arters north of the Rappahannock,
Lee moved his army some miles south of Fredericksburg, on the wooded
highlands, and prepared for winter quarters. This was not a very
laborious undertaking, nor of long duration, for all that was
necessary was to pitch our old wornout, slanting-roof tents, occupied
by six or eight men each. The troops had become too well acquainted
with the uncertainty of their duration in camp to go into any very
laborious or elaborate preparations. Kershaw had a very desirable
location among the wooded hills, but this was soon denuded of every
vestige of fuel of every kind, for it must be understood the army had
no wagons or teams to haul their fire wood, but each had to carry his
share of the wood required for the daily use, and often a mile or mile
and a half distant. At the close of the year the Eastern Army found
itself in quite easy circumstances and well pleased with the year's
campaign, but the fruits of our victory were more in brilliant
achievements than material results.

In the Western Army it was not so successful. On the first of the year
General Albert Sidney Johnston had his army at Bowling Green, Ky. But
disaster after disaster befell him, until two states were lost to the
Confederacy, as well as that great commander himself, who fell at the
moment of victory on the fatal field of Shiloh. Commencing with
the fall of Fort Henry on the Tennessee, then Fort Donaldson on the
Cumberland, which necessitated the evacuation of the lines of defense
at Bowling Green, and the withdrawal of the army from Kentucky. At
Pittsburg Landing Grant was overwhelmingly defeated by the army under
Beauregard, but by the division of the army under the two Confederate
leaders, and the overpowering numbers of the enemy under some of the
greatest Generals in the Union Army, Beauregard was forced to withdraw
to Shiloh. Here the two combined armies of Beauregard and Johnston
attacked the Union Army under Grant, Sherman, Buell, Lew Wallace, and
other military geniuses, with over one hundred and sixteen thousand
men, as against an army of forty-eight thousand Confederates. After
one of the most stubborn, as well as bloodiest battles of the war, the
Confederates gained a complete victory on the first day, but through
a combined train of circumstances, they were forced to withdraw the
second. After other battles, with varied results, the end of the year
found the Western Army in Northern Mississippi and Southern Tennes