HENRY AND DONELSON
Our company left Corinth in September and went through North Alabama and
Middle Tennessee, and I joined Forrest and arrived in the vicinity of
Nashville in November. After scouting and guarding some convoys down the
Cumberland River, we were ordered to support the defenses of Forts Henry
and Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively, just
ten miles apart, where the two rivers parallel each other in their
northward courses across Tennessee.
I was now to realize, in my first actual experience, the fullness of the
horrors that wait upon the tinsel glory of that long-worshiped art of
human destruction which men call “war.”
General Forrest had secured, early in the war, several hundred old-style
cap-and-ball navy pistols, most valuable weapons for cavalry.
On December 28, 1861, at Sacramento, Ky., we had our first fight with a
troop of Union cavalry, about equal in number of men to ours. After a
sharp engagement, we succeeded in putting the enemy to flight. The Union
troopers lost Captain Bacon, killed, and several men killed and wounded,
and we lost two men, killed, and several wounded.
After this skirmish, we retired within the lines at Fort Donelson.
On February 6, 1862, General Grant, assisted by the gunboat fleet under
Commodore Foote, vigorously attacked and captured Fort Henry, defended
by Gen. Lloyd Tilghman.
With the opening of the bombardment, General Grant hurriedly threw his
army across the road leading from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson to cut off
the possible retreat of Tilghman’s command of about three thousand men;
but Tilghman, foreseeing the almost certainty of defeat, had kept only
enough men to man and handle the guns of the fort and marched his troops
in double-quick on toward Donelson, just escaping the Union line by a
few hundred yards.
This was the first experience under fire of nearly all the soldiers of
both sides, and the all-absorbing topic around the camp fires was the
exaggerated danger of the gunboats, then a new instrument of war. It was
believed by many that they were both indestructible and irresistible;
that, once within range of the enemy, he had no chance of escape; and
the soldiers who had been under their fire at Fort Henry gave
descriptions of their terror and havoc which did not tend to allay the
fears of the uninitiated. We were told that our cannon balls would fall
harmless from their steel armor, and that the gunners of these boats
were so protected that they could take deliberate aim and deliver their
shots into our port holes. In fact, these tales were so enlarged upon
that many of our men were paralyzed with fear, and became so timid that
they did not want to fight when the gunboat was a factor. I shall always
believe that this sentiment played a large part in the surrender of Fort
Donelson, although when the actual test came at Donelson the
Confederate shore batteries outfought the gunboats and gave them a very
decisive drubbing; but the one fatal defect in the mechanism of the
old-style batteries, which provided no way of depressing the guns to a
sufficient angle to bring them in line with a near and lower target,
placed our gunners at a great disadvantage here.
I am giving rather liberal space to my comment on this battle, because
it was the greatest battle of the war up to that time and because of the
supreme confidence of the people, the army and the commanders, in the
impregnability of this fort and their consequent disappointment when it
fell.
The Confederates successfully repulsed the combined attack of General
Grant and Commodore Foote on the first day.
On February 15 another attack was made; and General Forrest, with all
the cavalry, and General Pillow, with the infantry and artillery,
repelled the land attack, and pushed back the Union Army on the right
until this wing was doubled on its center; and if the movement had been
given support from the other parts of the Confederate lines, there
might have been a different story to tell of Fort Donelson. But it may
be that all the “ifs” that have changed the fate of the world belong to
the God of battles, who alone knows where to set them in the little
affairs of men that they may serve the ultimate good of all his people.
In this engagement Gen. N. B. Forrest displayed, for the first time,
that tremendous energy and marvelous generalship which were so
prominently and successfully employed in all his future career.
This fight was the most appalling sight I had ever witnessed. I was a
mere boy engaged in a struggle wherein men were seeking to destroy each
other, and yet I dare say that the common soldiers of those two militant
hosts had no real and clear conception of the cause of their deadly
antagonism.
May the politician and the agitator ponder well this terrible fact and
beware of the keen word that may open the veins of a nation!
The sky of my memory must forever hold the shriek of those shells; nor
can I forget the muffled crash of grapeshot and minnie balls as they
literally tore the ranks of the combatants.
At one point in our advance we were ordered to charge a battery of field
guns. In this charge I lost control of my horse, and he carried me
beyond the battery into the infantry support of the enemy. I made a
circuit, and on my return a Federal soldier fired at me when I was not
more than twenty paces from him. I was mounted on a spirited animal, and
it was running and jumping so unevenly that I happily made a very
evasive target, and the soldier missed his aim, just grazing my right
shoulder, taking the width of the ball out of my coat and cutting a
crease in the flesh. The shot was fired as I was approaching the man;
and as I passed within a few feet of him, I shot at him twice with my
six-shooter, but could not tell whether or not my shots struck him. I
was a good marksman, and under ordinary circumstances I would have been
sure of my aim; but it behooves me to tell you that I was far more bent
on getting out of this dangerous situation than on killing an enemy.
I had many narrow escapes that day, but this was my closest “call” as a
soldier of the C. S. A.
On our part of the field our forces had been successful, but the
remainder of our lines had been defeated, and the fort had been so
battered that those in command--Generals Floyd, Buckner, and
Pillow--decided to surrender on the following morning.
General Forrest was advised of the plan, and he informed the commanders
that he did not become a soldier to surrender and that he was going out
that night and take as many of his men as would follow him. The
backwater was from two to six feet deep, but this had no terror for our
leader. We secured the service of a native to guide us, and by going in
close to the Union line we found shallow water and no obstruction, and
so we escaped to safety. The ground was covered with snow and the water
was very cold.
Forrest led his troops to safety on this occasion under conditions
which would have broken the will of any ordinary man, as he was to do
many times in the years that followed.
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