Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

[179]

Chapter 7: military operations in Missouri, New Mexico, and Eastern Kentucky--capture of Fort Henry.

• Position of the armies in the Mississippi Valley
-- General Halleck in command of the Department of Missouri, 179. -- his rigorous treatment of influential secessionists, 180. -- fugitive slaves excluded from military camps -- Pope in Missouri -- Price's appeal to the Missourians, 181. -- activity of the Confederates -- battle on the Blackwater, 182. -- Halleck declares martial law in St. Louis -- Price driven out of Missouri, 183. -- Hunter's operations in Kansas, 184 -- treason in New Mexico, 185. -- loyalty and disloyalty within its borders -- General Canby and Colonel Sibley, 186. -- battle of Valverde -- Texas Rangers, 187. -- Sibley's victories in, and final expulsion from New Mexico, 188. -- Albert Sidney Johnston in the West -- a Provisional Government in Kentucky, 189. -- War in Southern Kentucky, 190. -- battle of Prestonburg, 191. -- forces of Generals Buell and Zollicoffer in Kentucky, 192. -- military movements in Eastern Kentucky -- the Confederates on the Cumberland, 193. -- battle of Mill Spring, 194. -- its results -- death of Zollicoffer, 195. -- Beauregard sent to the West, 196. -- the Confederates in Kentucky and Tennessee, 197. -- their fortifications in those States -- a naval armament in preparation at St. Louis, 198. -- Foote's flotilla -- preparations to break the Confederate line, 199. -- Thomas's movements toward East Tennessee, 200. -- expedition against Fort Henry, 201. -- operations of gun -- boats on the Tennessee River -- torpedoes, 202. -- attack on Fort Henry, 203. -- capture of the post -- scene just before the surrender, 204. -- effects of the fall of Fort Henry, 205.

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Foward the close of the autumn of 1861, the attitude of the contending parties, civil and military, in the great basin of the central Mississippi Valley was exceedingly interesting. We left the National army in Southern Missouri, at the middle of November, dispirited by the removal of their favorite leader, slowly making their way toward St. Louis under their temporary commander, General Hunter, while the energetic Confederate leader, General Price, was advancing, and reoccupying the region which the Nationals abandoned.¹ We left Southern Kentucky, from the mountains to the Mississippi River, in possession of the Confederates. Polk was holding the western portion, with his Headquarters at Columbus; General Buckner, with a strongly intrenched camp at Bowling Green, was holding the center; and Generals Zollicoffer and Marshall and others were keeping watch and ward on its mountain flanks. Back of these, and between them and the region where the rebellion had no serious opposition, was Tennessee, firmly held by the Confederates, excepting in its mountain region, where the most determined loyalty still prevailed.

On the 9th of November, 1861, General Henry Wager Halleck, who had been called from California by the President to take an active part in the war, was appointed to the command of the new Department of Missouri.² He had arrived in Washington on the 5th,

Nov., 1861.

and on the 19th took the command, with Brigadier-General George W. Cullum, an eminent engineer officer, as his chief of staff, and Brigadier-General Schuyler Hamilton as assistant chief. Both officers had been on the staff of General Scott. The Headquarters were at St. Louis. General Hunter, whom Halleck superseded, was assigned to the command of the Department of Kansas.³ General Don Carlos Buell had superseded General Sherman, and was appointed commander of the Department of the Ohio;⁴ and the Department of Mexico, which included only the territory of New Mexico, was intrusted to Colonel E. R. S. Canby. Such was the arrangement of the military divisions of the territory westward of the Alleghanies late in 1861.