Campfire and battlefield

In the South as well as in the North there was much surprise that the Confederates did not pursue the routed Union forces at the battle of Bull Run and capture Washington. Perhaps Gen. Joseph E. Johnston is the best witness on this subject on the Southern side. He says: "All the military conditions, we knew, forbade an attempt on Washington. The Confederate army was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat. The Southern volunteers believed that the objects of the war had been accomplished by their victory, and that they had achieved all their country required of them. Many, therefore, in ignorance of their military obligations, left the army—not to return.... Exaggerated ideas of the victory, prevailing among our troops, cost us more than the Federal army lost by defeat." In writing this passage General Johnston probably took no account of the effect produced in Europe. The early narratives sent there, in which the panic of retreat was made the principal figure, gave the impression that the result arose from constitutional cowardice in Northern men and invincible courage in Southerners. They also gave the impression that the Confederates were altogether superior in generalship; and the effect was deep and long-enduring. The most notable of these was by a correspondent of the London Times, who had apparently been sent across the Atlantic for the express purpose of writing down the Republic, writing up the South, and enlisting the sympathies of Englishmen for the rebellion. In his second letter from Charleston (April 30, 1861) he had written that men of all classes in South Carolina declared to him: "If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content." "The New Englander must have something to persecute; and as he has hunted down all his Indians, burnt all his witches, persecuted all his opponents to the death, he invented abolitionism as the sole resource left to him for the gratification of his favorite passion. Next to this motive principle is his desire to make money dishonestly, trickily, meanly, and shabbily. He has acted on it in all his relations with the South, and has cheated and plundered her in all his dealings, by villanous tariffs." Many an Englishman, counting his worthless Confederate bonds, and trying to hope that he will yet receive something for them, knows he would never have made that investment but for such writing as this, and the accounts from the same pen of the battle of Bull Run.

At the North the spectacle of McDowell's army streaming back in disorder to the national capital produced first a shock of surprise, then a sense of disgrace, and then a calm determination to begin the war over again. It was well expressed by a Methodist minister at a camp-meeting in Illinois, the Rev. Henry Cox. The news of the battle came while he was preaching, and he closed his sermon with the words: "Brethren, we'd better adjourn this camp-meeting and go home and drill."

The effect of this over-discussed battle upon the more confident and boastful of the Southerners was perhaps fairly expressed by an editorial utterance of one of their journals, the Louisville, Ky., Courier: "As our Norman kinsmen in England, always a minority, have ruled their Saxon countrymen in political vassalage up to the present day, so have we, the 'slave oligarchs,' governed the Yankees till within a twelvemonth. We framed the Constitution, for seventy years moulded the policy of the government, and placed our own men, or 'Northern men with Southern principles,' in power. On the 6th of November, 1860, the Puritans emancipated themselves, and are now in violent insurrection against their former owners. This insane holiday freak will not last long, however; for, dastards in fight and incapable of self-government, they will inevitably again fall under the control of a superior race. A few more Bull Run thrashings will bring them once more under the yoke, as docile as the most loyal of our Ethiopian chattels."

France and England had made all haste to recognize the Confederates as belligerents, but had not granted them recognition as an established nation, and never did. There was a constant fear, however, that they would; and the Confederate Government did its utmost to bring about such recognition. Messrs. James M. Mason, of Virginia, and John Slidell, of Louisiana, were sent out by that Government, as duly accredited ministers to London and Paris, in 1861. They escaped the blockaders at Charleston, reached Havana, and there embarked on the British mail steamer Trent for Europe. But Capt. Charles Wilkes (who had commanded the celebrated exploring expedition in Antarctic waters twenty years before) was on the watch for them with the United States steam frigate San Jacinto, overhauled the Trent in the Bahama Channel (November 8), took off the Confederate commissioners, and allowed the steamer to proceed on her way. He carried his prisoners to Boston, and they were incarcerated in Fort Warren. This action, for which Wilkes received the thanks of Congress, was denounced as an outrage on British neutrality. The entire British public bristled up as one lion, and their Government demanded an apology and the liberation of the prisoners. The American public was unable to see any way out of the dilemma, and was considering whether it would choose humiliation or a foreign war, when our Secretary of State, William H. Seward, solved the problem in a masterly manner. In his formal reply he discussed the whole question with great ability, showing that such detention of a vessel was justified by the laws of war, and there were innumerable British precedents for it; that Captain Wilkes conducted the search in a proper manner; that the commissioners were contraband of war; and that the commander of the Trent knew they were contraband of war when he took them as passengers. But as Wilkes had failed to complete the transaction in a legal manner by bringing the Trent into port for adjudication in a prize court, it must be repudiated. In other words, by his consideration for the interests and convenience of innocent persons, he had lost his prize. In summing up, Mr. Seward said: "If I declare this case in favor of my own Government, I must disavow its most cherished principles, and reverse and forever abandon its most essential policy.... We are asked to do to the British nation just what we have always insisted all nations ought to do to us." The commissioners were released, and sailed for England in January; but the purpose of their mission had been practically thwarted. This was a remarkable instance of eating one's cake and keeping it at the same time.

