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[326]

In the series of engagements near Murfreesboro we captured over 6,000 prisoners, 30 pieces of artillery, 6,000 small arms, a number of ambulances, horses, and mules, and a large amount of other property. Our losses exceeded 10,000, and that of the enemy was estimated at over 25,000.

After the battle of Shiloh, west Tennessee and north Mississippi were occupied by a force under General Grant. Subsequently this force was increased, and General Rosecrans assigned to its command. Many positions were held in west Tennessee and north Mississippi, extending from Memphis to the north-eastern part of the state of Mississippi, with garrisons aggregating about 42,000 men. The most important of these positions was that of the fortified town of Corinth. As part of the plan to subjugate the southwestern states, extensive preparations were made for an advance through Mississippi and an attack on Vicksburg by combined land and naval forces. A large number of troops occupied middle Tennessee and north Alabama. To defeat their general plan, and to relieve the last-mentioned places of the presence of the enemy, General Bragg moved his army into Kentucky, which, by this time, the Federal government thought it needless to overawe by the presence of garrisons. General Van Dorn and General Price commanded the Confederate troops then in north Mississippi. General Bragg, when he advanced into Kentucky, had left them with instructions to operate against the Federals in that region, and especially to guard against their junction with Buell in middle Tennessee. Though Van Dorn was superior in rank, he had no power to command General Price, unless they should happen to join in the field and do duty together. General Price on this as on other occasions manifested his entire willingness to make a junction with his superior officer, and about the last of August proposed to General Van Dorn to join him, but at that time Van Dorn's available force for the field had been sent with General Breckinridge in his campaign against Baton Rogue. After that force had rejoined General Van Dorn, he wrote to Price, inviting him to unite with him, that, with their two divisions, they might make an attack upon Corinth, by the capture of which main position of the enemy in that section of the country he hoped to be subsequently able to drive him from north Mississippi and west Tennessee. Price felt constrained by his instructions to observe and if possible to prevent Rosecrans's forces in Mississippi from effecting a junction with Buell's in Tennessee; therefore the invitation was unfortunately postponed to a future time.

Subsequently General Price learned that Rosecrans was moving to

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