THE GATHERING CLOUDS
Disaster followed disaster for the South now in swift succession. The
United States Navy, not content with the supremacy of the high seas, set
to work with determination to build a war fleet on the great rivers of
the West which could pierce the heart of the lower South.
Before the South could possibly secure arms and ammunition with which to
equip the army of Albert Sidney Johnston, these gunboats were steaming
down the Ohio and Mississippi bearing thousands of troops armed, drilled
and led by stark, game-fighting generals from the West.
By the end of November the Federal troops threatening Tennessee numbered
fifty thousand and they were rapidly reënforced until they aggregated a
hundred thousand.
General Albert Sidney Johnston sent the most urgent appeals for arms to
the Governors of Georgia and Alabama, to General Bragg at Pensacola and
to the Government at Richmond. He asked for thirty thousand muskets and
got but one thousand. The guns were not in the South. They could not be
manufactured. Fully one-half his men had no arms at all. Whole brigades
remained without weapons for months. The entire force at his command
never numbered more than twenty-two thousand during this perilous fall.
And yet, by the masterly handling of his little army, its frequent and
rapid expeditions, he kept his powerful opponents in constant
expectations of an attack and produced the impression that he commanded
an enormous force.
In the meantime the sensational newspapers were loud in their demands.
The Richmond yellow Journal shouted:
"Let Johnston muster his forces, advance into Kentucky, capture
Louisville, push across the Ohio and carry the war into Africa."
Swift and terrible the blow fell.
And always the navy's smoke on the horizon. From the Ohio, the Tennessee
and Cumberland rivers could be navigated for hundreds of miles into
Tennessee and Alabama. But two forts guarded the rivers and protected
these States.
Early in February, 1862, the gunboats under Admiral Foote slowly steamed
up the Tennessee and attacked Fort Henry. The array they covered was
commanded by General Grant. The Federal fleet and army hurled twenty
thousand men and fifty-four cannon against the little fort of eleven
guns. With but forty men General Tilghman fought this host and held them
at bay for two hours and ten minutes, until the main body of his
garrison of twenty-five hundred troops had marched out and were safely
on their way to Fort Donelson, twelve miles across the country on the
banks of the Cumberland. Fort Henry was of small importance. Fort
Donelson commanded the approach to Nashville.
There was not a moment's delay. Grant telegraphed Halleck that he would
capture Fort Donelson two days later. Admiral Foote sent three light
gunboats up the Tennessee to clear the river into Alabama, swept down
stream with his heavier craft to the Ohio and turned into the
Cumberland. Grant pressed directly across the strip of twelve miles
with his army bearing on Fort Donelson.
The commander at Fort Donelson had at first but six thousand men
including the garrison from Fort Henry which had just arrived. Had Grant
been able to strike on the eighth of February, the day he had wired to
Halleck he would capture the fort, its fall would have been sure. But
high water delayed him, and Albert Sidney Johnston hastened to pour in
reënforcements. Every available soldier at his command was rushed to the
rescue. He determined to fight for Nashville at Donelson. General
Buckner's command of Kentuckians, General Pillow's Tennesseeans and
General Floyd's brigade of Virginia troops were all poured into the fort
before the thirteenth. This force, approximating twenty thousand men,
properly commanded should hold Donelson indefinitely.
The fortification was magnificently placed on a bluff commanding
the river for two miles. Its batteries consisted of eight
thirty-two-pounders, three thirty-two-pound carronades, one ten-inch
Columbiad and one thirty-two-pounder rifle. A line of entrenchments
stretched for two miles around the fort enclosing it.
Into these trenches the newly arrived troops were thrown.
Dick Welford, with Floyd's Virginians, gripped his musket with eager
enthusiasm for his first real battle. His separation from Jennie had
been a bitter trial. In his eagerness to get to the front he had the
misfortune to serve in the ill fated campaign in West Virginia, which
preceded Bull Run. Beauregard and J. E. Johnston were in easy touch with
Richmond. His unlucky brigade had been transferred to Albert Sidney
Johnston's command.