But though danger of intervention was thus for the time averted, and the relations between the British Government and our own remained nominally friendly, so far as moral influence and bitterness of feeling could go the Republic had no more determined enemies in the cotton States than in the heart of England. The aristocratic classes rejoiced at anything that threatened to destroy democratic government or make its stability doubtful. They confidently expected to see our country fall into a state of anarchy like that experienced so often by the Spanish-American republics, and were willing to do everything they safely could do to bring it about. The foremost English journals had been predicting such a disaster ever since the beginning of the century, had announced it as in progress when a British force burned Washington in 1814, and now were surer of it than ever. Almost our only friends of the London press were the Daily News and Weekly Spectator. The commercial classes, in a country that had fought so many commercial wars, were of course delighted at the crippling of a commercial rival whom they had so long hated and feared, no matter what it might cost in the shedding of blood and the destruction of social order. Among the working classes, though they suffered heavily when the supply of cotton was diminished, we had many firm and devoted friends, who saw and felt, however imperfectly, that the cause of free labor was their own cause, no matter on which side of the Atlantic the battlefield might lie.

To those who had for years endured the taunts of Englishmen who pointed to American slavery and its tolerance in the American Constitution, while they boasted that no slave could breathe on British soil, it was a strange sight, when our country was at war over the question, to see almost everything that had power and influence in England arrayed on the side of the slaveholders. A few famous Englishmen—notably John Bright and Goldwin Smith—were true to the cause of liberty, and did much to instruct the laboring classes as to the real nature and significance of the conflict. Henry Ward Beecher, then at the height of his powers, went to England and addressed large audiences, enlightening them as to the real nature of American affairs, concerning which most of them were grossly ignorant, and produced an effect that was probably never surpassed by any orator. The Canadians, with the usual narrowness of provincials, blind to their own ultimate interests, were in the main more bitterly hostile than the mother country.

Louis Napoleon, then the despotic ruler of France, was unfriendly to the United States, and did his utmost to persuade the English Government to unite with him in a scheme of intervention that would probably have secured the division of the country. How far his plans went beyond that result, can only be conjectured; but while the war was still in progress (1864) he threw a French force into Mexico, and established there an ephemeral empire with an Austrian archduke at its head. That the possession of Mexico alone was not his object, is suggested by the fact that, when the rebellion was subdued and the secession cause extinct, he withdrew his troops from Mexico and left the archduke to the fate of other filibusters.

The Russian Government was friendly to the United States throughout the struggle. The imperial manifesto for the abolition of serfdom in Russia was issued on March 3, 1861, the day before President Lincoln was inaugurated, and this perhaps created a special bond of sympathy.

