The possession of Corinth by the National troops was of strategic importance, but the victory was barren in every other particular.  It was nearly bloodless.  It is a question whether the morale of the Confederate troops engaged at Corinth was not improved by the immunity with which they were permitted to remove all public property and then withdraw themselves.  On our side I know officers and men of the Army of the Tennessee—­and I presume the same is true of those of the other commands—­were disappointed at the result.  They could not see how the mere occupation of places was to close the war while large and effective rebel armies existed.  They believed that a well-directed attack would at least have partially destroyed the army defending Corinth.  For myself I am satisfied that Corinth could have been captured in a two days’ campaign commenced promptly on the arrival of reinforcements after the battle of Shiloh.

General Halleck at once commenced erecting fortifications around Corinth on a scale to indicate that this one point must be held if it took the whole National army to do it.  All commanding points two or three miles to the south, south-east and south-west were strongly fortified.  It was expected in case of necessity to connect these forts by rifle-pits.  They were laid out on a scale that would have required 100,000 men to fully man them.  It was probably thought that a final battle of the war would be fought at that point.  These fortifications were never used.  Immediately after the occupation of Corinth by the National troops, General Pope was sent in pursuit of the retreating garrison and General Buell soon followed.  Buell was the senior of the two generals and commanded the entire column.  The pursuit was kept up for some thirty miles, but did not result in the capture of any material of war or prisoners, unless a few stragglers who had fallen behind and were willing captives.  On the 10th of June the pursuing column was all back at Corinth.  The Army of the Tennessee was not engaged in any of these movements.

The Confederates were now driven out of West Tennessee, and on the 6th of June, after a well-contested naval battle, the National forces took possession of Memphis and held the Mississippi river from its source to that point.  The railroad from Columbus to Corinth was at once put in good condition and held by us.  We had garrisons at Donelson, Clarksville and Nashville, on the Cumberland River, and held the Tennessee River from its mouth to Eastport.  New Orleans and Baton Rouge had fallen into the possession of the National forces, so that now the Confederates at the west were narrowed down for all communication with Richmond to the single line of road running east from Vicksburg.  To dispossess them of this, therefore, became a matter of the first importance.  The possession of the Mississippi by us from Memphis to Baton Rouge was also a most important object.  It would be equal to the amputation of a limb in its weakening effects upon the enemy.