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Slaves laboring at night on the confederate earthworks at Corinth. |
Landing, “for its land advantages and its strategic character.
The ground itself admits of easy defense by a small command, and yet affords admirable camping-ground for one hundred thousand men.”
Unquestionably, it was upon this report that
Pittsburg, rather than
Hamburg, was made the
Federal base; for
Hurlbut's and
Sherman's divisions were immediately ordered ashore to encamp upon a prescribed line, while, on the same day
General Grant directed all the other troops at
Savannah except one division to be immediately sent to the same point;
Wallace's division being left, however, at Crump's Landing.
About the position thus taken by the
Federal army, there can hardly be two professional opinions.
It gave their adversary an opportunity for an almost fatal counter-stroke such as has rarely been afforded to the weaker of two belligerents in all the sinews and resources of war. A narrow cul de sac, formed by
Snake Creek and
Lick Creek, with the broad bank-full river forming its bottom, tactically as well as strategically it was a false position for an invading army, and I may add that, having been occupied, the exigent precaution, under the circumstances, of making a place d'armes of it was wholly overlooked, though it was barely twenty-three miles distant from
Corinth, where, according to the
Federal general's reports of the period, a supposed Confederate army of from 50,000 to 60,000 men were concentrated.
Previously, or as early as the 3d of March,
Pope, with about 19,000 “present for duty,” had appeared before
New Madrid, in Missouri, the essentially weak or most vulnerable point of our
upper Mississippi defenses.
1 Delaying
