wards Richmond, and came within three miles of the city, when, encountering a Confederate force, it was compelled to withdraw, Dahlgren himself being killed, and a large part of his force captured. Kilpatrick, meanwhile, pressed onward to Spottsylvania Court-House, and thence to Beaver Dam, near where the two lines of railway from Richmond, those running to Gordonsville and Fredericksburg, cross. Here the railway was torn up, and the telegraph line cut, and the cavalry pushed straight on towards Richmond. They reached the outer line of fortifications at a little past ten on the morning of the 1st of March, about three and a half miles from the city. These were fairly passed, and the second line, a mile nearer, was reached, and a desultory fire was kept up for some hours. Towards evening Kilpatrick withdrew, and encamped six miles from the city. In the night an artillery attack was made upon the camp, and our troops retired still farther, and on the following morning took up their line of march down the Peninsula towards Williamsburg. Several miles of railway connection of great importance to the enemy were interrupted, stores to the value of several millions of dollars were destroyed, and some hundreds of prisoners were captured, as the result of this expedition.

In the early part of March, General Banks organized an expedition with all the available force of the army and navy in his department, to move up the Red River as far as Shreveport, where the rebels had large supplies, and where it was intended that he should be joined by General Steele, with the forces which he could collect in Arkansas, when the combined armies would be powerful enough to sweep away all rebel opposition in that · part of the State, if not in Texas.

A force of about ten thousand men, under command of General A. J. Smith, left Vicksburg on the 10th of March in twenty transports, and, having joined the fleet, proceeded up the Red River. This portion of the expedition met with a decided success in the capture of Fort De Russey by storm, with but little loss, by which cap

ture the river was opened to the fleet as far as Alexandria, where the whole expedition was united under command of General Banks. On the 26th of March they moved forward, meeting with uninterrupted success, as far as Natchitoches, some eighty miles above Alexandria. But at Sabine Cross-Roads, about twenty miles farther up, they found the rebel army posted, under the command of General Dick Taylor. This resistance had not been anticipated: the army was not marching compactly, nor could the gunboats be of any assistance, on account of the distance of the river from the road.

The consequence was, that the Thirteenth Corps of our army, being too far in advance to receive proper support, was attacked by the rebels in superior force and driven back upon the Nineteenth Corps, which had formed in line of battle, and which repulsed the advancing enemy with great slaughter. This battle was fought on the 8th of April. That night General Banks determined to fall back to Pleasant Hill, at which point two other divisions, under General A. J. Smith, had arrived. Here our forces were attacked, about five o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. The rebels at first gained some advantage, pressing the Nineteenth Corps back up a hill, behind the crest of which lay General Smith's troops, by whose unexpected and destructive fire the rebel lines of battle, as they came over the crest, were suddenly arrested. A rapid charge of the Union troops put the rebels entirely to flight, with a loss of several thousand killed and wounded, many hundred prisoners, and some guns, most of which, however, had been taken from us by the rebels the day before.

Our own army, however, was so shattered in the two battles, that General Banks ordered a retreat of the entire force to Grand Ecore, some forty miles below. The water in the Red River being unusually low, and falling, it was found necessary to remove the fleet, and with it the army, still farther down the river to Alexandria. On the way down, the gunboat Eastport having got aground, had to be abandoned, and was blown up.

General Steele, in consequence of the retreat of General Banks, was himself compelled to fall back to Little Rock, which he reached without much fighting, but with the loss of a good deal of material.

The water in the Red River continued to fall until it was found that there was not water enough on the falls at Alexandria to allow the gunboats to pass over. The rebels were enabled to throw forces below, so as to impede the communication with the army by the river, and as it became evident that the army must retreat still farther, the gravest apprehensions were felt lest the whole fleet of twelve gunboats should be of necessity, abandoned to the rebels, or blown up. In this extremity, a plan was devised by Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, of the Fourth Wisconsin Cavalry, Acting Engineer of the Nineteenth Corps, of building a series of dams on the falls, by which to raise the water sufficiently to allow the gunboats to pass over. The plan was ridiculed by some of the best engineers; but under the approval of Commodore Porter, who commanded the fleet, and General Banks, it was tried with perfect success. The dams were built within ten days, and all the gunboats brought safely over. Commodore Porter, in his report, says, "Words are inadequate to express the admiration I feel for Colonel Bailey. *** Leaving out his ability as an engineer and the credit he has conferred upon the country, he has saved the Union a valuable fleet, worth nearly $2,000,000, and has deprived the enemy of a triumph which would have emboldened them to carry on this war a year or two longer." Colonel Bailey was at once appointed by the President a brigadier-general for these distinguished services.

After this escape, the fleet and the army retreated down the river. The fleet lost two small gunboats by rebel batteries on the way down; but the army, though attacked several times, repulsed the rebels with considerable loss, and crossed the Atchafalaya in safety, on the 19th of May.

About the time of the check which General Banks re

ceived at Sabine Cross-Roads, the arms of the Union met with reverses in two other quarters. One of these was the capture of Fort Pillow, on the Mississippi, on the 12th of April, by a rebel force under General Forrest, a capture marked in the history of the war by the atrocious butchery of the garrison after the surrender of the place. The garrison was composed of about six hundred men under command of Major Boyd, who was killed near the close of the fight. Of these six hundred about three hundred and fifty were colored troops. The attack was commenced in the early morning, and the garrison were driven from some outworks into the fort itself, which they defended with the assistance of a gunboat, till about four P. M., when the rebels made a final charge upon the fort from positions which they had occupied by taking advantage of a flag of truce sent to the fort to demand its surrender, and carried its defences by storm. The garrison thereupon threw down their arms and surrendered, but were shot down in cold blood until but few were left alive. Some were forced to stand up in line and were then shot. Some were shot when lying wounded on the ground. Women and children were shot or cut to pieces. The huts in which the sick and wounded had taken refuge were fired over their heads, and there were stories of even darker cruelties than these. Of the white officers who commanded the colored troops, but two were left alive, and these were wounded. Of the garrison there were left thirty-six white men and twentyone negroes, and forty were carried off as prisoners. Some of the negroes saved their lives by feigning death and digging out from the thin covering of earth which the rebels had thrown over their victims.

The news of this atrocity excited the deepest horror throughout the country, and there was a general call for retaliation. In order to have an authentic statement of the facts, Congress passed resolutions directing the Com mittee on the Conduct of the War to investigate the mat ter. The committee sent two of its members, Senator Wade and Mr. Gooch, to the spot. They examined many

witnesses, and on the 5th of May made their report, with the testimony which they had taken. The report showed that this proceeding of the rebels was in pursuance of a policy deliberately adopted, in the expectation of driving from the ranks of the Union armies not only the negroes, but also the "home-made Yankees," as they termed the loyal Southerners.

The massacre was referred to by the President in his speech at the opening of the Sanitary Commission Fair, in Baltimore, while it was still under investigation, and he then said that if the massacre was proved to have been committed, retribution should surely come; nor was this the first time that the question of retaliation had been brought to his attention. In fact, as early as July, 1863, the subject had been considered, and the conclusion which was then arrived at was announced in the following General Order :

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, July 30, 1863.

It is the duty of every Government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war, as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism, and a crime against the civilization of the age.

The Government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers; and if the enemy shall sell or enslave any one because of his color, the offence shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.

It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works, and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

But whether from the President's tenderness of heart, which made it very hard for him to order the execution of a rebel soldier who had himself done no special wrong, even in retaliation for such barbarities as this at Fort Pillow, or from some other cause, the first part of this order