In order to give a clear account of the campaigns about Washington and Richmond, down to the Battle of Gettysburg, we have put that branch of the war into one continuous story in the preceding chapter. Many things of the highest importance were happening elsewhere, while McClellan and the generals who came after him were wrestling with Johnston, Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson for Washington and Richmond.

At the very moment that McClellan was getting ready to move his army to the Peninsula, there took place a famous naval battle in the waters of Hampton Roads, near Fortress Monroe. The Confederates, having seized the Norfolk Navy-Yard, had changed the hull of the steam-frigate Merrimac into an iron plated steam-ram, and named it the "Virginia." On the 8th of March, the Virginia, or, as she is generally spoken of, the Merrimac, came out from Norfolk into Hampton Roads, and after a battle sank the sloop-of-war Cumberland. The frigate Congress was next disabled and afterward burned, for nothing built of wood could make any impression on this iron monster, whose sloping sides resisted cannon - balls as a bird's feathers shed the rain. The loss of life on both the vessels that were destroyed was great. The steam frigate Minnesota, which was aground, was only saved from destruction by the coming of night. It was expected that, with the morning, the iron ship would complete the sinking of the shipping in Hampton Roads, and then go to the Potomac and attack Washington city. But, at midnight, there arrived from New York, all unexpected, a little iron vessel, named the Monitor, of a new pattern, invented by John Ericsson. The next morning, when the Merrimac came out again, the Monitor successfully defended the Minnesota, until the Confederate ram, having met its match, retired. This battle in Hampton Roads changed the construction of warships the world over, for it was proved that wooden ships were of no use against iron ones.

At the beginning, many of the Northern people, who were very much in favor of the war to preserve the Union, had been opposed to the abolition of slavery. But, as the struggle went on, the feeling at the North against slavery increased. On the 22d of September, 1862, just after the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln announced that, if any portion of the country should remain in arms against the government, he would declare the slaves in that part of the country free. On the 1st of January, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the slaves free in all parts of the country then in armed rebellion against the government.

We have seen that the first object of the Union armies in the West was to wrest the Mississippi River from the Confederate forces who held it by powerful works at Vicksburg and by forts below New Orleans. While the armies were operating above, the river was attacked from below. On the 18th of April, 1862, the bombardment of the forts below New Orleans was begun by a fleet of gunboats, and the firing lasted for five days, but the forts held out. At ten o'clock on the morning of the 24th, Farragut, in command of the fleet, took the bold course of running his ships past the forts. The Confederates resisted by a tremendous fire from the forts and from their ships. They also tried to burn the United States vessels by floating down upon them fire-rafts and burning steamboats loaded with cotton, and they attacked them also with an iron-clad ram, named the Manassas. But, notwithstanding this resolute defense, Farragut got by the forts, with some loss, and captured the city. The forts afterward surrendered.

While Halleck dallied after taking Corinth, the Confederate general Bragg took thirty-five thousand soldiers by rail to Mobile, and thence northward on another line and seized Chattanooga. We shall see that it afterward cost the Union troops some of the most desperate battles of the war to dislodge the Confederates from this stronghold.

From Chattanooga Bragg moved north and invaded Kentucky, and tried to reach Louisville, on the Ohio. A foot-race took place between the two armies, but Buell and the Union troops reached Louisville first. After a severe battle at Perryville, October 8, 1862, Bragg retreated to Chattanooga once more.

Part of the Union army was yet at Corinth. While Bragg and Buell were maneuvering in Kentucky, the Confederates, under General Van Dorn, attacked this place on the 3d and 4th of October, 1862, and by the most desperate fighting drove the Union army from line to line until a part of the attacking force actually gained the town. But the resistance of the troops under Union General William Rosecrans was as stubborn as the attack was resolute, and Van Dorn's assaults were repulsed.

Hitherto in many operations the Confederates had the advantage in generalship. They were especially strong in this regard in the Virginia campaigns. But the Union armies at the West were gradually coming under the control of General Grant, a person of restless vigor and tremendous power of endurance under difficulty and repulse. All his first attempts to take Vicksburg failed. Plan after plan was tried. A ditch was dug across the bend of the river opposite Vicksburg, in the hope that the river would change its bed, but this failed. Grant tried to open other channels to reach the water-courses in the rear of the city. From time to time, when one plan failed, he resorted to a new device.

At last gunboats and transports were run past the Vicksburg batteries. Crossing the Mississippi at Bruinsburg, below Vicksburg, Grant got in the rear of that stronghold. He took Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and by a series of movements and successive battles he at last shut up the Confederate general Pemberton, with twenty thousand soldiers, in the fortifications of Vicksburg. Grant twice tried to carry the fortifications by assault, but the Confederate soldiers were well-seasoned veterans behind strong works, and the assaults were costly failures. The Union army, therefore, settled down to a regular siege of the place. On the 4th of July, 1863, the day after the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, the half-starved garrison of Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant.

While Grant was operating against Vicksburg, General Banks, who had taken an army of the Federal troops by sea to New Orleans, was trying to capture Port Hudson, farther down the river. Here, as at Vicksburg, two assaults were repulsed. But, when Vicksburg surrendered. Port Hudson was obliged to yield. This gave the Union armies possession of the whole of the Mississippi River, and cut off the western States of the Confederacy from the eastern.