On the morning of the sixth, Commander Walke, taking on board General Granger, Colonel Smith, of the Forty-third Ohio, and Captain L.H. Marshall, of General Pope's staff, steamed down the river under a heavy fire from the batteries that lined the Tennessee shore, ascertained the position of the batteries, and, on the return silenced the batteries opposite Point Pleasant. Captain Marshall landed with a party and spiked the guns. In the night of the 6th, Commodore Foote, in compliance with General Pope's earnest request, sent the gunboat Pittsburg down to New Madrid, where it arrived, like the Carondelet, untouched.
At the break of day of the 7th, in a heavy rain, Captain Williams, of the First United States Infantry, opened with his thirty-two pounders upon the batteries opposite him at Watson's Landing, where General Pope proposed to land his troops. Commander Walke, with the two gunboats, silenced the batteries along the shore. Three sixty-four pound guns, standing half a mile apart, were spiked. A battery of two sixty-four pound howitzers and one sixty-four pound gun maintained a contest till two of the pieces were dismounted and the other disabled. The four steamers came out of the bayou and took on board Paine's division. At noon, Commander Walke signalled that all the batteries to Watson's Landing were silenced and the way was clear. A spy in the employment of General Pope, who had been taken from the Tennessee shore by Commander Walke and forwarded by him to General Pope, brought the news that the forces about Madrid Bend were in full retreat to Tiptonville. Paine's division, sailing by just at that time, was signalled to stop, and the news was communicated, with orders to land and push in pursuit to Tiptonville with all dispatch. Colonel Morgan's brigade moved in advance, followed by Colonel Cumming's brigade and Houghtaling's battery. Abandoned camps and artillery were passed; prisoners were gathered up. A detachment of cavalry fled as the column came in sight. About nine miles from the landing, General Mackall was found well posted, with infantry, artillery, and cavalry. The leading regiment deployed in line, and General Mackall retired. Twice again he halted in line as if to make a stand, and retreated as the National troops approached. At night Morgan's brigade halted at Tiptonville, and found shelter from the rain in an abandoned camp. The pickets of the brigade gathered in 359 prisoners in the night. Cumming's brigade, being ordered to explore the road coming from the north into the one over which they were moving, came upon the river shore opposite the island, and learned from a few prisoners taken there that but few troops were left on the island. Finding no boats or other means of getting over to the island, Cumming returned to the south, and marched till he came near the camp-fires of the enemy, and then went into bivouac and advised General Paine of his position. General Mackall found himself hemmed in to the south and east by swamp, and to the north and west by Paine's division. Two hours after midnight his adjutant-general took to General Paine General Mackall's unconditional surrender.
Stanley's division followed Paine's, and was followed by Hamilton's. These were overtaken by night and went into bivouac about half way between the crossing and Tiptonville, and learned of the surrender next morning while on the way to join Paine. Colonel Elliott, of the Second Iowa Cavalry, sent with two of his companies by General Pope at dawn of the 8th from Watson's up the river-bank, captured two hundred prisoners, deck-hands and laborers as well as soldiers, the wharf-boat and steamers, great quantities of ordnance and other stores, and standing camps. Turning these over to Colonel Buford, who commanded the land forces on the fleet, and who came over to shore from the island on a steamer, he joined the forces at Tiptonville.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cook, commanding the Twelfth Arkansas, was appointed commandant of the island by General Mackall on the morning of the 7th. Lieutenant-Colonel Cook received, simultaneously with the order, information of Mackall's retreat, and General Pope's landing and pursuit. In the evening he abandoned the island with his regiment, and turned over the command of the island to Captain Humes, of the artillery. Before daylight of the 8th, Commodore Foote was visited by two officers from the island, who tendered a surrender of it and all on it. A gunboat was sent to ascertain the state of affairs. Having learned three hours later of the crossing of the river by Pope, the flight of General Mackall, and the evacuation of the shore-batteries, he sent Colonel Buford, with a force of two gunboats, to receive possession of the island. Seventeen officers and three hundred and sixty-eight privates surrendered to him, besides the two hundred sick and employees turned over to him by Colonel Elliott. Lieutenant-Colonel Cook found his way through the swamp, on the night of the 7th, to the ferry across Reelfoot Lake. In the course of the night he was joined by about four hundred fugitives, mostly belonging to his own regiment, many of them just from the hospital. Hungry, and cold, and drenched with rain, they stood in the water waiting till they could be carried over the lake, through the cypress trees, in two small flatboats and on some extemporized rafts. It was noon of the 9th before the forlorn band were all over, and, without knapsacks or blankets, many without arms, began their weary march for Memphis.