The men had been in the trenches through the long miserable night
expecting an attack at any moment.
Half waking, half dreaming, he lay on the cold ground wondering what
Jennie was doing--and always with the nightmare of that foreign snake
winding his way into her favor. Well, his chance would come in this
battle. He would lead his men in a charge. He was a corporal now. He
would come out of it with straps on his shoulders, he could see Jennie's
eyes flash with tears of pride as she read the story of his heroism and
his promotion.
"I'll show that reptile what a man can do!" he muttered.
The tired body relaxed and his big blond head sank on his arms.
A sudden crash of thunder and he sprang to his feet, his hand tight on
his gun. There they were in the gray light of the chill February
morning--the fleet of Federal gunboats under Foote, their big black
funnels pouring clouds of smoke into the sky, darkening the dull red
glow of the rising sun. He counted six of them--_Carondalet_,
_Pittsburgh_, _Louisville_, _St. Louis_, _Tyler_ and _Conestoga_.
A white breath of smoke flashed from the _Carondalet's_ bow, and Dick
watched the shell rise with a shriek and fall short of the fort.
The fleet moved closer and another shell screamed through the sky and
again fell short. They moved again, found the range, and for four hours
the earth trembled beneath the steady roar of their forty-six guns.
At eleven o'clock Dick saw the long lines of men in blue deploy for an
assault on the entrenchments. They moved with quick sure step, these men
under Grant. He was sorry for them. They were marching to certain death.
On the blue waves rolled, pouring volley after volley into the heaps of
earth behind which the Southerners lay.
They were close enough now and the quick command rang along the
trenches.
"Fire!"
A storm of death swept the ranks in the open fields. They stood their
ground stubbornly, those dogged western fighters. Dazed and cut to
pieces, they rallied and pressed forward again only to be mowed down in
heaps.
They gave it up at last and sullenly withdrew, leaving the dead piled
high and the wounded slowly freezing to death where they lay.
The artillery kept the earth quivering with the steady roar of their
guns and the Federal sharpshooters harassed the trenches without a
moment's respite. It was impossible to move for food or water until
nightfall.
At dawn next day Dick once more gripped his gun and peered over the
embankment. The morning passed without attack. What could it mean? They
saw at last--another fleet. Clouds of black smoke on the river told the
story. Reënforcements had arrived.
At half-past two o'clock the fleet formed in line of battle--threw their
big flags to the breeze and dashed squarely on the fort.
They swept now within point blank range of three hundred yards, pouring
in a storm of shot.
But the Confederate batteries were too heavy and too well manned.
Fifty-seven shells struck the flagship and more than a hundred took
effect on the five boats leading the assault. The fleet was crushed and
put out of commission. Every boat was disabled except one and that
withdrew beyond the range of the batteries.
Dick watched the magnificent spectacle with thrilling pride. He could
have enjoyed the show but for the bitter cold. It was twenty degrees
below the freezing point, and while the battle raged between the fleet
and fort it began to sleet and snow. When the crippled boats at last
drifted down the yellow tide and out of range, he found to his amazement
that a thick coat of ice had formed on the hand in which he held his
musket. His clothes were frozen stiff on his body.
He leaped to his feet and beat his arms fiercely, and glanced over the
embankment toward those ominous-looking piles of blue. The sleet was
sheathing their bodies in crystal shrouds now. No flag of truce was
allowed and the wounded lay freezing and dying where they fell. He could
hear the stronger ones still crying for help. Their long piteous moans
rang above the howl of the wind through the breaking boughs of the
trees.
It was hideous. Why didn't they rescue those men? Why didn't they
proclaim a truce to bury the dead and save the wounded? Grant must be a
fiend! Far off on the river another black smudge was seen in the sky.
More reënforcements were coming.
