and hope; but fortunately the President's favorable opinion secured the trial of the experiment. The work was zealously pushed, and the artisans actually went to sea with the craft in order to finish her as she made her voyage southward. It was well that such haste was made, for she came into Hampton Roads actually by the light of the burning Congress. On the next day, being Sunday, March 9, the Southern monster again steamed forth, intending this time to make the Minnesota her prey; but a little boat, that looked like a "cheese-box" afloat, pushed forward to interfere with this plan. Then occurred a duel which, in the annals of naval science, ranks as the most important engagement which ever took place. It did not actually result in the destruction of the Merrimac then and there, for, though much battered, she was able to make her way back to the friendly shelter of the Norfolk yard. But she was more than neutralized; it was evident that the Monitor was the better craft of the two, and that in a combat à outrance she would win. The significance of this day's work on the waters of Virginia cannot be exaggerated. By the armor-clad Merrimac and the Monitor there was accomplished in the course of an hour a revolution which differentiated the naval warfare of the past from that of the future by a chasm as great as that which separated the ancient Greek trireme from the flagship of Lord Nelson.
As early as the middle of November, 1861, Mr.
Lincoln was discussing the feasibility of capturing New Orleans. Already Ship Island, off the Mississippi coast, with its uncompleted equipment, had been seized as a Gulf station, and could be used as a base. The naval force was prepared as rapidly as possible, but it was not until February 3 that Captain Farragut, the commander of the expedition, steamed out of Hampton Roads in his flagship, the screw steam sloop Hartford. On April 18 he began to bombard forts St. Philip and Jackson, which lie on the river banks seventy-five miles below New Orleans, guarding the approach. Soon, becoming impatient of this tardy process, he resolved upon the bold and original enterprise of running by the forts. This he achieved in the night of April 24; and on April 27 the stars and stripes floated over the Mint in New Orleans. Still two days of shilly-shallying on the part of the mayor ensued, delaying a formal surrender, until Farragut, who had no fancy for nonsense, sharply put a stop to it, and New Orleans, in form and substance, passed under Northern control. On April 28 the two forts, isolated by what had taken place, surrendered. On May 1 General Butler began in the city that efficient régime which so exasperated the men of the South. On May 7 Baton Rouge, the state capital, was occupied, without resistance; and Natchez followed in the procession on May 12.
With one Union fleet at the mouth of the Mississippi and another at Island No. 10, and the
Union army not far from the riverside in Kentucky and Tennessee, the opening and repossession of the whole stream by the Federals became a thing which ought soon to be achieved. On June 5 the gunboat fleet from up the river came down to within two miles of Memphis, engaged in a hard fight and won a complete victory, and on the next day Memphis was held by the Union troops. Farragut also, working in his usual style, forced his way up to Vicksburg, and exchanged shots with the Confederate batteries on the bluffs. He found, however, that without the coöperation of a land force he could do nothing, and had to drop back again to New Orleans, arriving there on June 1. In a few weeks he returned in stronger force, and on June 27 he was bombarding the rebel works. On June 28, repeating the operation which had been so successful below New Orleans, he ran some of his vessels by the batteries and got above the city. But there was still no army on the land, and so the vessels which had run by, up stream, had to make the dangerous gauntlet again, down stream, and a second time the fleet descended to New Orleans.
General Halleck had arrived at St. Louis on November 18, 1861, to take command of the Western Department. Perhaps a more energetic commander would have been found ready to coöperate with Farragut at Vicksburg by the end of June, 1862; for matters had been going excellently with the Unionists northeast of that place, and it would
seem that a powerful and victorious army might have been moving thither during that month. Early in March, however, General Halleck reported that Grant's army was as much demoralized by victory as the army at Bull Run had been by defeat. He said that Grant "richly deserved" censure, and that he himself was worn out by Grant's neglect and inefficiency. By such charges he obtained from McClellan orders relieving General Grant from duty, ordering an investigation, and even authorizing his arrest. But a few days later, March 13, more correct information caused the reversal of these orders, and March 17 found Grant again in command. He at once began to busy himself with arrangements for moving upon Corinth. General Buell meanwhile, after sustaining McClellan's rebuke and being taught his place, had afterward been successful in obtaining for his own plan preference over that of the administration, had easily possessed himself of Nashville toward the end of February, and was now ready to march westward and coöperate with General Grant in this enterprise. Corinth, lying just across the Mississippi border, was "the great strategic position" at this part of the West. The Mobile and Ohio Railroad ran through it north and south; the Memphis and Charleston Railroad passed through east and west. If it could be taken and held, it would leave, as the only connection open through the Confederacy from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic coast, the railroad line which started from