This river wing was now depleted of some excellent troops and again
divided into quite separate commands. Buell commanded the Army
of the Ohio. Grant commanded his own Army of the Tennessee and
Rosecrans's Army of the Mississippi. Buell's scene of action lay
between the tributary streams--Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee--with
Chattanooga as his ultimate objective. Grant's scene of action
lay along the southward rails and Mississippi, with Vicksburg as
his ultimate objective.

[Illustration: Civil War Campaigns of 1862]

The Confederates were of course set on recovering complete control
of the line of Southern rails that made direct connections between
the Mississippi Valley and the sea: crossing the western tributaries
of the St. Francis and White Rivers; then running east from Memphis,
through Grand Junction, Corinth, and Iuka, to Chattanooga; thence
forking off northeast, through Knoxville, to Washington, Richmond,
and Norfolk; and southeast to Charleston and Savannah. Confederate
attention had originally been fixed on Corinth and Chattanooga.
But General O. M. Mitchel's abortive raid, just after Shiloh, had
also drawn it to the part between. The Federals therefore found
their enemy alert at every point.

Braxton Bragg, Beauregard's successor and Buell's opponent, basing
himself on Chattanooga, tried to drive his line of Confederate
reconquest through the heart of Tennessee and thence through
mid-Kentucky, with the Ohio as his ultimate objective. His colleagues
near the Mississippi, Van Dorn and Sterling Price, meanwhile tried
to effect the reconquest of the Memphis-Corinth rails that Grant
and Rosecrans were holding.

All main offensives, on both sides, ultimately failed in this latter
half of the river campaign of '62. So nothing but the bare fact
that they were attempted needs any notice here.

In August, about the time that Lee and Jackson were maneuvering
in Virginia to bring on the Second Bull Run, Price and Bragg began
their respective advances against Grant and Buell. Buell was at
Murfreesboro, defending Nashville. Bragg, screened by the hills of
eastern Tennessee, made for the Ohio at Louisville and Cincinnati.
Pivoting on his left he wheeled his whole army round and raced for
Louisville. Buell enjoyed the advantage of rails over roads and
of interior lines as well. But Bragg had stolen several marches
on him at the start and he only won by a head.

The Union Government, now thoroughly alarmed, sent T