purpose, after arduous work in canal cutting, captured, with 7,000 prisoners, the northernmost forts held by the Confederacy on the Mississippi.  But Halleck’s plans required that his further advance should be stopped.  Halleck himself, in his own time, arrived at the front.  In his own time, after being joined by Pope, he advanced, carefully entrenching himself every night.  He covered in something over a month the forty miles route to Corinth, which, to his surprise, was bloodlessly evacuated before him.  He was an engineer, and like some other engineers in the Civil War, was overmuch set upon a methodical and cautious procedure.  But his mere advance to Corinth caused the Confederates to abandon yet another fort on the Mississippi, and on June 6 the Northern troops were able to occupy Memphis, for which Lincoln had long wished, while the flotilla accompanying them destroyed a Confederate flotilla.  Meanwhile, on May 1, Admiral Farragut, daringly running up the Mississippi, had captured New Orleans, and a Northern force under Butler was able to establish itself in Louisiana.  The North had now gained the command of most of the Mississippi, for only the hundred miles or so between Vicksburg far south and Port Hudson, between that and New Orleans, was still held by the South; and command by Northern gunboats of the chief tributaries of the great river was also established.  The Confederate armies in the West were left intact, though with some severe losses, and would be able before long to strike northward in a well-chosen direction; for all that these were great and permanent gains.  Yet the North was not cheered.  The great loss of life at Shiloh, the greatest battle in the war so far, created a horrible impression.  Halleck, under whom all this progress had been made, properly enough received a credit, which critics later have found to be excessive, though it is plain that he had reorganised his army well; but Grant was felt to have been caught napping at Shiloh; there were other rumours about him, too, and he fell deep into general disfavour.  The events of the Western war did not pause for long, but, till the end of this year 1862, the North made no further definite progress, and the South, though it was able to invade the North, achieved no Important result.  It will be well then here to take up the story of events in the East and to follow them continuously till May, 1863, when the dazzling fortune of the South in that theatre if the war reached its highest point.

3. The War in the East Up to May, 1863.

The interest of this part of the Civil War lies chiefly in the achievements of Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson.  From the point of view of the North, it was not only disastrous but forms a dreary and controversial chapter.  George McClellan came to Washington amid overwhelming demonstrations of public confidence.  His comparative youth added to the interest taken in him; and he was spoken of as “the young Napoleon.”  This ridiculous