result of the capture was the evacuation of Kentucky and the capital of Tennessee by the Confederates. Nor did they ever afterwards recover the ground thus lost. Such was the real beginning of the military career of General Ulysses S. Grant. That officer at once followed up his success by ascending the Tennessee River as far as Pittsburg landing. In the first days of April he formed a camp on the left bank of that stream at a place called Shiloh Church. Here on the morning of the 6th of the month the Union army was suddenly and furiously attacked by the Confederates under Generals Albert S. Johnston and Beauregard. The shock of the onset was at first irresistible. All day long the battle raged with unprecedented slaughter on both sides. The Federals were gradually forced back nearer and nearer to the Tennessee, until at nightfall they came under the protection of the gunboats in the river. Darkness closed on the scene with the conflict undecided, but with the Federals in the most dangerous situation, and their overwhelming defeat inevitable but for the arrival, at the most |