The three Confederate generals suddenly waked with a shock to realize
that their foe had landed a second army, cutting their communications
with Nashville.
A council of war was hastily called on the night of the fourteenth. It
was a discordant aggregation. Floyd, the former Secretary of War in
Buchanan's administration, was the senior officer in command. He was
regarded more as a politician than a soldier and his exploits in West
Virginia had not added to his fame. The men around him had little
respect for his capacity as a commander. Besides quarreling had become
the fashion in the armies of the victorious South since the affair at
Bull Run. The example of Joseph E. Johnston and Beauregard was
contagious.
There was but one thing to do. The wrangling generals were unanimous on
that point. They must make a desperate assault next morning on Grant's
right wing and reëstablish their communications with Nashville at all
hazards.
Under cover of the darkness on the morning of the fifteenth, the men
were marched from their trenches and massed on the Federal right. But a
handful were left to guard the entrenchments on the Confederate right.
At the first streak of dawn, the concentrated lines of the Confederates
were hurled on the division of McClernand. Before two o'clock Grant's
right wing had been crushed into a shapeless mass with the loss of his
artillery. The way was open to Nashville and the discordant commanding
generals of the Confederacy paused.
Buckner ordered up his artillery and reserves to pursue the enemy or
hold his newly-won position. Pillow flatly refused to allow a single gun
to be withdrawn from the entrenchments and sent peremptory orders to his
victorious subordinate to return to the trenches on the right.
As Buckner was reluctantly returning to the old lines he encountered
Floyd.
"Where are you going?" the Commander-in-Chief demanded.
"I am ordered back to the entrenchments--"
"You think it wise to walk back into the trap we've just escaped from?"
"I do not!" was the short answer. "We are outnumbered three to one. We
can not hold our connections open in the face of such an army backed by
gunboats and transports which can bring reënforcements daily. The road
is open, we should save our army by an immediate juncture with Albert
Sidney Johnston before Nashville."
"I agree with you," Floyd replied. "Hold your troops until I consult
with Pillow."
While Floyd and Pillow wrangled, Grant dashed on the scene. He had not
been present during the battle. The wounded Commodore had begged him for
a consultation on board his flagship five miles below.
When Grant reached the field he met a sight that should have dismayed
him and sent his shattered army to the shelter of the gunboats and a
hasty retreat down the Cumberland to a place of safety.
McClernand had been crushed and his disorganized troops thrown back in
confusion in front of the entrenchments of the Confederate right. His
troops had been on the field for five days and five nights drenched in
snow, sleet, mud, ice and water. The field was strewn with the dead and
wounded. Great red splotches of frozen blood marked the ground in all
directions. Beneath the sheltering pines where the white, smooth snow
lay unbroken by the tramp of heavy feet and the crush of artillery,
crimson streams could be seen everywhere. For two miles the ground was
covered with the mangled dead, dying, and freezing. Smashed artillery
and dead horses lay in heaps. In the retreat the heavy wheels of the
artillery had rolled over the bodies of the dead and wounded, crushing
and mangling many beyond recognition.
No general ever gazed upon a more ghastly scene than that which greeted
the eye of U. S. Grant in this moment of his life's supreme crisis. The
suffering of his wounded who had fought with the desperation of madness
to save themselves from the cold, had left its mark on their stark,
white faces. The ice had pressed a death mask on the convulsed features
and held them in the moment of agony. They looked up into his face now,
the shining eyes, gaping mouths, clenched fists, and crooked twisted
limbs.
McClernand's raw troops retreating over this field of horrors were
largely beyond control. Grant knew the enemy had been reënforced. He
could reasonably assume from the evidence before him of the terrific
slaughter in the open field that his own army was in peril. The
transports were in sight ready to move his army to a place of safety
where he might re-form his broken ranks.
His decision was instantaneous and thoroughly characteristic. He turned
to C. F. Smith in command of his left wing whose division had been but
slightly engaged.
"General Smith, the enemy does not follow up their advantage.
