THE Federal forces now numbered about four hundred and fifty thousand men. Of these nearly two hundred thousand, under General McClellan, were encamped near Washington. Another army, commanded by General Buell, was stationed at Louisville, Kentucky.

2. At the beginning of the year the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland, was planned by General Halleck. Commodore Foote was sent up the Tennessee with a fleet of gunboats, and General Grant was ordered to move forward against Fort Henry. Before the land-forces reached that place, the flotilla compelled the evacuation of the fort, the Confederates escaping to Donelson.

3. The Federal gunboats now dropped down the Tennessee and then ascended the Cumberland. Grant pressed on from Fort Henry, and began the siege of Fort Donelson. The defences were manned by ten thousand Confederates, under General Buckner. Grant's force numbered nearly thirty thousand. On the 16th of February Buckner was obliged to surrender. His army became prisoners of war, and all the magazines, stores, and guns of the fort fell into the hands of the Federals.

4. General Grant now ascended the Tennessee to Pittsburg Landing. A camp was established at Shiloh Church, near the river; and here, on the 6th of April, the Union army was attacked by the Confederates, led by Generals Albert S. Johnston and Beauregard. All day long the battle raged with great slaughter on both sides. Night fell on the scene with the conflict undecided; but in the crisis General Buell arrived with strong reinforcements. In the morning General Grant assumed the offensive. General Johnston had been killed, and Beauregard was obliged to retreat to Corinth. The losses in killed, wounded, and missing were more than ten thousand on each side.

5. After the Confederates evacuated Columbus, Kentucky, they fortified Island Number Ten in the Mississippi, opposite New Madrid. Against this place General Pope advanced with a body of Western troops, while Commodore Foote descended the Mississippi with his gunboats. Pope captured New Madrid; and for twenty-three days Island Number Ten was besieged. On the 7th of April the Confederates attempted to escape; but Pope had cut off the retreat, and the garrison, numbering five thousand, was captured. On the 6th of June the city of Memphis was taken by the fleet of Commodore Davis.

6. Early in the year General Curtis pushed forward into Arkansas, and took position at Pea Ridge, among the mountains. Here he was attacked on the 6th of March by a Confederate force of twenty thousand men, which included a large number of Indians from the adjacent Indian Territory. A hard-fought battle ensued, lasting for two days, in which the Federals were victorious.

7. After the destruction of the navy yard at Norfolk, the Confederates had raised the frigate Merrimac, one of the sunken ships, and plated the sides with iron. The vessel was then sent to attack the Union fleet at Fortress Monroe. Reaching that place on the 8th of March, the Merrimac began the work of destruction; and two valuable vessels, the Cumberland and the Congress, were sent to the bottom. During the night, however, a strange ship, called the Monitor, invented by Captain John Ericsson, arrived from New York; and on the following morning the two iron-clad monsters turned their enginery upon each other. After fighting for five hours, the Merrimac was obliged to retire to Norfolk, badly damaged.

8. On the 8th of February a Federal squadron attacked the Confederate fortifications on Roanoke Island. The garrison, nearly three thousand strong, were taken prisoners. Burnside next proceeded against Newbern, and on the 14th of March captured the city. Proceeding southward, he reached the harbor of Beaufort, and on the 25th of April took possession of the town.

9. On the 11th of the same month Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah, surrendered to General Gillmore. Early in April, a powerful squadron, under General Butler and Admiral Farragut, ascended the Mississippi and attacked Forts Jackson and St. Philip, thirty miles above the Gulf. From the 18th to the 24th the fight continued without cessation. At the end of that time Admiral Farragut succeeded in running past the batteries. On the next day he reached New Orleans, and captured the city. General Butler became commandant, and the fortifications were manned with fifteen thousand Federal soldiers. Three days afterwards, Forts Jackson and St. Philip surrendered to Admiral Porter.

10. The Confederates now invaded Kentucky, in two strong divisions, the one led by General Kirby Smith and the other by General Bragg. On the 30th of August Smith's army reached Richmond, and routed the Federals stationed there, with heavy losses. Lexington was taken, and then Frankfort; and Cincinnati was saved from capture only by the exertions of General Wallace. Meanwhile, the army of General Bragg advanced from Chattanooga, and on the 17th of September captured a Federal division of four thousand five hundred men at Mumfordsville. The Confederate general pressed on toward Louisville, and would have taken the city but for the arrival of General Buell. Buell's army was increased to one hundred thousand men. In October he again took the field, and on the 8th of the month overtook General Bragg at Perryville. Here a severe but indecisive battle was fought; and the Confederates, laden with spoils, continued their retreat into east Tennessee.

11. On the 19th of September a hard battle was fought at Iuka, between a Federal army, under Generals Rosecrans and Grant, and a Confederate force, under General Price. The latter was defeated, losing, in addition to his killed and wounded, nearly a thousand prisoners. Rosecrans now took post at Corinth with twenty thousand men; while Grant, with the remainder of the Federal forces, proceeded to Jackson, Tennessee. Generals Van Dorn and Price turned about to recapture Corinth. There, on the 3d of October, another severe battle ensued, which ended, after two days' fighting, in the repulse of the Confederates.

12. In December General Sherman dropped down the river from Memphis to the Yazoo. On the 29th of the month he made an unsuccessful attack on the Confederates at Chickasaw Bayou. The assault was exceedingly disastrous to the Federals, who lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners more than three thousand men.

