A FLANK MOVEMENT.

325

yond the woods-and swept out of sight down the enemy's left flank. In the mean time, Colonel Down kept the artillery in front in full play, to distract the attention of Jackson from this important movement.

The columns kept silently on through the woods for about half a mile, when they wheeled, and came suddenly on the enemy's flank, posted behind a stone wall, only two hundred yards distant. The rebels immediately opened on them with a terrible fire from their rifled pieces. The ranks began to melt like frost-work before it, but "Forward! FORWARD!" ran along the unfaltering line, and the brave fellows, with leaning forms, and without firing a shot, dashed forward with tremendous cheers, till they came within five paces of the stone wall, when they poured one fearful volley into the closely packed ranks behind it. The enemy, appalled at the close, destructive fire, and the faces of wrath and determination that confronted them so closely, turned back over the field. As they did so, they unmasked two iron six-pounders which, as soon as they were cleared in front, opened with canister, and hurled death and destruction into our ranks. They did not stop, however, for a single instant the living mass of valor, and it rolled over them like a resistless wave. Here the victorious regiments came to a halt, when two more brass pieces were unmasked, which sent such a shower of balls into their midst that they were compelled to fall back. But just then the fifth Ohio and eighty-fourth Pennsylvania came up, and threw themselves forward with fixed bayonets. It was a splendid charge, but the loss of life here in a few minutes was fearful. The color bearer of the Ohio regiment fell, when a second seized the flag and waved it aloft. The next moment he fell also, when a third picked it up, but had hardly lifted it from the ground when he fell forward with his face to the foe. A fourth shared the same fate, when Captain Whitcomb seized the colors, and waving

them in front of his men, cheered them on, but fell while the brave words were still on his lips. The carnage was awful. Colonel Murray of the eighty-fourth Pennsylvania was shot at the head of his regiment, and many other brave officers fell, either killed or wounded. In the midst of the fire, Captain Schriber hurried back and brought up the one hundred and tenth and the fourteenth Indiana regiments, and hurled them obliquely on the enemy, when they fell back, leaving one gun and several caissons in our hands.

In the mean time, as soon as the rebel flank was turned, a general advance was ordered along the whole line, and the hotly contested field was won. Two guns, four caissons, a thousand stand of arms, and three hundred prisoners, were the trophies of the victory.

Our loss in killed and wounded was about three hundred and fifty, while that of the enemy, Shields reported to be, over a thousand.

A courier had been dispatched after Banks, and he arrived on the field next morning. A vigorous pursuit was immediately ordered, but he failed to overtake Jackson's main force, though he harassed his rear as far as Woodstock, where the troops were halted from mere exhaustion. For twenty-two miles beyond the battle field, he found the houses filled with the dead and dying, while along the road were strewed evidences of the the terror and sufferings of the enemy.

Among the minor incidents of this month was the taking of Pound Gap, in eastern Tennessee, by General Garfield, in one of his brilliant dashes, and the escape of the Nashville from Beaufort, in the face of our blockading squadron, much to the chagrin of the nation.

Perhaps, however, nothing occurred this month that caused more comment at home and abroad, than the transmission, in the early part of it, of a message to Congress by

EMANCIPATION MESSAGE.

327

the President, recommending a joint resolution "that the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary aid" as a compensation for its loss. The difficulty was, to see the precise object the President proposed to gain by a mere resolution at this time.

CHAPTER XXV.

APRIL, 1862.

ISLAND NUMBER TEN-CHANNEL CUT AROUND IT BY COLONEL BISSELL-DIFFICULTIES OF THE UNDERTAKING-TRANSPORTS GOT THROUGH-BUFORD'S ATTACK ON UNION CITY-COLONEL ROBERTS SPIKES THE UPPER BATTERY OF THE ISLAND-A DARING EXPLOIT-THE CARONDELET RUNS THE BATTERIES IN A TERRIFIC THUNDER STORM-THE PITTSBURGH FOLLOWS-POPE MOVES HIS ARMY ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI AND CAPTURES THE ENEMY-ISLAND NUMBER TEN SURRENDERED WITH ALL ITS ARMAMENT.

HE first of April brought dim intimations of some new, strange movement on the part of the army of the Potomac; but the excited public curiosity was withdrawn for a moment from it, by stirring news that came from the west. The tedious bombardment of Island Number Ten had been kept up for so long a time, that the public began to be weary of hearing the place mentioned, for we seemed no nearer its possession than when the fleet of Foote first appeared before it. If transports could only be got to Pope, below, the work would be accomplished, and the following plan to do this was adopted. A slough of standing water struck inland through the swamp from the Mississippi, where the fleet lay, and at length joined a stream which emptied into the river below the island, and near New Madrid. If Foote could only get some light draft transports through this, he could run the batteries with some of his gun boats for their protection. Pope, with his accustomed resolution, determined to accomplish this with his corps of engineers under Colonel Bissell. When he first took position at New Madrid, he had sent this accomplished officer to see if he could not establish batteries on the shore opposite the enemy's works,