By this brilliant and important victory Grant's fame sprang suddenly
into full and universal recognition. President Lincoln nominated him
major-general of volunteers, and the Senate at once confirmed the
appointment. The whole military service felt the inspiriting
event.--_Nicolay and Hay, in "Life of Lincoln."_
The grasp of a great section of western Kentucky and Tennessee by the
Northern armies, the capture of a stronghold that was thought impregnable,
the forced surrender of a great army, and the bringing into public notice
of a new commander who was destined to outshine all his fellows--these
were the achievements of the short, vigorous campaign of Fort Donelson.
There were two great battle-grounds of the Civil War, nearly a thousand
miles apart--Virginia and the valley of the great river that divides the
continent--and the two definite objects of the Northern armies during the
first half of the war period were to capture Richmond and to open the
Mississippi. All other movements and engagements were subordinate to the
dramas of these two great theaters, incidental and contributory. The
South, on the other hand, except for the early threatening of Washington,
the Gettysburg campaign, the raid of Morgan in Ohio, and the expeditions
of Bragg and Hood into Kentucky and Tennessee, was on the defensive from
the beginning of the war to the end.
In the East after the initial engagement at Bull Run "all was quiet along
the Potomac" for some months. McClellan had loomed large as the rising
hero of the war; but McClellan did not move with the celerity that was
expected of him; the North became impatient and demanded that something
be done. But while the public was still waiting there were two occurrences
in the West that riveted the attention of the nation, sending a thrill of
gladness through the North and a wave of depression over the Southland.
These were the fall of Fort Henry and of Fort Donelson.
After Missouri had been saved to the Union in spite of the disaster at
Wilson's Creek in August, 1861, a Union army slowly gathered in southern
Illinois. Its purpose was to dispute with the Confederates their hold on
Kentucky, which had not seceded, and to regain control of the Mississippi.
To secure the latter end a flank movement was decided upon--to open the
mighty river by moving up the Cumberland and Tennessee--the greatest
flanking movement in the history of warfare. It began at Fort Henry and
ended at Vicksburg, covered a year and five months, and cost tens of
thousands of human lives and millions of dollars' worth of property--but
it was successful.
Eastern Kentucky, in the early days of 1862, was also in considerable
ferment. Colonel James A. Garfield had driven the Confederate commander,
General Humphrey Marshall, and a superior force into the Cumberland
Mountains, after a series of slight encounters, terminating at Paintsville
on the Big Sandy River, on January 10th. But one later event gave great
encouragement to the North. It was the first substantial victory for the
Union arms. General Zollicoffer held the extreme Confederate right at
Cumberland Gap and he now joined General George B. Crittenden near Mill
Springs in central Kentucky. General Buell, in charge of the Army of the
Ohio, had placed General George H. Thomas at Lebanon, and the latter
promptly moved against this threatening Confederate force. A sharp
engagement took place at Logan's Cross Roads near Mill Springs on January
19th. The Confederate army was utterly routed and Zollicoffer was killed.
The Union loss was about two hundred and sixty, and the Confederate over
twice that number. It was not a great battle, but its effect on the North
was most stimulating, and the people first learned to appreciate the
abilities of their great general, George H. Thomas.
It was now February, 1862. General U. S. Grant was in command of the Union
forces in western Kentucky and Tennessee. The opposing commander was
Albert Sidney Johnston, then reputed the ablest general of the South. At
Bowling Green, Kentucky, he had thirty thousand men. Believing, perhaps,
that he could not hold Kentucky, he determined to save Tennessee for the
South and took his stand at Nashville.
On February 2d, 1862, General Grant left Cairo with his army of seventeen
thousand men and on transports moved up the Ohio and the Tennessee to
attack Fort Henry. Accompanying him was Flag-Officer Foote with his fleet
of seven gunboats, four of them ironclads.
Fort Henry was garrisoned by an army of about three thousand men under the
command of General Lloyd Tilghman, a brave officer who was destined to
give his life for the Confederate cause, the following year, near
Vicksburg. It covered about three acres and mounted seventeen heavy guns.
Grant's plan of attack was to land his army four miles below the fort, to
move across the country and seize the road leading to Fort Donelson, while
Foote should move up the river with his fleet and turn his guns on the
Confederate batteries.
On February 6th, Foote formed his vessels into two lines, the
ironclads--the _Cincinnati_, the _Carondelet_, the _Essex_, and the _St.
