After the battle of Shiloh, the Confederate forces of the Middle West,--under Beauregard,--had retired to Corinth, Miss., which Halleck, at the head of more than 100,000 men,--having gathered together Grant's army, Buell's and all the other forces under his command,--approached with ridiculous caution. After a somewhat farcical siege, in which Beauregard played successfully for time, Corinth was suddenly and expeditiously evacuated, and the Confederate Army reappeared in a strong position at Tupelo, when, Beauregard having fallen ill, Bragg assumed command. Halleck now divided his forces again, Buell,--at the head of what was now known as the Army of the Cumberland,--being sent into Middle Tennessee to begin a campaign long urged by President Lincoln for the relief of the Unionists in the eastern part of that State, and Grant being left in Mississippi, with somewhat widely-separated detachments, which ultimately he was to concentrate in the campaign for Vicksburg. The taking of Memphis (June 6) had already given the Union forces a foothold on the great river and domination over Western Tennessee. Halleck was summoned to Washington in July, to take command of all the armies in the field. The dispersion of the Union forces in his front did not pass unnoticed by Bragg, who soon conceived and put into execution one of the boldest plans of campaign of the war. Early in June he began the shifting of his Army of the Tennessee to Chattanooga, where, in conjunction with Kirby Smith,--commanding a Confederate Army in East Tennessee,--he perfected his scheme of operation. The prelude of his campaign was exhibited in the form of extensive raids by Forrest's Cavalry and Morgan's, in which the Federal lines of communication were repeatedly cut, huge stores of supplies taken or destroyed, and several important posts captured. Early in August the heavy columns of Confederate infantry and artillery began pouring through the mountain passes into the coveted territory of Kentucky. Bragg's invasion of Kentucky was thus practically simultaneous with Lee's invasion of Maryland; and the two movements caused the direst foreboding and dismay in the North. The war was coming very close to the people of that section when Confederate detachments appeared in the rear of Covington, in sight of Cincinnati, and when the chief Confederate Army crossed the Potomac into the Maryland that the Southern poets had already immortalized in song. Not the least of the objects of these two campaigns was the winning to the Confederate cause of the States invaded.