All the troops but Cumming's brigade returned to their camps on the Missouri shore on the 8th. Colonel Cumming, having charge of the prisoners, returned on the evening of the 9th. General Pope, in his final detailed report giving the result of all the operations, states: "Three generals, two hundred and seventy-three field and company officers, six thousand seven hundred privates, one hundred and twenty-three pieces of heavy artillery, thirty-five pieces of field artillery, all of the very best character and of the latest patterns, seven thousand stand of small arms, tents for twelve thousand men, several wharf-boat loads of provisions, an immense quantity of ammunition of all kinds, many hundred horses and mules, with wagons and harness, etc., are among the spoils." The capture embraced, besides, six steamboats—two of them sunk—the gunboat Grampus, carrying two guns, sunk; and the floating battery, carrying nine guns, which the crew had ineffectually attempted to scuttle before abandoning it. Two of the generals captured were brigadier-generals, Mackall and Gantt; the third was perhaps L.M. Walker. When Major-General McCown was relieved on March 31st by Mackall, McCown and Brigadier-General Trudeau left. Brigadier-General A.P. Stewart had left previously and reported for duty at Corinth. Colonels Walker and Gantt were promoted brigadier-generals after the siege began. General Walker appears, from his report of April 9th, dated St. Francis County, Arkansas, to have left on account of ill-health some time before the surrender. The prisoners embraced, including those on the island surrendered to the navy, seven regiments and one battalion of infantry, one of the regiments having twelve companies—eleven companies of heavy and one of light artillery, two companies of cavalry, the officers and crews of the floating battery and the steamboats, and laborers and employees.
The Mississippi was now open to Fort Pillow. General Halleck telegraphed to General Pope: "I congratulate you and your command on your splendid achievement. It exceeds in boldness and brilliancy all other operations of the war. It will be memorable in military history, and will be admired by future generations." On April 12th, General Pope and his entire command embarked on transports and steamed down the river, in company with the gunboat fleet. The force arrived in front of Fort Pillow on the 14th. In a few days, before reconnoitring was completed, Pope was ordered to report with his whole command, except two regiments to be left with the gunboats, to General Halleck at Pittsburg Landing.
CHAPTER V.
THE GATHERING OF THE FORCES.
After the surrender of Fort Donelson, the force confronting Halleck was the command of General Beauregard, stationed at Columbus, Island Number Ten, at Forts Pillow and Randolph, at Memphis, and at convenient points on the railroads in Mississippi. The next objective point that presented itself was Memphis, and, as preliminary, the fortified points on the river above it. But Memphis had large railway connections. The direct road to Nashville was cut at its crossing over the Tennessee River, but at Humboldt it intersected the Mobile and Ohio, which joined Columbus with Mobile. The Memphis and Charleston, running nearly due east to Chattanooga, also intersected the Mobile and Ohio at Corinth. The Mississippi and Tennessee, in connection with the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern, gave a route nearly due south to New Orleans, and this intersected at Jackson, Mississippi, another road running east, and which needed only a connecting link between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, to make it also a through route to the Atlantic States. To destroy the junction at Humboldt would cut off railway connection with Columbus. To destroy the junction at Corinth would cut off connection with the east. A little eastwardly of Corinth, near Eastport, was a considerable railroad bridge over Bear Creek. General Halleck's first step, therefore, was to break these railway connections, and as General A.S. Johnston was falling back southwardly, it became doubly important to sever these connections for the purpose of preventing a conjunction of the forces under Johnston and Beauregard. Lieutenant-Commander Phelps had gone up to Florence, at the foot of Muscle Shoals, immediately after the surrender of Fort Henry, without difficulty. An expedition up the Tennessee, to send out strong, light parties, suggested itself as the natural means of accomplishing the first step. General Halleck proposed to accomplish this by his lieutenants before taking the field in person.