13. General Rosecrans was now transferred to the command of the Army of the Cumberland, with headquarters at Nashville. General Bragg, on his retirement from Kentucky, had thrown his forces into Murfreesborough. Rosecrans moved forward, and on the 30th of December came upon the Confederates on Stone's River, a short distance northwest of Murfreesborough. On the following morning a furious battle ensued, continuing until nightfall. The Union army was brought to the verge of ruin. But during the night Rosecrans rallied his forces, and at daybreak was ready to renew the conflict. On that day there was a lull. On the morning of the 2d of January Bragg's army again rushed to the onset, gained some successes at first, was then checked, and finally driven back with heavy losses. Bragg withdrew his shattered columns, and filed off toward Chattanooga.

14. In Virginia the first scenes of the year were enacted in the Shenandoah Valley. General Banks was sent forward with a strong division, and in the last of March occupied the town of Harrisonburg. To counteract this movement, Stonewall Jackson was sent with twenty thousand men to pass the Blue Ridge and cut off Banks's retreat. At Front Royal, the Confederates fell upon the Federals, routed them, and captured their guns and stores. Banks succeeded, however, in passing with his main division to Strasburg and escaping out of the valley.

15. Jackson now found himself in great peril, for General Fremont had been sent into the valley to intercept the Confederate retreat. But he succeeded in reaching Cross Keys before Fremont could attack him. The battle at Cross Keys was not decisive, and Jackson pressed on to Port Republic, where he attacked and defeated the division of General Shields.

16. On the 10th of March the Army of the Potomac set out from the camps about Washington to capture the Confederate capital. The advance proceeded as far as Manassas Junction, where McClellan, changing his plan, embarked a hundred and twenty thousand of his men for Fortress Monroe. From that place, on the 4th of April, the Union army advanced to Yorktown. This place was defended by ten thousand Confederates, under General Magruder; and here McClellan's advance was delayed for a month. On the 4th of May, Yorktown was taken and the Federal army pressed on to West Point. McClellan reached the Chickahominy without serious resistance, and crossed at Bottom's Bridge.

17. On the 10th of May General Wool, the commandant of Fortress Monroe, led an expedition against Norfolk and captured the town. On the next day the Confederate iron-clad Virginia was blown up to save her from capture. The James River was thus opened for the supply-transports of the Army of the Potomac. On the 31st of May that army was attacked at a place called Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines. Here for a part of two days the battle raged with great fury. At last the Confederates were driven back; but McClellan's victory was by no means decisive. General Joseph E. Johnston, the commander-in-chief of the Confederates, was severely wounded; and the command devolved on General Robert E. Lee.

18. McClellan now formed the design of retiring to a point on the James below Richmond. Before the movement fairly began, General Lee, on the 25th of June, struck the right wing of the Union army at Oak Grove, and a hard-fought battle ensued. On the next day another engagement occurred at Mechanicsville, and the Federals won the field. On the following morning Lee renewed the struggle at Gaines's Mill, and came out victorious. On the 29th McClellan's army was attacked at Savage's Station and again in the White Oak Swamp—but the Confederates were kept at bay. On the 30th was fought the desperate battle of Glendale, or Frazier's Farm. On that night the Federal army reached Malvern Hill, twelve miles below Richmond. General Lee determined to carry the place by storm. On the morning of the 1st of July the whole Confederate army rushed forward to the assault. All day long the struggle for the possession of the high grounds continued. Not until nine o'clock at night did Lee's columns fall back exhausted. For seven days the roar of battle had been heard almost without cessation.

19. On the 2d of July McClellan retired with his army to Harrison's Landing, a few miles down the river; and the great campaign was at an end. The Federal army had lost more than fifteen thousand men, and the losses of the Confederates had been still greater.

20. General Lee now formed the design of capturing the Federal capital. The Union troops between Richmond and Washington were under command of General John Pope. Lee moved northward, and, on the 20th of August, Pope retreated beyond the Rappahannock. Meanwhile, General Banks was attacked by Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain, where nothing but hard fighting saved the Federals from a rout.

21. Jackson next dashed by with his division, on a flank movement to Manassas Junction, where he made large captures. Pope then threw his army between the two divisions of the Confederates. On August 28th and 29th, there was terrible fighting on the old Bull Run battle-ground. At one time it seemed that Lee's army would be defeated; but Pope's reinforcements were withheld by General Porter, and on the 31st the Confederates struck the Union army at Chantilly, winning a complete victory. Pope withdrew his broken columns as rapidly as possible, and found safety within the defences of Washington.

22. General Lee crossed the Potomac, and on the 6th of September captured Frederick. On the 10th Hagerstown was taken, and on the 15th Stonewall Jackson seized Harper's Ferry, with nearly twelve thousand prisoners. On the previous day, there was a hard-fought engagement at South Mountain, in which the Federals were victorious. McClellan's army was now in the rear of Lee, who fell back to Antietam Creek and took a strong position near Sharpsburg. Then followed two days of skirmishing, which terminated on the 17th in one of the great battles of the war. From morning until night the struggle continued with unabated violence, and ended in a drawn battle, after a loss of more than ten thousand men on each side. Lee withdrew his forces from the field and recrossed the Potomac.

23. General McClellan moved forward to Rectortown, Virginia. Here he was superseded by General Burnside, who changed the plan of the campaign, and advanced against Fredericksburg. At this place the two armies were again brought face to face. Burnside's movement was delayed, and it was not until the 12th of December that a passage could be effected. Meanwhile, the heights south of the river had been fortified, and the Union columns were hurled back in several desperate assaults which cost the assailants more than twelve thousand men. Thus in disaster to the Federal cause ended the campaigns of 1862.