They are probably in a worse condition than I am. Mass your men
and charge their entrenchments on the right--never let up for a
minute--drive--drive--drive them!"
The charging hosts swept the thin lines of the half abandoned trenches
with the fury of a cyclone. The Confederate right was broken and rolled
back in confusion, fresh troops were rushed from the Federal reserves
and a new cordon of death thrown round the fort.
On the night of this fatal fifteenth of February Dick Welford was
detailed for guard duty at the door of General Floyd's tent. He heard
their council of war with sinking heart.
General Pillow favored a second desperate assault on the enemies' right
to re-open the way to Nashville.
Buckner faced him with rage:
"It was possible to-day, sir, and we did it. Now the enemy has been
reënforced for the third time. If you had sent my guns as I ordered the
way would still be open--"
"We can yet cut our way out," Pillow growled.
"Yes, with the sacrifice of three fourths of our brave men to save one
fourth. I'll not be a party to such butchery. We're caught now in a
death trap. The only rational thing to do is to surrender."
Floyd rose nervously.
"I'm not going to surrender, gentlemen. The North has accused me of
treachery in Buchanan's Cabinet. I couldn't expect decent treatment from
them. A steamer with recruits has just arrived from Nashville. I shall
make my escape on it with as many men as can be carried."
"And I'll accompany you," Pillow declared.
"Go if you like, gentlemen," Buckner replied. "I'll stand by my men and
share their fate."
Floyd and Pillow hastily began their preparations to go.
Buckner quietly asked:
"Am I to consider the command turned over to me?"
"Certainly," Floyd answered. "I turn over the command."
"I pass it, too," Pillow quickly added.
General Buckner called for pen, ink and paper and dispatched a courier
immediately to General Grant. The reply was in two words:
"Unconditional surrender."
Pillow crossed the river under cover of the night and made his way into
the country.
Floyd offered to take Dick Welford on board the little steamer.
"No, thank you," the young Virginian answered curtly.
"You prefer to surrender?"
"I'm not going to surrender. I'm going to join Col. Forrest's cavalry
and fight my way out."
With a wave of his arm Floyd hurried on board the steamer and fled to
Nashville.
Dick had seen Forrest lead one of his matchless charges of cavalry in
their fight that day. With a handful of men he had cut his way through
a solid mass of struggling infantry and thrown them into confusion.
He had watched this grave, silent, unobtrusive man of humble birth and
little education with the keenest interest. He felt instinctively that
he was a man of genius. From to-day he knew that as a leader of cavalry
he had few equals. He had pointed out to his superiors in their council
of war a possible path of escape by a road partially overflowed along
the river banks. It was judged impracticable.
In the darkness of the freezing night Dick rode behind his silent new
commander along this road with perfect faith. Forrest threw his command
into Nashville and saved the city from anarchy when the dreaded news of
the fall of Donelson precipitated a panic.
The South had met her first crushing defeat--a defeat more disastrous
than the North had suffered at Bull Ran. Grant had lost three thousand
men but the Confederate garrisons had been practically wiped out with
the loss of more than fifteen thousand muskets, every big gun and
thirteen thousand prisoners of war.
When Grant met Buckner, the victor and vanquished quietly shook hands.
They had been friends at West Point.
"Why didn't you attack me on Friday?" the Northerner asked.
"I was not in command."
"If you had, my reënforcements could not possibly have reached me in
time."
Buckner smiled grimly.
"In other words a little more promptness on one side, a little less
resolute decision on the other--and the tables would have been turned!"
"That's just it," was the short answer.
It was an ominous day for the South. Bigger than the loss of the capital
of Tennessee which Johnston evacuated the next day, bigger than the
loss of fifteen thousand men and their guns loomed the figure of a new
Federal commander. Out of the mud, and slush, ice and frozen pools of
blood--out of the storm cloud of sleet and snow and black palls of smoke
emerged the stolid, bulldog face of Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln made him a
major general.