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[198] pretexts. Their correspondence, placed by Pope in the hands of the committee on the conduct of war, and published by the latter in 1866,1 can leave no doubt in the mind of the impartial reader as to the manner in which Halleck compromised his subordinate, to abandon him afterward, while it is highly creditable to the patriotism and disinterestedness of the latter general.

It was only on the 7th of June that Pope resumed command of his troops, which, during his absence on the 3d and 4th, had encountered the enemy's skirmishers between Booneville and Baldwin. Making a feint through the causeway on which the latter village is situated, in order to menace the Confederate right, he prepared to make a serious attack upon their left wing, south of Blackland, on the 8th; but Halleck interfered and again ordered him to remain on the defensive. Beauregard naturally took advantage of this to retire. The Federal cavalry did not pursue him beyond Guntown; and while his several columns were assembling on the 9th in the neighborhood of Tupelo, Pope was ordered to take his troops into comfortable encampments until he should receive further instructions. Finding no drinkable water where they had been brought to a halt, the Federals were soon compelled to fall back upon Corinth; and on the 12th, Pope went into camp on the banks of Clear Creek, only six kilometres from that place.

Thus ended the campaign of Corinth, which, properly speaking, was only a continuation of that of Shiloh. Halleck, although with an enormous force at his disposal, did nothing but leisurely reap the advantages which the sanguinary encounters of the 7th and 8th of April had secured to the Federals through Grant's tenacity and the opportune arrival of Buell. This was the only time that he commanded in person; a month later he was called to Washington to assume the chief direction of the war. His opponent, Beauregard, also left the army he had commanded; but it was in disgrace. His army being once established at Tupelo, he had gone to rest himself at Bladen Springs, leaving Bragg temporarily in command, when Jefferson Davis availed himself of his absence to depose him. The actions of this general did not certainly correspond with the arrogant assumptions contained

1 Report of the Committee on the Conduct of War, Supplement, vol. II., p. 76.

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