National Rule in the Southwest

THE Lower Mississippi, from its mouth to New Orleans, was in the possession of the National military and naval force under General Butler and Commodore Farragut, at the beginning of the summer of 1862. So, also, was the same river, from Memphis to St. Louis, controlled by the Government troops and vessels; while the National forces held sway over southern Tennessee, and northern Alabama and Mississippi.

Although the great armies of the Confederates had been driven from Kentucky and Tennessee, the absence of any considerable Union force excepting on the southern border of the latter State, permitted a most distressing guerrilla warfare to be carried on within the borders of those commonwealths by mounted bands, who, with gallant leaders, hovered upon the rear and flanks of the National forces, or roamed at will over the whole country, plundering the Union inhabitants. One of their leaders was John Morgan, a bold Alabamian, at the head of dashing mounted men, who appeared in Kentucky, and raiding through that State prepared the way for the advance of an invading army from Chattanooga, led by General Braxton Bragg. Another mounted force, led by N. B. Forrest, was sweeping over a portion of Tennessee for the same purpose at the same time; and at the middle of July he threatened the Union post at Nashville, then in command of General Negley. In the meantime, General Bragg was pushing toward Kentucky by a route eastward of Nashville, while General Buell was moving in the same direction, on a parallel line, to foil the invaders.

General E. Kirby Smith, a native of Connecticut, leading the van of Bragg's army, entered Kentucky from East Tennessee, and pushed on rapidly to Lexington, fighting and defeating a National force, on the 30th of August, under General M.D. Manson, near Richmond in that State. The Secessionists of Kentucky warmly welcomed the invaders, and swelled their ranks at every step. The alarmed Legislature of Kentucky, sitting at Frankfort, fled to Louisville, while Smith pressed vigorously on in the direction of the Ohio River, with the intention of capturing and plundering Cincinnati. He was unexpectedly confronted on the southern side of the Ohio by strong fortifications and a considerable National force under the energetic General Lewis Wallace, who had proclaimed martial-law in Cincinnati, Covington and Newport, and in a stirring proclamation, demanded the instant co-operation of the people. "Citizens for the labor--soldiers for the battle," was the principle announced. The response was wonderful. In the course of a few hours he had at his command an army of workers and fighters forty thousand strong. The invader recoiled; and falling back to the Kentucky State capital (Frankfort), seized it, and there awaited the arrival of Bragg, who crossed the Cumberland River and entered Kentucky on the 5th of September, with forty regiments and forty cannon.

Bragg's advance, eight thousand strong, under General J.R. Chalmers, encountered a National force under Colonel T.J. Wilder, at Mumfordsville, on the 14th of September. It was on the line of the Nashville and Louisville Railway. A battle began at dawn and lasted about five hours, when the Confederates were repulsed; but two days afterward a stronger force under General (Bishop) Polk fell upon Wilder, and after a severe struggle he was compelled to yield to vastly superior numbers. Bragg was elated by this success, and joining Smith, at Frankfort, he prepared to make a supposed easy march to Louisville, his destination. His army then numbered about sixty-five thousand effective men, and the movements of Buell seemed too tardy to promise serious impediments. Bragg was mistaken. Buell, who had kept abreast of Bragg, suddenly turned upon him with about sixty thousand men, and near the little town of Perryville, in Boyle county, they had a fierce combat on the 8th of October. In that battle the Nationals lost about four thousand three hundred and fifty men; but the invaders were so roughly handled that they fled in haste, that night, toward East Tennessee, followed by their marauding bands, who had plundered the inhabitants in every direction. They started in their retreat with a wagontrain of stolen property, forty miles in length, but were compelled to leave a large portion of it behind. The whole expedition seems to have had no higher aims than that of a plundering raid. It proved disastrous to Bragg's army, and would have caused its total ruin if that army had been vigorously pursued. Soon afterward, General Rosecrans, who had won substantial victories in northern Missippi, succeeded Buell in the command of the Army of the Ohio, and its name was changed to that of the Army of the Cumberland.

While General Bragg was plundering the Kentuckians, bands of Confederates were raiding through western Tennessee to draw attention from the invaders; and the army in northern Mississippi, now led by General Beauregard, had advanced toward Tennessee under Generals Van Dorn and Price. General Rosecrans was then in command of the Army of the Mississippi, charged with the duty of holding the region lately repossessed by the Nationals in consequence of the evacuation of Corinth and the valor of Mitchel.