Louis_--forming a front rank. Slowly and cautiously he approached the
fort, firing as he went, the guns on the parapet answering those of the
fleet. Several of the Confederate guns were disabled. The fleet was yet
unhurt when the first hour had passed. Then a 24-pound shot struck the
_Essex_, crashed through her side and penetrated her boiler, instantly
killing both her pilots and flooding the vessel from stem to stern with
scalding steam. The _Essex_, wholly disabled, drifted down stream, while
her companion ships continued their advance and increased their fire.
Presently, a sound exceeding the roar of cannon was heard above the
tumult. A great gun in the fort had exploded, killing or disabling every
man who served it. A great 10-inch columbiad was also destroyed. Tilghman,
seeing that he had no hope of holding the fort, decided to save his army
by sending it to Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River. This he did,
reserving fewer than a hundred men to work the guns. He then raised the
white flag and surrendered the seventy-eight that remained. Grant had
failed to reach the road to Fort Donelson until the Confederates had
escaped. The Southerners hastened across the country and added their
numbers to the defenders of Donelson--and by so doing they deferred
surrender for ten days.
Fort Donelson was a fortified enclosure of a hundred acres that crowned a
plateau on the Cumberland River. It was just south of the boundary between
Kentucky and Tennessee and close by the little village of Dover,
consisting of a court-house, a two-story tavern, and a few houses
scattered about. Beneath the bluff and on the river bank were two powerful
batteries commanding the approach to the river. Outside the fort and
stretching far along the ridges that enclosed it were rifle-pits, lines of
logs covered with yellow clay. Farther beyond, the hillsides were covered
with felled trees whose interlacing branches were supposed to render the
approach of the foe impossible under fire.
At this moment Donelson was held by eighteen thousand men under the
command of General John B. Floyd, late Secretary of War in the cabinet of
Buchanan. Next to him were Gideon J. Pillow and Simon B. Buckner. The
Union army under Grant was divided into three parts under the respective
commands of Charles F. Smith, a veteran of the regular army; John A.
McClernand, an Illinois lawyer and member of Congress, and Lew Wallace,
the future author of "Ben Hur."
With waving banners the divisions of Smith and McClernand marched across
country on February 12th, arriving at noon and encircling the doomed fort
ere nightfall. Smith was stationed on the left and McClernand on the
extreme right, near the village of Dover. This left an open space in the
center, to be filled by Lew Wallace, who arrived with his division the
next day. On the 13th there was a continuous bombardment from morning till
night, punctuated by the sharp crack of the sharpshooter's rifle.
The chief action of the day that involved the infantry was an attempt to
capture a battery on a hill, near the center of the Confederate line of
battle, known as Maney's Battery, commanded by Captain Maney, of
Tennessee. This battery had annoyed McClernand greatly, and he delegated
his third brigade to capture it. The charge was led by Colonel Morrison of
Illinois, and a braver one never was made throughout the whole period of
the war. The men who made it were chiefly youths from the farms and
workshops of Illinois. With no apparent thought of danger they sallied
forth, determined at all hazards to capture the battery on the hill, which
stood out in relief against the sky. As they ran up the hill, firing as
they went, their numbers were rapidly thinned by the terrific cross-fire
from this battery and two others on adjoining hills. Still the survivors
pushed on and their deadly fire thinned the ranks of the men at the
battery. At length when they came within forty yards of the goal a long
line of Confederate musketry beside the battery suddenly burst into flame
and a storm of bullets cut down the brave boys of Illinois, with fearful
slaughter. Even then they stood for fifteen minutes, returning volley for
volley, before retreating. Reaching the foot of the hill, they rallied
under the Stars and Stripes, and returned to the assault. Even a third
time they charged, but the dry leaves on the ground now caught fire, the
smoke stifled them, and they had to retreat. As they returned down the
hill, Lew Wallace tells us, "their ears and souls were riven with the
shrieks of their wounded comrades, upon whom the flames crept and
smothered and charred where they lay."
Thus ended the 13th of February. That night the river gunboats, six in
number, four of them ironclads, under the command of Andrew H. Foote,
arrived. Grant had sent them down the Tennessee to the Ohio and up the
Cumberland, to support his army at Fort Donelson. On the 14th, about three
in the afternoon, Foote steamed with his four ironclads to a point in the
river within four hundred yards of the two powerful batteries on the river
bank under the fort and opened fire with his cannon while continuing to
advance. The reply from the Confederate batteries was terrific and many of
their shots struck home. In a short time the decks of the vessels were
slippery with human blood. Foote himself was severely wounded. At length a
solid shot struck the pilot house of the flagship and tore away the pilot
wheel. At almost the same moment another gunboat was disabled. The two
vessels, one of which had been struck fifty-nine times, could no longer be
managed; they turned about with the eddies of the river and floated down
with the current. The others followed.
