No history of the war is likely to do full justice to the bitterness of the Rebel women. Female influence tempted thousands of young men to enter the Confederate service against their own wishes and sympathies. Women sometimes evinced incredible rancor and bloodthirstiness. The most startling illustration of the brutalizing effect of Slavery appeared in the absence of that sweetness, charity, and tenderness toward the suffering, which is the crowning grace of womanhood.

A southern Unionist, the owner of many slaves, said

to me:

"I suppose I have not struck any of my negroes for ten years. When they need correcting, my wife always does it."

If he had a horse or a mule requiring occasional whipping, would he put the scourge in the hands of his little daughter, and teach her to wield it, from her tender years? How infinitely more must it brutalize and corrupt her when the victim is a man-the most sacred thing that God has made his earthly image and his human temple!

Before we captured Memphis, the sick and wounded Union prisoners were in a condition of great want and suffering. Women of education, wealth, and high social position visited the hospitals to minister to Rebel patients.

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THE BATTLE OF MEMPHIS.

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Frequently entering the Federal wards from curiosity, they used toward the groaning patients expressions like this:

"I would like to give you one dose! You would never fight against the South again!"

In what happy contrast to this shone the self-denying ministrations of northern women, to friend and enemy alike!

In Memphis, on the evening of June 5th, General Jeff. Thompson, commanding the Rebel cavalry, and Commodore Edward Montgomery, commanding the Rebel flotilla, stated at the Gayoso House that there would be a battle the next morning, in which the Yankee fleet would be destroyed in just about two hours.

Just after daylight, the Rebel flotilla attacked ours, two miles above the city. We had five iron-clads and several rams, which were then experimental. They were light, agile little stern-wheel boats, whose machinery was not at all protected against shots. The battle occurred in full view of the city. Though it began soon after daylight, it was witnessed by ten thousand people upon the high bluff—an anxious, excited crowd. The Rebels dared not be too demonstrative, and the Unionists dared not whisper a word of their long-cherished and earnest hopes.

While the two fleets were steaming toward each other, Colonel Ellet, determined to succeed or to die, daringly pushed forward with his little rams, the Monarch and Queen of the West. With these boats, almost as fragile as pasteboard, he steamed directly into the Rebel flotilla. One of his rams struck the great gunboat Sterling Price with a terrific blow, crushing timbers and tearing away the entire larboard wheel-house. The Price drifted helplessly down the stream and stranded. Another of

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GALLANT EXPLOITS OF THE RAMS.

261

Ellet's rams ran at full speed into the General Lovell, cutting her in twain. The Rebel boat filled and sunk.

From the shore, it was a most impressive sight. There was the Lovell, with holiday decorations, crowded with men and firing her guns, when the little ram struck her, crushing in her side, and she went down like a plummet. In three minutes, even the tops of her tall chimneys disappeared under water. Scores of swimming and drowning Rebels in the river were rescued by boats from the Union fleet.

One of the rams now ran alongside and grappled the Beauregard, and, through hose, drenched her decks with scalding water, while her cannoneers dared not show their heads to Ellet's sharpshooters, who were within a few feet of them. Another Rebel boat came up to strike the ram, but the agile little craft let go her hold and backed out. The blow intended for her struck the Beauregard, which instantly went down, "hoist with his own petar."

The Sumter and the Little Rebel, both disabled, were stranded on the Arkansas shore. The Jeff. Thompson was set on fire and abandoned by her crew. In a few minutes there was an enormous dazzling flash of light, a measureless volume of black smoke, and a startling roar, which seemed to shake the earth to its very center. For several seconds the air was filled with falling timbers. Exploding her magazine, the Rebel gunboat expired with a great pyrotechnic display.

The General Bragg received a fifty-pound shot, which tore off a long plank under her water-mark, and she was captured in a sinking condition. The Van Dorn, the only Rebel boat which survived the conflict, turned and fled down the river.

The battle lasted just one hour and three minutes. It was the most startling, dramatic, and memorable dis

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A SAILOR ON A LARK.

[1862.

play of the whole war. On our side, no one was injured except Colonel Ellet, who had performed such unexampled feats with his little rams. A splinter, which struck him in the leg, inflicted a fatal wound.

As our fleet landed, a number of news-boys sprang on shore, and, a moment after, were running through the street, shouting:

"Here's your New-York Tribune and Herald-only ten cents in silver!"

The correspondents, before the city was formally surrendered, had strolled through the leading streets. At the Gayoso House they registered their names immediately under those of the fugacious Rebel general, and ordered dinner.

The Memphis Rebels, who had predicted a siege rivaling Saragossa and Londonderry, were in a condition of stupor for two weeks after our arrival. They rubbed their eyes wonderingly, to see Union officers and Abolition journalists at large without any suggestions of hanging or tarring and feathering. Remembering my last visit, it was with peculiar satisfaction that I appended in enormous letters to my signature upon the hotel register, the name of the journal I served.

On the day of the capture, an intoxicated seaman from one of the gun-boats, who had been shut up for several months, went on shore "skylarking." Offering his arms to the first two negro women he met, he promenaded the whole length of Main street. The Memphis Rebels were suffering for an outrage, and here was one just to their mind.

"If that is the way, sir," remarked one of them, "that your people propose to treat southern gentlemen and ladies-if they intend to thrust upon us such a disgusting spectacle of negro equality, it will be perilous

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APPEARANCE OF THE CAPTURED CITY.

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for them. Do they expect to conciliate our people in this manner?"

I mildly suggested that the era of conciliation ceased when the era of fighting began. The sailor was arrested and put in the guard-house.

Our officers mingled freely with the people. No citizens insulted our soldiers in the streets; no woman repeated the disgraceful scenes of New Orleans by spitting in the faces of the "invaders." The Unionists received us as brothers from whom they had long been separated. One lady brought out from its black hiding-place, in her chimney, a National flag, which had been concealed there from the beginning of the war. A Loyalist told me that, coming out of church on Sunday, he was thrilled with the news that the Yankees had captured Fort Donelson; but, with a grave face, he replied to his informant: "That is sad business for us, is it not?"

Reaching home, with his wife and sister, they gave vent to their exuberant joy. He could not huzza, and so he relieved himself by leaping two or three times over a center-table!

There were many genuine Rebels whose eyes glared at us with the hatred of caged tigers. Externally decorous, they would remark, ominously, that they hoped our soldiers would not irritate the people, lest it should deluge the streets with blood. They proposed fabulous wagers that Sterling Price's troops could whip the whole Union army; circulated daily reports that the Confederates had recaptured New Orleans and Nashville, and talked mysteriously about the fatality of the yellow fever, and the prospect that it would soon break out.

Gladness shone from the eyes of all the negroes. Their dusky faces were radiant with welcome, and many women, turbaned in bright bandanas, thronged the office of