When the war began, the greater part of the small navy of the United States was in distant waters—off the coast of Africa, in the Mediterranean, on the Asiatic station—and for some of the ships to receive the news and return, many months were required. Twelve vessels were at home—four in Northern and eight in Southern ports. The navy, like the army, lost many Southern officers by resignation or dismissal. About three hundred who had been educated for its service went over to the Confederacy; but none of them took with them the vessels they had commanded. The Government bought all sorts of merchant craft, mounting guns on some and fitting up others as transports, and had gunboats built on ninety-day contracts. It was a most miscellaneous fleet, whose principal strength consisted in the weakness of its adversary. The first purpose was to complete the blockade of Southern ports. Throughout the war this was never made so perfect that no vessels could pass through; but it was gradually rendered more and more effective. The task was simplified as the land forces, little by little, obtained control of the shore, when a few vessels could maintain an effective blockade from within. But an exterior blockade of a port in the hands of the enemy required a large fleet, operating beyond the range of the enemy's fire from the shore, in a line so extended as to offer occasional opportunities for the blockade-runners to slip past. But blockade-running became exceedingly dangerous. Large numbers of the vessels engaged in it were captured or driven ashore and wrecked. The profit on a single cargo that passed either way in safety was very great, and special vessels for blockade-running were built in England. The Confederate Government enacted a law providing that a certain portion of every cargo thus brought into its ports must consist of arms or ammunition, otherwise vessel and all would be confiscated. This insured a constant supply; and though the Southern soldier was often barefoot and ragged, and sometimes hungry, he never lacked for the most improved weapons that English arsenals could produce, nor was he ever defeated for want of powder. A very large part of the bullets that destroyed the lives and limbs of National troops were cast in England and brought over the sea in blockade-runners. Clothing and equipments, too, for the Confederate armies came from the same source. Often when a burial party went out, after a battle, as they turned over one after another of the enemy's slain and saw the name of a Birmingham manufacturer stamped upon his buttons, it seemed that they must have been fighting a foreign foe. To pay for these things, the Confederates sent out cotton, tobacco, rice, and the naval stores produced by North Carolina forests. It was obvious from the first that any movement that would shut off a part of this trade, or render it more hazardous, would strike a blow at the insurrection. Furthermore, Confederate privateers were already out, and before the first expedition sailed sixteen captured merchantmen had been taken into the ports of North Carolina.

Vessels could enter Pamlico or Albemarle Sound by any one of several inlets, and then make the port of Newbern, Washington, or Plymouth; and the first of several naval and military expeditions was fitted out for the purpose of closing the most useful of these openings, Hatteras Inlet, thirteen miles south of Cape Hatteras. Two forts had been erected on the point at the northern side of this inlet, and the project was to capture them; but, so new was everybody to the art of war, it was not at first intended to garrison and hold them.

The expedition, which originated with the Navy Department, was fitted out in Hampton Roads, near Fortress Monroe, and was commanded by Flag-officer Silas H. Stringham. It numbered ten vessels, all told, carrying one hundred and fifty-eight guns. Two were transport steamers, having on board about nine hundred troops commanded by Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, and two were schooners carrying iron surf-boats. It sailed on the 26th of August, 1861, with sealed orders, arrived at its destination before sunset, and anchored off the bar. Early the next morning an attempt was made to land the troops through the surf, at a point three miles from the inlet, whence they might attack the forts in the rear. But it was not very successful. The heavy surf dashed the clumsy iron boats upon the shore, drenching the men, wetting the powder, and endangering everything. About one-third of the troops, however, were landed, with two field-guns, and remained there under protection of the fire from the ships. The forts were garrisoned by about six hundred men, and mounted twenty-five guns; but they were not very strong, and their bomb-proofs were not constructed properly. Stringham's flag-ship, the frigate Minnesota, led off in the attack, followed by the Susquehanna and Wabash, and the guns of the smaller fort were soon silenced. The frigates were at such a distance that they could drop shells into it with their pivot-guns, while the shot from the fort could not reach them. Afterward the larger work, Fort Hatteras, was bombarded, but with no practical effect, though the firing was kept up till sunset. But meanwhile the troops that had landed through the surf had taken possession of the smaller work, Fort Clark. They also threw up a small earthwork, and with their field-pieces fired upon some Confederate vessels that were in the Sound. The next morning (the 28th) the frigates anchored within reach of Fort Hatteras, and began a deliberate and steady bombardment. As before, the shot from the fort fell short of the ships, and neither could that from the smooth-bore broadside guns reach the fort; but the pivot-guns and the rifled pieces of one vessel wrought great havoc. One plunging shell went down through a ventilator and narrowly missed exploding the magazine. At the end of three hours the fort surrendered. Its defenders, who were commanded by Samuel Barron, formerly of the United States navy, had suffered a loss of about fifty in killed and wounded. They had been reinforced in the night, but a steamer was seen taking away a load of troops just before the surrender. The seven hundred prisoners were sent on board the flag-ship and carried to New York. The victors had not lost a man. There had been some intention of destroying the forts and blocking up the channels of the inlet; but it was determined instead to leave a garrison and establish a coaling station for the blockading fleet. Two of the frigates remained in the Sound, and within a fortnight half a dozen blockade-runners entered the inlet and were captured.

