Clifton M. Life . '.i ham Lincoln. - University Library

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CHAPTER XXIY.
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1862.
AT the opening of 1862 the Union army was 450,000 strong. Edwin M.
Stanton succeeded Simon Cameron as secretary of war, having been called
into the Cabinet by the same " long, lank " individual whom he had affected so to
despise many years before at the trial of the famous "reaper case." General
McClellan was organizing the Army of the Potomac in the vicinity of Washington,
while General Don Carlos Buell commanded a strong force at Louisville,
Kentucky.
Colonel James A. Garfield (the future president of the United States, who was
to die as did Mr. Lincoln, by the bullet of an assassin) defeated a force of Confederates
on January 9th, on the Big Sandy river, in Kentucky. Ten days later,
at Mill Spring, General George H. Thomas, afterward one of the greatest of
Union generals, defeated Crittenden and Zollicoffer in the same neighborhood,
and Zollicoffer was killed.
Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, in Kentucky, and Fort Donelson, in
Tennessee, on the Cumberland, had been erected and operated by the Confederates.
Commodore Foote was sent up the Tennessee with a flotilla, and compelled
the evacuation of Fort Henry, the rebels retiring, with some loss, to
Donelson. The gunboats were then ordered to Donelson. Ulysses S. Grant, of
Illinois, who had been with Foote at Fort Henry, now advanced to Fort Donelson
and began to besiege it. Grant had 30,000 men, and after two days' fighting,
forced General Buckner to an "unconditional and immediate surrender."
Buckner's army of ten thousand men were made prisoners of war, and valuable
stores of ammunition, guns and supplies were taken.
There was universal rejoicing throughout the North over this great victory.
As a consequence of the capture of Donelson, Governor Harris, of Tennessee,
gathered up his archives and evacuated Nashville.
Grant ascended the Tennessee to Pittsburg Landing, where the memorable
battle of Shiloh was fought. He was there attacked on the morning of March 6th,
There was hard
by Albert Sidney Johnston and Beauregard, with a large force.
fighting during the day, with the advantage apparently in favor of the rebels,
but at night Buell arrived with a large number of troops from Nashville, and
Grant assumed the offensive. Johnston had already fallen, and on the second
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