it, greeted everywhere by the most vociferous cheering, to take
their positions on the right. Their arrival brought the strength of the
army up to more than a hundred thousand men, and, somewhat to their
surprise, they were introduced to their new comrades as "Invincibles."
At any rate that was what General Bragg called them in an address which
he issued to his soldiers a few days afterward:

"The slight reverses we have met on the sea-board have worked us good as
well as evil," was what he said in the vain hope of blinding his troops
to the real magnitude of the disaster that had recently befallen the
Confederacy. "The brave troops so long retained there have hastened to
swell your numbers, while the gallant Van Dorn and invincible Price,
with the ever-successful Army of the West, are now in your midst, with
numbers almost equaling the Army of Shiloh."

The "slight reverses" to which the general so gingerly referred were the
passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip by Farragut's fleet, the
annihilation of the Confederate gunboats and the capture of New Orleans;
and these "slight reverses" were almost immediately followed by the
defeat of the gunboats that had been building at Memphis, and of which
the Confederates expected such great things. But the rank and file of
the army were not so easily deceived. They knew well enough that the
accounts that came to them through the papers were "doctored" on purpose
for them, and were fully sensible of the fact that the loss of these
important points, Memphis and New Orleans, were disasters most
discouraging. When they were in the presence of those to whom they knew
they could speak freely, they sneered at the efforts made by their
superiors to belittle the Union victories, and laughed to scorn Mayor
Monroe and the "city fathers" for the attitude they had seen fit to
assume while Farragut's powerful fleet held the Crescent city under its
guns. If the pompous little mayor, by folding his arms and standing in
front of that loaded howitzer when the marines came ashore to hoist the
Stars and Stripes over the Custom House, desired to show the people of
New Orleans and the country at large what a brave man he was, he failed
of his object, for the men who had faced cannon on the field of battle
had nothing but contempt for him and his antics.

"He has made himself a laughing-stock for all time to come," was what
Rodney Gray thought about it. "That was all done for effect, for there
wa