A much larger expedition sailed from Hampton Roads on one of the last days of October. It consisted of more than fifty vessels—frigates, gunboats, transports, tugs, steam ferry-boats, and schooners—carrying twenty-two thousand men. The fleet was commanded by Flag-officer Samuel F. Du Pont, the troops by Gen. Thomas W. Sherman (who must not be confounded with Gen. William T. Sherman, famous for his march to the sea). The expedition had been two months in preparation, and though it sailed with sealed orders, and every effort had been made to keep its destination secret, the information leaked out as usual, and while it was on its way the Confederate Secretary of War telegraphed to the Governor of South Carolina and the commander at Hilton Head where to expect it. Bull's Bay, St. Helena, Port Royal, and Fernandina had all been discussed, and the final choice fell upon Port Royal.

A tremendous gale was encountered on the passage; the fleet was scattered, one transport was completely wrecked, with a loss of seven lives, one gunboat was obliged to throw her broadside battery overboard, a transport threw over her cargo, and one store-ship was lost. When the storm was over, only a single gunboat was in sight from the flag-ship. But the fleet slowly came together again, and was joined by some of the frigates that were blockading Charleston Harbor, these being relieved by others that had come down for the purpose. They arrived off the entrance to Port Royal harbor on the 5th and 6th of November. This entrance was protected by two earthworks—Fort Walker on Hilton Head (the south side), and Fort Beauregard on St. Helena Island (the north side). These forts were about two and a half miles apart, and were garrisoned by South Carolina troops, commanded by Generals Drayton and Ripley. A brother of General Drayton commanded a vessel in the attacking fleet.

On the morning of the 7th the order of battle was formed. The bar was ten miles out from the entrance, and careful soundings had been made by two gunboats, under the fire of three Confederate vessels that ran out from the harbor. The main column consisted of ten vessels, led by the flag-ship Wabash, and was ordered to attack Fort Walker. Another column of four vessels was ordered to fire upon Fort Beauregard, pass in, and attack the Confederate craft. All were under way soon after breakfast, and were favored by a tranquil sea. The main column, a ship's length apart, steamed in steadily at the rate of six miles an hour, passing Fort Walker at a distance of eight hundred yards, and delivering a fire of shells and rifled shot. Every gun in the fort that could be brought to bear was worked as rapidly as possible, in a gallant defence. After the line had passed the fort, it turned and steamed out again, passing this time within six hundred yards, and delivering fire from the guns on the other side of the vessels. Three times they thus went around in a long ellipse, each time keeping the fort under fire for about twenty minutes. Then the Bienville, which had the heaviest guns, and was commanded by Captain Steadman, a South Carolinian, sailed in closer yet, and delivered a fire that dismounted several guns and wrought dreadful havoc. Meanwhile two or three gunboats had taken a position from which they enfiladed the work, and the flag-ship came to a stand at short range and pounded away steadily. This was more than anything at that stage of the war could endure, and from the mast-head the troops were seen streaming out of the fort and across Hilton Head Island as if in panic. A flag of truce was sent on shore, but there was no one to receive it, and soon after two o'clock the National colors were floating over the fort. The flanking column of vessels had attacked Fort Beauregard; and when the commander of that work saw that Fort Walker was abandoned by its defenders, he also retreated with his force. The Confederate vessels escaped by running up a shallow inlet. The loss in the fleet was eight men killed and twenty-three wounded; that of the Confederates, as reported by their commander, was eleven killed and fifty-two wounded or missing. General Sherman said: "Many bodies were buried in the fort, and twenty or thirty were found half a mile distant." The road across Hilton Head Island to a wharf whence the retreating troops were taken to the mainland was strewn with arms and accoutrements, and two howitzers were abandoned. The surgeon of the fort had been killed by a shell and buried by a falling parapet. The troops were debarked and took possession of both forts, repaired and strengthened the works, formed an intrenched camp, and thus gave the Government a permanent foothold on the soil of South Carolina.

Roanoke Island, N. C., lies between Roanoke Sound and Croatan Sound, through which the channels lead to Albemarle Sound, giving access to the interior of the State. This island, therefore, was fortified by the Confederates, in order to command these approaches. The island is about as large as that which is occupied by New York City—ten miles long, and somewhat over two miles wide. In January, 1862, an expedition was fitted out to capture it, and the command was given to Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, who had about fifteen thousand men, with a battery of six guns, carried on forty transports. The naval part of the expedition, consisting of twenty-eight vessels, none of them very large, carrying half a hundred guns, was under the immediate command of Capt. Louis M. Goldsborough. Among his subordinate officers were Stephen C. Rowan and John L. Worden. Burnside's three brigade commanders—all of whom rose to eminence before the war was over—were John G. Foster, Jesse L. Reno, and John G. Parke.