The Confederates raised a wild shout of joy at this, their second victory
since the coming of the Union army. But what will be the story of the
morrow? With the reënforcements brought by Foote, Lew Wallace's division,
Grant's army was now swelled to twenty-seven thousand, and in spite of the
initial repulse the Federals felt confident of ultimate victory. But a
dreary night was before them. The springlike weather had changed. All that
fearful night of February 14th there was a fierce, pitiless wind with
driving sleet and snow. Thousands of the men, weary of the burden of their
overcoats and blankets during the warm preceding days, had thrown them
away. Now they spent the night lying behind logs or in ditches or wherever
they could find a little protection from the wintry blasts. General Floyd,
knowing that Grant's army was much stronger than his own, decided, after
consulting with Pillow and Buckner, to attack the Union right at dawn on
the 15th.
The night was spent in preparing for this, and in the morning Pillow with
ten thousand men fell upon McClernand, and Buckner soon joined him with an
additional force. Toward noon many of McClernand's men ran short of powder
and he was forced to recede from his position. Pillow seems then to have
lost his head. He felt that the whole Union army was defeated, and though
the road to Nashville was open, the Confederates made no attempt to
escape. Just then General Grant rode upon the scene. He had been absent
all morning down the river consulting Foote, not knowing that the
Confederates had planned an escape. This moment, says Lew Wallace, was the
crisis in the life of Grant.
Hearing the disastrous news, his face flushed for a moment; he crushed
some papers in his hand. Next instant he was calm, and said in his
ordinary tone, to McClernand and Wallace, "Gentlemen, the position on the
right must be retaken." Then he galloped away to General Smith. In a short
time the Union lines were in motion. General Smith made a grand assault on
the Confederate outworks and rifle-pits. When his lines hesitated Smith
waved his cap on the point of his sword and rode in front, up the hill, in
the hottest fire of the foe, toward the rifle-pits--and they were carried.
At the same moment Lew Wallace was leading his division up another slope
with equal gallantry. Here again the Confederates retired, and the road to
Nashville was no longer open. Furthermore, Smith held a position from
which he could shell the fort on the inside, and nothing was left to the
inmates but surrender or slaughter on the morrow.
A council was held by Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner. Buckner, who was a
master in the art of warfare, declared that he could not hold his position
for half an hour in the morning. The situation was hopeless. Floyd was
under indictment at Washington for maladministration in the Buchanan
cabinet. He declared that he must not be taken, and that with his
Virginia troops he would escape on two little boats that were to arrive
from Nashville in the morning. He passed the command to Pillow, and
Pillow, declaring that he too would escape, passed it on to Buckner. Floyd
and Pillow with their men made good their escape; so did Colonel Forrest,
the cavalry leader, and his mounted force.
In the early morning Buckner sent a note to Grant offering to capitulate.
The answer is well known. Grant demanded "unconditional surrender," and
added, "I propose to move immediately on your works." Buckner was too good
a soldier to sacrifice his men in needless slaughter. His men were so worn
with eighty-four hours of fighting and watching that many of them had
fallen asleep while standing in battle-line and under fire. He accepted
the "ungenerous and unchivalrous terms," as he pronounced them, and
surrendered Fort Donelson and the army, consisting of at least fourteen
thousand men, with all its stores of ammunition. The Union loss was over
twenty-eight hundred men. The Confederate loss, killed and wounded, was
about two thousand.
The capture of Fort Donelson did three things. First, it opened up the way
for the Federal army to penetrate the heart of the western South and gave
it control of Kentucky and of western Tennessee. Second, it electrified
the North with confident hopes of ultimate success. It was the first great
victory for the North in the war. Bull Run had been a moral victory to the
South, but the vanquished were weakened scarcely more than the victors. At
Donelson, the victors gained control of an extensive territory and
captured a noble army which could ill be spared by the South and which
could not be replaced. Third, the capture of Donelson forced before the
nation a new man--Ulysses S. Grant.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN CLARK B. LAGOW.]
[Illustration: DR. JAMES SIMONS.]