Cairo is built in a basin formed by constructing a levee to inclose the peninsula at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  Before the erection of the levee, this peninsula was overflowed by the rise of either river.  Sometimes, in unusual floods, the waters reach the top of the embankment, and manage to fill the basin.  At the time of my visit, the Ohio was rising rapidly.  The inhabitants were alarmed, as the water was gradually gaining upon them.  After a time it took possession of the basin, enabling people to navigate the streets and front yards in skiffs, and exchange salutations from house-tops or upper windows.  Many were driven from their houses by the flood, and forced to seek shelter elsewhere.  In due time the waters receded and the city remained unharmed.  It is not true that a steamer was lost in consequence of running against a chimney of the St. Charles Hotel.

Cairo has prospered during the war, and is now making an effort to fill her streets above the high-water level, and insure a dry foundation at all seasons of the year.  This once accomplished, Cairo will become a city of no little importance.

Proceeding up the Tennessee, I reached Pittsburg Landing three days after the great battle which has made that locality famous.

The history of that battle has been many times written.  Official reports have given the dry details,—­the movements of division, brigade, regiment, and battery, all being fully portrayed.  A few journalists who witnessed it gave the accounts which were circulated everywhere by the Press.  The earliest of these was published by The Herald. The most complete and graphic was that of Mr. Reid, of The Cincinnati Gazette. Officers, soldiers, civilians, all with greater or less experience, wrote what they had heard and seen.  So diverse have been the statements, that a general officer who was prominent in the battle, says he sometimes doubts if he was present.

In the official accounts there have been inharmonious deductions, and many statements of a contradictory character.  Some of the participants have criticised unfavorably the conduct of others, and a bitterness continuing through and after the war has been the result.

In February of 1862, the Rebels commenced assembling an army at Corinth.  General Beauregard was placed in command.  Early in March, Price and Van Dorn were ordered to take their commands to Corinth, as their defeat at Pea Ridge had placed them on the defensive against General Curtis.  General A. S. Johnston had moved thither, after the evacuation of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and from all quarters the Rebels were assembling a vast army.  General Johnston became commander-in-chief on his arrival.

General Halleck, who then commanded the Western Department, ordered General Grant, after the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, to move to Pittsburg Landing, and seize that point as a base against Corinth.  General Buell, with the Army of the Ohio, was ordered to join him from Nashville, and with other re-enforcements we would be ready to take the offensive.