The expedition sailed from Hampton Roads on January 11, and almost immediately encountered a terrific storm, by which the fleet was far scattered, some of the vessels being carried out to sea and others driven ashore. Five were wrecked, and a considerable number of men were lost. By the 28th, all that had weathered the gale passed through Hatteras Inlet into the sounds. The fortifications on the island mounted forty guns; and in Croatan Sound a Confederate naval force of eight vessels lay behind a line of obstructions across the channel.

On February 7th, the National gunboats, advancing in three columns, shelled Fort Bartow—the principal fortification, on the west side of the island—and the Confederate gunboats. The latter were soon driven off, and in four hours the fort was silenced. The transports landed the troops on the west side of the island, two miles south of the fort, and in the morning of the 8th they began their march to the interior, which was made difficult and disagreeable by swamps and a lack of roads, and by a cold storm. On the 9th, the Confederate skirmishers were driven in, and the main line was assaulted, first with artillery, and then by the infantry. The Confederate left wing was turned; and when the national troops had nearly exhausted their ammunition they made a brilliant bayonet charge, led by Hawkins's New York zouave regiment, and stormed the works, which were hastily abandoned by the Confederates, who attempted to reach the northeast shore and cross to Nag's Head, but more than two thousand of them were captured. Fort Bartow still held out, but it was soon taken, its garrison surrendering. In this action the national loss was two hundred and thirty-five men killed or wounded in the army, and twenty-five in the navy.

On the 10th, a part of the fleet, under Captain Rowan, pursued the Confederate fleet up Albemarle Sound, and after a short engagement defeated it. The Confederates set fire to their vessels and deserted them, destroying all but one, which was captured. Rowan then took possession of Elizabeth City and Edenton. The flying Confederates had set fire to the former; but Rowan's men, with the help of the colored people who remained, put out the fire and saved the city.

In this naval battle one of the first medals of honor won in the war was earned by a sailor named John Davis. A shell thrown by the Confederates entered one of the vessels and set fire to it. This was near the magazine, and there was an open barrel of powder from which Davis was serving a gun. He at once sat down on the barrel, and remained there covering it until the fire was put out.

General Burnside next planned an expedition in the opposite direction, to attack Newbern. His forces, numbering about eight thousand men, sailed from Hatteras Inlet in the morning of March 12th, and that evening landed within eighteen miles of Newbern. The next day they marched toward the city, while the gunboats ascended the river and shelled such fortifications and Confederate troops as could be seen. The roads were miry, and the progress of the troops was slow. After removing elaborate obstructions and torpedoes from the channel, the fleet reached and silenced the forts near the city. The land forces then came up and attacked the Confederates, who were about five thousand strong and were commanded by General Branch. After hard fighting, the works were carried, and the enemy fled. They burned the railroad bridge over the Trent River, and set fire to the city; but the sailors succeeded in extinguishing the flames in time to save the greater part of the town. Burnside's loss in this battle was about five hundred and fifty killed or wounded; that of the Confederates, including prisoners, was about the same. Fifty-two guns and two steamers were captured.

Ten days later, Beaufort, N. C., and Morehead City were occupied by the National troops without opposition. Burnside's army was now broken up into comparatively small bodies, holding the various places that had been taken, which greatly diminished the facilities for blockade-running on the North Carolina coast.

The year 1862 opened with indications of lively and decisive work west of the mountains, and many movements were made that cannot be detailed here. One of the most gallant was in the region of the Big Sandy River in eastern Kentucky, where Humphrey Marshall had gathered a Confederate force of about two thousand five hundred (mostly Kentuckians) at Paintville. Col. James A. Garfield (afterward President), in command of one thousand eight hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry, drove him out of Paintville, pursued him beyond Prestonburg, came up with him at noon of January 10th, and fought him till night, when Marshall retreated under cover of the darkness, leaving his dead on the field.

