[Illustration: GENERAL FLOYD TILGHMAN.]
The Captured Commanders of Forts Henry and Donelson.--It requires as much
moral courage to decide upon a surrender, even when odds are overwhelming,
as it does physical bravery, in maintaining a useless fight to the death.
Brigadier-General Tilghman, who commanded the Confederate Fort Henry on
the Tennessee and General Simon Bolivar Buckner in command of the
Confederate Fort Donelson--a much stronger position on the Cumberland only
a few miles away--were men who possessed this kind of courage. Both had
the misfortune to hold untenable positions. Each displayed generalship and
sagacity and only gave up to the inevitable when holding out meant nothing
but wasted slaughter and the sacrifice of men who had been called upon to
exert every human effort. Fort Henry, on the banks of the Tennessee, was
held by a few thousand men and strongly armed with twenty guns including
one 10-inch Columbiad. But on the 6th of February it fairly lay in the
possession of the Federals before a shot had actually been fired, for
Grant with 17,000 men had gained the rear of the fortification after his
move from Cairo on the 30th of the previous month. The actual reduction of
the fort was left to the gunboat flotilla under Flag Officer Foote, whose
heavy bombardment began early in the morning. General Tilghman had seen
from the first that the position could not be held. He was trapped on all
sides, but he would not give way without a display of resistance. Before
the firing began, he had sent off most of the garrison and maintained the
unequal combat with the gunboats for an hour and a quarter with less than
a hundred men, of whom he lost twenty-one. Well did this handful serve the
guns on the river bank. One shot struck the gunboat _Essex_, piercing her
boilers, and wounding and scalding twenty-eight men. But at last,
enveloped on all sides, his retreat cut off--the troops who had been
ordered to depart in the morning, some three thousand in number, had
reached Fort Donelson, twelve miles away--General Tilghman hauled down his
flag, surrendering himself and eighty-four men as prisoners of war. Here
we see him--a brave figure of a man--clad in the uniform of a Southern
Colonel. There was never the slightest doubt of his courage or of his
proper discretion in making this surrender. Only for a short time was he
held a prisoner, when he was exchanged and welcomed back with all honor
into the ranks of the Confederacy, and given an important command. He did
not, however, live long to serve his cause, for shortly after rejoining
the army he was killed at the battle of Baker's Creek, Mississippi, on the
16th of May, 1863.
It is not often that on the battlefield ties of friendship are cemented
that last a lifetime, and especially is this so between conqueror and
conquered. Fort Donelson, that was, in a measure, a repetition of Fort
Henry, saw two fighting foes become thus united. It was impossible for the
garrison of Fort Donelson to make its escape after the flotilla of
gunboats had once appeared in the river, although General Floyd, its
senior commander, the former Secretary of War under President Buchanan,
had withdrawn himself from the scene tendering the command to General
Pillow, who in his turn, after escaping with his own brigade, left the
desperate situation to be coped with by General Buckner. Assailed in the
rear by an army that outnumbered the defenders of the fort by nearly eight
thousand and with the formidable gunboats hammering his entrenchments from
the river, Buckner decided to cut his way out in a desperate charge, but
being repulsed, saw his men flung back once more into the fort. There was
nothing for it but to make terms. On February 16th, in a note to Grant he
asked what might be granted him. Here, the coming leader won his nickname
of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. Buckner was informed that the Federal
army was about to move upon his works. Hurt and smarting under his
position, he sent back a reply that in a few short hours he would,
perhaps, have been willing to recall. Yielding to circumstances he
accepted what he bluntly pronounced, "ungenerous and unchivalrous terms."
But when the capitulation had taken place and nearly fifteen thousand men
had surrendered, a greater number than ever before laid down their arms
upon the continent, Grant was so generous, that then and there began the
friendship that grew as close as if the two men were brothers of the
blood. Most of the prisoners were paroled. Each one was allowed to retain
his personal baggage, and the officers to keep their side arms. Grant had
known Buckner in the Mexican War, and received him after the battle as his
guest. For a short time General Buckner was kept a prisoner at Fort Warren
until he was exchanged. But the friendship between the two leaders
continued. When General Grant, after having been twice President, failed
in his business career, Buckner sent him a check, trusting that it might
be of use in his time of trouble. Grant, shortly before his death, wrote
his old-time comrade and antagonist requesting that Buckner do him the
final honors by becoming one of his pallbearers.
[Illustration: BUCKNER, THE DEFENDER OF DONELSON.]