Life of Wm. Tecumseh Sherman. / Late Retired General. U. S. A.

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

"Finding Corinth abandoned by the enemy, I ordered General M. L. Smith to pursue on the Ripley road, by which it appeared they had taken the bulk of their artillery.

"Captain Hammond, my chief of staff, had been and continued with General Smith's Brigade, and pushed the pursuit up to the bridges and narrow causeway by which the bottom of Tuscumbia Creek is passed. The enemy opened with canister on the small party of cavalry, and burned every bridge, leaving the woods full of straggling soldiers. Many of these were gathered up and sent to the rear, but the main army had escaped across Tuscumbia Creek, and further pursuit by a small party would have been absurd, and I kept my division at College Hill until I received General Thomas's orders to return and resume our camps of the night before, which we did, slowly and quietly, in the cool of the evening.

"The evacuation of Corinth at the time and in the manner in which it was done, was a clear back-down from the high and arrogant tone heretofore assumed by the Rebels. The ground was of their own choice. The fortifications, though poor and indifferent, were all they supposed necessary to our defeat, as they had had two months to make them, with an immense force to work at their disposal.

"If, with two such railroads as they possessed, they could not supply their army with reinforcements and provisions, how can they attempt it in this poor, arid and exhausted part of the country?

"I have experienced much difficulty in giving an intelligent account of the events of the past three days, because of the many little events, unimportant in themselves, but which in the aggregate form material data to account for results.

"My division has constructed seven distinct intrenched camps since leaving Shiloh, the men working cheerfully and well all the time night and day. Hardly had we finished one camp before we were called on to move forward and build another. But I have been delighted at this feature in the character of my division, and take this method of making it known. Our intrenchments here and at Russell's, each built substantially in one night, are stronger works of art than the much boasted forts of the enemy at Corinth.

"I must, also, in justice to my men, remark their great improvement on the march—the absence of that straggling which is too common in the volunteer service; and still more, their improved character on picket and as skirmishers. Our line of march has been along a strongly marked ridge, followed by the Purdy and Corinth road, and ever since leaving the 'Locusts' our pickets have been fighting. Hardly an hour, night or day, for two weeks, without the exchange of hostile shots. But we have steadily and surely gained ground—slowly, to be sure, but with that steady certainty which presaged the inevitable result. In these picket skirmishes we have inflicted and sustained losses, but it is impossible for me to recapitulate them.

"These must be accounted for on the company muster-rolls. We have taken many prisoners, which have been sent to the Provost-Marshal General; and with this report I will send some forty or fifty picked up in the course of the past two days. Indeed, I think if disarmed, very many of these prisoners would never give trouble again; whilst, on the other hand, the real Secessionists seem more bitter than ever."

Sherman also issued a congratulatory address to his soldiers, in which he indulged in some expressions that must now appear rather extravagant, such as his characterization of the capture of Corinth as "a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in history."

"But a few days ago," he said, "a large and powerful Rebel army lay at Corinth, with outposts extending to our very camp at Shiloh. They held two railroads extending north and south, east and west, across the whole extent of their country, with a vast number of locomotives and cars to bring to them speedily and certainly their reinforcements and supplies. They called to their aid all their armies from every quarter, abandoning the seacoast and the great river Mississippi, that they might overwhelm us with numbers in the place of their own choosing. They had their chosen leaders, men of high reputation and courage, and they dared us to leave the cover of our iron-clad gunboats to come to fight them in their trenches, and still more dangerous swamps and ambuscades of their Southern forests. Their whole country, from Richmond to Memphis and Nashville to Mobile, rung with their taunts and boastings, as to how they would immolate the Yankees if they dared to leave the Tennessee River. They boldly and defiantly challenged us to meet them at Corinth. We accepted the challenge, and came slowly and without attempt at concealment to the very ground of their selection; and they have fled away. We yesterday marched unopposed through the burning embers of their destroyed camps and property, and pursued them to their swamps, until burning bridges plainly confessed they had fled, and not marched away for better ground. It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in history, and every officer and soldier who lent his aid has just reason to be proud of his part.