In the autumn of 1861 a Confederate force, under Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer, had been pushed forward by way of Knoxville to eastern Kentucky, but was defeated at Camp Wildcat, October 21st, by seven thousand men under General Schoepff, and fell back to Mill Springs at the head of steamboat navigation on the Cumberland. Zollicoffer soon crossed to the northern bank, and fortified a position at Beech Grove, in the angle between the river and Fishing Creek. The National forces in the vicinity were commanded by Gen. George H. Thomas, who watched Zollicoffer so closely that when the latter was told by his superiors he should not have crossed the river, he could only answer that it was now too late to return. As Zollicoffer was only a journalist, with more zeal than military knowledge, Gen. George B. Crittenden was sent to supersede him. Thomas was slowly advancing, through rainy weather, over heavy roads, to drive this force out of the State, and had reached Logan's Cross-roads, within ten miles of the Confederate camp, when Crittenden determined to move out and attack him. The battle began early on the morning of January 19, 1862. Thomas was on the alert, and when his outposts were driven in he rapidly brought up one detachment after another and threw them into line. The attack was directed mainly against the National left, where the fighting was obstinate and bloody, much of the firing being at very close quarters. Here Zollicoffer, thinking the Fourth Kentucky was a Confederate regiment firing upon its friends, rode forward to correct the supposed mistake, and was shot dead by its colonel, Speed S. Fry. When, at length, the right of the Confederate line had been pressed back and broken, a steady fire having been kept up on the centre, the Ninth Ohio Regiment made a bayonet charge on its left flank, and the whole line was broken and routed. The Confederates took refuge in their intrenchments, where Thomas swiftly pursued and closely invested them, expecting to capture them all the next morning. But in the night they managed to cross the river, leaving behind their wounded, twelve guns, all their horses, mules, and wagons, and a large amount of stores. In the further retreat two of the Confederate regiments disbanded and scattered to their homes, while a large number from other regiments deserted individually. The National loss in killed and wounded was two hundred and forty-six; that of the Confederates, four hundred and seventy-one. Thomas received the thanks of the President for his victory. This action is variously called the Battle of Fishing Creek and the Battle of Mill Springs.

When Gen. Henry W. Halleck was placed in command of the Department of Missouri, in November, 1861, he divided it into districts, giving to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant the District of Cairo, which included Southern Illinois, the counties of Missouri south of Cape Girardeau, and all of Kentucky that lies west of Cumberland River. Where the Tennessee and the Cumberland enter Kentucky from the south they are about ten miles apart, and here the Confederates had erected two considerable works to command the rivers—Fort Henry on the east bank of the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the west bank of the Cumberland. They had also fortified the high bluffs at Columbus, on the Mississippi, twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and Bowling Green, on the Big Barren. The general purpose was to establish a military frontier with a strong line of defence from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi.

A fleet of iron-clad gunboats had been prepared by the United States Government for service on the Western rivers, some of them being built new, while others were altered freight-boats.

After a reconnoissance in force by Gen. C. F. Smith, General Grant asked Halleck's permission to capture Fort Henry, and, after considerable delay, received it on the 30th of January. That work was garrisoned by three thousand men under Gen. Lloyd Tilghman. Its position was strong, the ravines through which little tributaries reached the river being filled with slashed timber and rifle-pits, and swampy ground rendering approach from the land side difficult. But the work itself was rather poorly built, bags of sand being largely used instead of a solid earth embankment.

On the morning of February 2d the fleet of four iron-clad and two wooden gunboats, commanded by Flag-officer Andrew H. Foote, left Cairo, steamed up the Ohio to Paducah, thence up the Tennessee, and by daylight the next morning were within sight of the fort. Grant's land force was to coöperate by an attack in the rear, but it did not arrive in time. The gunboats moved up to within six hundred yards, and opened a bombardment, to which the guns of the fort immediately responded, and the firing was kept up for an hour. The Essex received a shot in her boiler, by which many men were wounded or scalded, including Capt. William D. Porter, son of Commodore David Porter who had won fame in another Essex in the war of 1812-15. Otherwise the fleet, though struck many times, was not seriously injured. On the other hand, the fire from the gunboats knocked the sand-bags about, dismounted seven guns, brought down the flagstaff, and, together with the bursting of a rifled gun in the fort, created a panic. All but about one hundred of the garrison fled, leaving General Tilghman with the sick and a single company of artillerists; and, after serving a gun with his own hands as long as possible, he ran up a white flag and surrendered. The regret of the victors at the escape of the garrison was more than counterbalanced by their gratification at the behavior of the gunboats in their first serious trial. After the surrender, three of the gunboats proceeded up the Tennessee River to the head of navigation, destroyed the railroad bridge, and captured a large amount of stores.

