ue the wrecked trains there, to
reconnoitre westward and estimate the amount of damage to the
railroad as far as Grand Junction, about fifty miles. We camped
our troops on high, healthy ground to the south of Chewalla, and
after I had personally reconnoitred the country, details of men
were made and volunteer locomotive engineers obtained to
superintend the repairs. I found six locomotives and about sixty
cars, thrown from the track, parts of the machinery detached and
hidden in the surrounding swamp, and all damaged as much by fire as
possible. It seems that these trains were inside of Corinth during
the night of evacuation, loading up with all sorts of commissary
stores, etc., and about daylight were started west; but the
cavalry-picket stationed at the Tuscumbia bridge had, by mistake or
panic, burned the bridge before the trains got to them. The
trains, therefore, were caught, and the engineers and guards
hastily scattered the stores into the swamp, and disabled the
trains as far as they could, before our cavalry had discovered
their critical situation. The weather was hot, and the swamp
fairly stunk with the putrid flour and fermenting sugar and
molasses; I was so much exposed there in the hot sun, pushing
forward the work, that I got a touch of malarial fever, which hung
on me for a month, and forced me to ride two days in an ambulance,
the only time I ever did such a thing during the whole war. By the
7th I reported to General Halleck that the amount of work necessary
to reestablish the railroad between Corinth and Grand Junction was
so great, that he concluded not to attempt its repair, but to rely
on the road back to Jackson (Tennessee), and forward to Grand
Junction; and I was ordered to move to Grand Junction, to take up
the repairs from there toward Memphis.

The evacuation of Corinth by Beauregard, and the movements of
General McClernand's force toward Memphis, had necessitated the
evacuation of Fort Pillow, which occurred about June 1st; soon
followed by the further withdrawal of the Confederate army from
Memphis, by reason of the destruction of the rebel gunboats in the
bold and dashing attack by our gun-boats under command of Admiral
Davis, who had succeeded Foote. This occurred June 7th. Admiral
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