to the cause of the Union. As a specimen of those speeches the following extract from one delivered at Duquoin, Illinois, may be quoted:

"The Government is worth fighting for. It is worth generations and centuries of war. It is worth the lives of the best and noblest men in the land. We will fight for this Government for the sake of ourselves and our children. Our little ones shall read in history of the men who stood by the Government in its dark and gloomy hours, and it shall be the proud boast of many that their fathers died in this glorious struggle for American liberty. I believe to-day-I believe it honestly— that if the people of the North were united and all stood upon one platform, as we do in the army, this rebellion would be crushed in ninety days. I want to show you the reason why more troops ought to be raised. We can crush this rebellion. I know it. Why, we have marched a little army clear from Cairo to Vicksburg; below, a small one has marched from New Orleans to Port Hudson. We have opened the Mississippi River. We have split the Confederacy in two, leaving on one side Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri--more territory than is on the eastern side. We have made a gulf that is impassable for them. We can hurl our strength upon one half and whip it, then upon the other and whip that."

CHAPTER VIII.

CORPS COMMAnder-Kenesaw-Peach TREE

CREEK.

N the 13th day of November, 1863, General Logan was promoted to the command

of the Fifteenth Army Corps as the successor of General Sherman. In surrendering command of his division he reminded the officers and soldiers of the different brigades of the history the division "had made for itself a history to be proud of; a history never to be forgotten; for it is written as with a pen of fire dipped in ink of blood on the memories and in the hearts of all." He besought them always to prove themselves as loyal in principle, as valiant in arms, as their record while under his command would show them to have been; "to remember the glorious cause you are fighting for, remember the bleaching bones of your comrades, killed on the bloody fields of Donelson, Corinth, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg, or perished by disease during the past two years of hardships and exposure -and swear by these imperishable memories never, while life remains, to prove recreant to the trust high Heaven has confided to your charge."

He assured them of his continued sympathy and interest in their well-being, no matter how great a distance might separate them, and closed by heartily recommending them to their future commander, his own companion-in-arms and successor, Brigadier-General Leggett.

The Fifteenth Corps, after General Logan was promoted to its command, was stationed during the winter in the vicinity of Huntsville, Alabama. In the spring the Fifteenth Corps, with the Sixteenth Corps, Major-General G. M. Dodge, and the Seventeenth Corps, Major-General Frank P. Blair, which formed the "Army of the Tennessee," commanded by Major-General McPherson, joined the "Army of the Cumberland," commanded by Major-General Thomas, and the "Army of the Ohio," commanded by Major-General Schofield. These three armies, with an aggregate strength of 98,739 men and 254 guns, formed the "Grand Military Division of the Mississippi," commanded by General Sherman—“ one of the grandest armies ever led by gallant chieftain." The whole force was consolidated at Ringgold early in May, and started southward on its march into Georgia.

General Logan, at the head of the Fourteenth Army Corps, was in the van, as General Sherman fought his way over difficult ground. General H. V. Boynton, who served gallantly in the Army of the Cumberland, says of him: "As the

united armies advanced along a battle line, where for four months the firing never wholly ceased by day or by night, everybody came to know Logan. Brave, vigilant, and aggressive, he won universal applause. Prudent for his men, and reckless in exposing his own person, he excited general admiration. When the lines were close his own headquarters were often scarcely out of sight of the pickets, and he generally had a hand in whatever deadly work might spring up along his front."

Leading the advance, General Logan had a bloody conflict with Hardee's veteran Confederates. at Dallas, and after twelve days of successful skirmishing, halted before Kenesaw Mountain, on which the Confederates were strongly entrenched. General Sherman, finding that he was expected to outflank this stronghold, determined, "for the moral effect," to carry it by assault, as in his opinion "an army to be efficient must not settle down to one mode of offense, but must be prepared to execute any plan which promises success." General Logan, who was with General McPherson at General Sherman's headquarters when this disastrous assault was decided upon, and who was always averse to the unnecessary exposure of his men, protested. "At first," says General Boynton, "he scarcely believed that the intention to make the assault was earnest. When he discovered that it was really contemplated, he emphasized his protest, coupling it with the opinion that to send the

troops against that mountain would only result in useless slaughter. Finding his opinion likely to be disregarded, he went still further and declared it to be a movement which, in his judgment, would be nothing less than the murder of brave men. In all of this he was warmly seconded by General McPherson. They did not succeed in averting the slaughter. But afterward, when officers of the Army of the Cumberland heard that General Thomas' protest in regard to the same matter had been in similar terms to that of Logan, a stronger liking than ever for Logan prevailed among those officers of the Cumberland Army who knew the facts. Thus he ever sought to protect his men whenever he saw that they were likely to be needlessly exposed.

General Logan nevertheless obeyed orders. Early on the morning of the 27th of June he formed his corps in storming columns, led it against the first line of rebel abattis through a terrific fire of musketry, and carried it. Then he advanced on the second line, carrying that also, but beyond it the mountain side was so steep, and the entrenchments were so strong, that, having lost many valuable lives, he was forced to fall back to the second line, where they threw up defenses of logs, which they held despite the stubbornest efforts of the Confederates to dislodge them.

An eye-witness, describing General Logan as he made an inspection of his lines, dwelt thus on his