ln's
Emancipation Proclamation, which at first had been derided, was working in
England; and, in their turn and time, Gettysburg and Vicksburg aided to
produce a much-changed official atmosphere. The Foreign Minister who,
against the law of the Kingdom, had let the _Alabama_ and the _Florida_
slip away to prey upon American commerce, was to strain that law a few
months later to hold war-vessels that had been built for the South.

The danger to the Union from foreign sources had passed.

CHAPTER III

THE ARMIES AND THEIR LEADERS

The armies that were soon to measure strength in Middle Tennessee were not
strangers. They had raced with each other to the banks of the Ohio in the
previous fall, they had confronted each other,--at times,--in fractional
strength upon a score of fields. It was the advance division of the Army
of the Ohio, which had checked the Confederate onset on the first day at
Shiloh, where Grant was all but overwhelmed, and that command, in full
strength, had done its share in driving the gray-clad battalions from the
field the next day. The guarding of Middle Tennessee and the taking of
East Tennessee had since then been its special charge and designed
function, and in token thereof it had been named anew "the Army of the
Cumberland," after the river that traverses those regions. The army was
composed principally of soldiers from the old Northwest Territory,--a
region dedicated to human freedom in the ordinance of 1787. But while
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin furnished the bulk of the
troops, there were also regiments from Kentucky and several composed of
East Tennessee Unionists. Pennsylvania had sent a contingent, and Missouri
and Kansas were both represented. From the regular army of the United
States, there were a formidable force of artillery, a few troops of
cavalry, and a particularly fine brigade of infantry.

The Confederate Army of the Tennessee was composed largely of sons of the
Commonwealth from which it derived its name, but almost every other State
in the Confederacy was represented. A picturesque and romantic element was
the famous "Orphan Brigade" composed of Kentuckians who fought for the
South while their State adhered to the North, and who attested their
heroism on many occasions during the war. The two armies were
substantially equal in strength, for the Army of the Cumberland reported
an available present of 43,400 men, while the Army of the Tennessee,