In consequence of the battle of Mill Springs and the fall of Fort Henry, the Confederate Gen. Simon B. Buckner, who was at Bowling Green with about ten thousand men, abandoned that place and joined his forces to those in Fort Donelson. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel, by a forced march, promptly took possession of Bowling Green with National troops; and General Grant immediately made dispositions for the capture of Fort Donelson. This work, situated at a bend of the river, was on high ground, enclosed about a hundred acres, and had also a strong water-battery on the lower river front. The land side was protected by slashed timber and rifle-pits, as well as by the naturally broken ground. The gunboats went down the Tennessee and up the Cumberland, and with them a portion of Grant's force to be used in attacking the water front. The fort contained about twenty thousand men, commanded by Gen. John B. Floyd, who had been President Buchanan's Secretary of War. Grant's main force left the neighborhood of Fort Henry on the morning of February 12th, a portion marching straight on Fort Donelson, while the remainder made a slight detour to the south, to come up on the right, strike the Confederate left, and prevent escape in that direction. They chose positions around the fort unmolested that afternoon, and the next morning the fighting began. After an artillery duel, an attempt was made to storm the works near the centre of the line, but it was a failure and entailed severe loss. The gunboats and the troops with them had not yet come up, and the attack was suspended for the day. A cold storm set in, with sleet and snow, and the assailants spent the night without shelter and with scant rations, while a large part of the defenders, being in the trenches, were equally exposed.

Next morning the fleet appeared, landed the troops and supplies three miles below the fort, and then moved up to attack the batteries. These were not so easily disposed of as Fort Henry had been. It was a desperate fight. The plunging shot from the fort struck the gunboats in their most vulnerable part, and made ugly wounds. But they stood to the work manfully, and had silenced one battery when the steering apparatus of two of the gunboats was shot away, while a gun on another had burst and the flag-officer was wounded. The flag-ship had been struck fifty-nine times, and the others from twenty to forty, when they all dropped down the stream and out of the fight. They had lost fifty-four men killed or wounded. But the naval attack had served to prevent an immediate sortie, and so perhaps ultimately saved the victory for Grant.

That night a council of war was held within the fort, and it was determined to attack the besiegers in the morning with the entire force, in hopes either to defeat them completely or at least to turn back their right wing, and thus open a way for retreat toward the south. The fighting began early in the morning. Grant's right wing, all but surprised, was pressed heavily and borne back, the enemy passing through and plundering McClernand's camps. Buckner sallied out and attacked on the left with much less vigor and with no success but as a diversion, and the fighting extended all along the line, while the Confederate cavalry were endeavoring to gain the National rear. Grant was imperturbable through it all, and when he saw that the attack had reached its height, he ordered a counter attack and recovery of the lost ground on the right, which was executed by the division of Lew Wallace, while that of C. F. Smith stormed the works on the left. Smith rode beside the color-bearer, and, in the face of a murderous fire that struck down four hundred men, his troops rushed forward over every obstruction, brought up field guns and enfiladed the works, drove out the defenders, and took possession.

Another bitterly cold night followed, but Grant improved the time to move up reinforcements to the positions he had gained, while the wounded were looked after as well as circumstances would permit. Within the fort another council of war was held. Floyd declared it would not do for him to fall into the hands of the Government, as he was accused of defrauding it while in office. So he turned over the command to Gen. Gideon J. Pillow. But that general said he also had strong reasons for not wanting to be a prisoner, so he turned it over to Gen. Simon B. Buckner. With as many of their men as could be taken on two small steamers, Floyd and Pillow embarked in the darkness and went up the river to Nashville. The cavalry, under Gen. N. B. Forrest, also escaped, and a considerable number of men from all the commands managed to steal away unobserved. In the morning Buckner hung out a white flag, and sent a letter to Grant, proposing that commissioners be appointed to arrange terms of capitulation. Grant's answer not only made him famous, but gave an impetus and direction to the whole war: "No terms other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Buckner, in a petulant and ill-considered note, at once surrendered the fort and his entire command. This numbered about fourteen thousand men; and four hundred that were sent to reinforce him were also captured.