be heard running into Corinth and full trains running out. But,
as the Confederates greeted each arriving "empty" with tremendous
Cheers, Halleck felt sure that Beauregard was being greatly
reinforced. The Confederate bluff worked to admiration. On the
twenty-sixth Beauregard issued orders for complete evacuation on
the twenty-ninth. On the thirtieth Halleck drew up his whole
grand army ready for a desperate defense against an enemy that
had already gone a full day's march away.

In the meantime the Federal flotilla had been fighting its way
down the Mississippi, under (the invalided) Foote's very capable
successor, Flag-Officer Charles Henry Davis. The Confederates had
very few naval men on the river, but many of their Mississippi
skippers were game to the death. They rammed Federal vessels on
the tenth of May at Fort Pillow, eighty miles above Memphis.
Eight of their fighting craft were strongly built and heavily
armored, though very deficient in speed. The Federal flotilla was
very well manned by first-class naval ratings, and was reinforced
early in June by seven fast new rams, commanded by their
designer, Colonel Charles Ellet, a famous civil engineer.

At sunrise on the lovely sixth of June the Federal flotilla,
having overcome the Confederate posts farther north and being
joined by Ellet's rams, lay near Memphis. The Confederates came
upstream to the attack, expecting to ram the gunboats in the
stern as they had at Fort Pillow. But Ellet suddenly darted down
on the eight Confederate ironclads, caught one of them on the
broadside, sank her, and disabled two others. The action then
became general. The overmatched Confederates kept up a losing
battle for more than an hour, in full view of many thousands of