month in
advancing a distance of twenty miles; during which period Beauregard
managed to collect about fifty thousand effective Confederates and
construct defensive fortifications with equal industry around Corinth.
When, on May 29, Halleck was within assaulting distance of the rebel
intrenchments Beauregard had leisurely removed his sick and wounded,
destroyed or carried away his stores, and that night finally evacuated
the place, leaving Halleck to reap, practically, a barren victory.

Nor were the general's plans and actions any more fruitful during the
following six weeks. He wasted the time and energy of his soldiers
multiplying useless fortifications about Corinth. He despatched Buell's
wing of the army on a march toward eastern Tennessee but under such
instructions and limitations that long before reaching its objective it
was met by a Confederate army under General Bragg, and forced into a
retrograde movement which carried it back to Louisville. More
deplorable, however, than either of these errors of judgment was
Halleck's neglect to seize the opportune moment when, by a vigorous
movement in cooeperation with the brilliant naval victories under
Flag-Officer Farragut, commanding a formidable fleet of Union war-ships,
he might have completed the over-shadowing military task of opening the
Mississippi River.

XX

The Blockade--Hatteras Inlet--Roanoke Island--Fort Pulaski--Merrimac
and Monitor--The Cumberland Sunk--The Congress Burned--Battle of the
Ironclads--Flag-officer Farragut--Forts Jackson and St. Philip--New
Orleans Captured--Farragut at Vicksburg--Farragut's Second Expedition to
Vicksburg--Return to New Orleans

In addition to its heavy work of maintaining the Atlantic blockade, the
navy of the United States contributed signally toward the suppression of
the rebellion by three brilliant victories which it gained during the
first half of the year 1862. After careful preparation during several
months, a joint expedition under the command of General Ambrose E.
Burnside and Flag-Officer Goldsborough, consisting of more than twelve
thousand men and twenty ships of war, accompanied by numerous
transports, sailed from Fort Monroe on January 11, with the object of
occupying the interior waters of the North Carolina coast. Before the
larger vessels could effect their entrance through Hatteras Inlet,
captured in the previous August, a furious storm set in, which delayed
the expedition nearly a month. By