Farragut had also captured New Orleans after the terrible passage
of Forts Jackson and St. Philip on May 24th, and had ascended the
river as high as Vicksburg; so that it seemed as though, before the
end of June, we should surely have full possession of the whole
river. But it is now known that the progress of our Western armies
had aroused the rebel government to the exercise of the most
stupendous energy. Every man capable of bearing arms at the South
was declared to be a soldier, and forced to act as such. All their
armies were greatly reenforced, and the most despotic power was
granted to enforce discipline and supplies. Beauregard was
replaced by Bragg, a man of more ability--of greater powers of
organization, of action, and discipline--but naturally exacting and
severe, and not possessing the qualities to attract the love of his
officers and men. He had a hard task to bring into order and
discipline that mass of men to whose command he succeeded at
Tupelo, with which he afterward fairly outmanoeuvred General Buell,
and forced him back from Chattanooga to Louisville. It was a fatal
mistake, however, that halted General Halleck at Corinth, and led
him to disperse and scatter the best materials for a fighting army
that, up to that date, had been assembled in the West.

During the latter part of June and first half of July, I had my own
and Hurlbut's divisions about Grand Junction, Lagrange, Moscow, and
Lafayette, building railroad-trestles and bridges, fighting off
cavalry detachments coming from the south, and waging an
everlasting quarrel with planters about their negroes and fences
--they trying, in the midst of moving armies, to raise a crop of
corn. On the 17th of June I sent a detachment of two brigades,
under General M. L. Smith, to Holly Springs, in the belief that I
could better protect the railroad from some point in front than
by scattering our men along it; and, on the 23d, I was at
Lafayette Station, when General Grant, with his staff and a very
insignificant escort, arrived from Corinth en route for Memphis, to
take command of that place and of the District of West Tennessee.
He came very near falling into the hands of the enemy, who infested
the whole country with small but bold detachments of cavalry. Up
to that time I had received my orders direct from General Halleck
at Corinth, but soon after I fell under the immediate command of
General Grant and so continued to the end of the war; but,