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

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McClernand's reserve corps, employed in keeping open communication with the Tennessee River, was now broken up, and General Wallace was sent to preserve and protect the Memphis and Ohio railway between Hum-bolt and the City of Memphis. He made his Headquarters at the latter place; and very soon afterward Halleck was called to Washington, to occupy the important position of General-in-Chief of all the armies of the Republic in the place of McClellan, leaving General Thomas at Corinth, and General Grant again in command of his old army, and with enlarged powers.

We have just observed that Wallace made his Headquarters in Memphis. How came that city, one of the Confederate strongholds, and most important posts, to be in possession of the Nationals? Let us see.

We left Commodore Foote and his fleet, after the capture of Island Number10, ready, at New Madrid,¹ for an advance down the Mississippi River. This was soon begun, with General Pope's army on transports. Memphis was the main object of the expedition; but above it were several formidable fortifications to be passed.² The first of these that was encountered was Fort Wright (then named Fort Pillow), on the first Chickasaw bluff, about eighty miles above Memphis, and then in command of General Villepigue, a creole of New Orleans, who was educated at West Point as an engineer. He was regarded as second only to Beauregard. His fort was a very strong one, and the entire works occupied a line of seven miles in circumference. There Memphis was to be defended from invasion by the river from above. Jeff. Thompson was there, with about three thousand troops, and Hollins had collected there a considerable flotilla of gun-boats.

The siege of Fort Pillow was begun by Foote with his mortar-boats on the 14th of April, and he soon drove Hollins to shelter below the fort. General Pope, whose troops had landed on the Arkansas shore, was unable to co-operate, because the country was overflowed; and, being soon called by Halleck to Shiloh, Foote was left to prosecute the work alone. Finally, on the 9th of May, the painfulness of his ankle, because of the wound received at Fort Donelson, compelled him to leave duty, and he was succeeded in command by Captain C. H. Davis, whose important services with Dupont at Port Royal we have already observed.³

Hollins, meanwhile, had reformed his flotilla, and early in the morning of the 10th

May, 1862.

he swept around Point Craighead, on the Arkansas shore, with armored steamers. Several of them were fitted with strong bows, plated with iron, for pushing, and were called “rams.” Davis's vessels were then tied up at the river banks, three on the eastern and four on the western side of the stream.

Hollins's largest gun-boat (McRea), finished with a sharp iron prow, started for the mortar-boat No. 16, when its commander, Acting-master Gregory, made a gallant fight, firing his single mortar no less than eleven times.⁴ The gun-boats Cincinnati and Mound City, lying not far off, came