On June 9th, Sherman set out for Grand Junction, an important railroad centre and strategic point, fifty-two miles west of Memphis. He took his own division and Hurlbut's, and on the 13th occupied Grand Junction. The enemy were at Tupelo, Miss., forty-nine miles below Corinth. Sherman remained at or near Grand Junction for some weeks, engaged in repairing and protecting the railroads and in similar work. His experience there was one long wrangle with the planters, who were trying to cultivate the soil, and were constantly complaining of the damage done by the moving armies. Halleck reached Washington early in July, and on the 15th of that month Grant directed Sherman to proceed to Memphis and take command of that important place. Memphis was in a bad plight. Nearly all the men had left the city to enter the Rebel army or to avoid the Union troops, and the place had fallen into the hands of a horde of speculators. Sherman undertook to establish order and govern the place as a military post. His instructions were few; he was to act upon his own discretion. He assumed command at Memphis on July 21st, and immediately in his vigorous way set about the construction of defenses and the evolution of law and order from the prevailing anarchy. Wherever the head of the family had joined the Rebel army, the family was compelled to go South. All buildings belonging to Rebels were at once seized and rented. The mayor and other civil officers were allowed to continue their functions. No oath of allegiance was enacted from the residents who remained in the city, Sherman regarding the fact of their remaining as a profession of loyalty; but if they aided the Rebel cause in any way, they were treated as spies. Trade in cotton, except on contracts to be paid at the end of the war, was entirely prohibited. The slave question then caused not a little trouble. The Government had not yet fully decided to free them. But Sherman kept careful account of all the work done for him by negroes, so that the Government might pay for their services at the end of the war, if it so decided. Guerrillas he suppressed remorselessly, hunting them down like so many wild beasts. And he enforced the _lex talionis_. If a loyal family was harassed by Rebels, he visited wrath upon the nearest secessionists. If the property of a loyal man was destroyed, he destroyed an equal amount of enemy's property. For every steamboat attacked by guerrillas, he drove ten secessionist families into exile. These stern measures, which he justified by the laws of war, soon restored order to Memphis. A capital idea of the situation in that part of the country in the summer of 1862, may be obtained from the following characteristic letter, which Sherman wrote to his brother John under date of Memphis, August 13th: