HEADQUARTERS FIFTH
DIVISION,
Camp before Corinth,
May 31, 1862.
The general commanding Fifth Division, right wing, takes
this occasion to express to the officers and men of this command his great
satisfaction with them for the courage, steadiness, and great industry
displayed by them during the past month. Since leaving our memorable camp at
Shiloh we have occupied and strongly intrenched seven distinct camps in a
manner to excite the admiration and highest commendation of General Halleck.
The division has occupied the right flank of the Grand Army, thereby being more
exposed and calling for more hard work and larger guard details than from any
other single division, and the commanding general reports that his officers and
men have promptly and cheerfully fulfilled their duty, and have sprung to the
musket or spade, according to the occasion, and have just reason to claim a
large share in the honors that are due to the whole army for the glorious
victory terminating at Corinth on yesterday, and it affords him great pleasure
to bear full and willing testimony to the qualities of his command that have
achieved this victory, a victory none the less decisive because attended with
comparatively little loss of life.
But a few days ago a large and powerful army of rebels lay
at Corinth, with outposts extending to our very camp at Shiloh. They held two
railroads, extending north and south, east and west, across the whole extent of
their country, with a vast number of locomotives and cars to bring to them
speedily and certainly their re-enforcements and supplies. They called to their
aid all their armies from every quarter, abandoning the sea-coast and the great
river Mississippi, that they might overwhelm us with numbers in the place of
their own choosing. They had their chosen leaders, men of high reputation and
courage, and they dared us to leave the cover of our iron-clad gunboats to come
and fight them in their trenches and still more dangerous ambuscades of their
Southern swamps and forests. Their whole country, from Richmond to Memphis and
from Nashville to Mobile, rung with their taunts and boastings as to how they
would immolate the Yankees if they dared to leave the Tennessee River. They
boldly and defiantly challenged us to meet them at Corinth. We accepted the
challenge, and came slowly and without attempt at concealment to the very
ground of their selection, and they have fled away. We yesterday marched
unopposed through the burning embers of their destroyed camps and property and
pursued them to their swamps, until burning bridges plainly confessed they had
fled, and not marched away for better ground.
It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded
in history, and every officer and soldier who has lent his aid has just reason
to be proud of his part. No amount of sophistry or words from the leaders of the
rebellion can succeed in giving the evacuation of Corinth under the
circumstances any other title than that of a signal defeat, more humiliating to
them and to their cause than if we had entered the place over the dead and
mangled bodies of their soldiers. We are not here to kill and slay, but to
vindicate the honor and just authority of that Government which has been
bequeathed to us by our honored fathers, and to whom we would be recreant if we
permitted their work to pass to our children weaned and spoiled by ambitious
and wicked rebels.
The commanding general, while thus claiming for his division
their just share in the glorious result, must at the same time remind them that
much yet remains to be done, and that all must still continue the same vigilance,
patience, industry, and obedience till the enemy lays down his arms and
publicly acknowledges for their supposed grievances they must obey the laws of
their country, and not attempt its overthrow by threats, by cruelty, and by
war. They must be made to feel and acknowledge the power of a just and mighty
nation. This result can only be accomplished by a cheerful and ready obedience
to the orders and authority of our own leaders, in whom we now have just reason
to feel the most implicit confidence. That the Fifth Division of the right wing
will do this, and that in due time we will all go to our families and friends
at home, is the earnest prayer and wish of your immediate commander,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Major-General, Commanding.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume
X, Part I (Serial No. 11), pages 233-4
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