Dick was with Colonel Winchester when he was admitted to the presence of
the general who had already done much to strengthen the Union cause
in the west, and he found him the plainest and simplest of men, under
forty, short in stature, and careless in attire. He thanked Colonel
Winchester for the reinforcement that he had brought him, and then
turned with some curiosity to Dick.
“So you were at the battle of Mill Spring,” he said. “It was hot, was it
not?”
“Hot enough for me,” replied Dick frankly.
Grant laughed.
“They caught a Tartar in George Thomas,” he said, “and I fancy that
others who try to catch him will be glad enough to let him go.”
“He is a great man, sir,” said Dick with conviction.
Then Grant asked him more questions about the troops and the situation
in Eastern Kentucky, and Dick noticed that all were sharp and
penetrating.
“Your former immediate commander, Major Hertford, and some of his men
are due here today,” said Grant. “General Thomas, knowing that his own
campaign was over, sent them north to Cincinnati and they have come down
the river to Cairo. When they reach here they will be attached to the
regiment of Colonel Winchester.”
Dick was overjoyed. He had formed a strong liking for Major Hertford and
he was quite sure that Warner and Sergeant Whitley would be with him.
Once more they would be reunited, reunited for battle. He could not
doubt that they would go to speedy action as the little town at the
junction of the mighty rivers resounded with preparation.
When Colonel Winchester and the boy had saluted and retired from General
Grant's tent they saw the smoke pouring from the funnels of numerous
steamers in the Mississippi, and they saw thousands of troops encamped
in tents along the shores of both the Ohio and Mississippi. Heavy cannon
were drawn up on the wharves, and ammunition and supplies were being
transferred from hundreds of wagons to the steamers. It was evident to
any one that this expedition, whatever it might be, was to proceed by
water. It was a land of mighty rivers, close together, and a steamer
might go anywhere.
As Dick and Colonel Winchester, on whose staff he would now be, were
watching this active scene, a small steamer, coming down the Ohio, drew
in to a wharf, and a number of soldiers in faded blue disembarked. The
boy uttered a shout of joy.
“What is it, Dick?” asked Colonel Winchester.
“Why, sir, there's my former commander, Colonel Newcomb, and just behind
him is my comrade, Lieutenant George Warner of Vermont, and not far away
is Sergeant Whitley, late of the regular army, one of the best soldiers
in the world. Can I greet them, colonel?”
“Of course.”
Dick rushed forward and saluted Colonel Newcomb, who grasped him warmly
by the hand.
“So you got safely through, my lad,” he said. “Major Hertford, who came
down the Kentucky with his detachment and joined us at Carrollton at the
mouth of that river, told us of your mission. The major is bringing up
the rear of our column, but here are other friends of yours.”
Dick the next moment was wringing the hand of the Vermont boy and was
receiving an equally powerful grip in return.
“I believed that we would meet you here,” said Warner, “I calculated
that with your courage, skill and knowledge of the country the chances
were at least eighty per cent in favor of your getting through to Buell.
And if you did get through to Buell I knew that at least ninety per
cent of the circumstances would represent your desire and effort to come
here. That was a net percentage of seventy-two in favor of meeting you
here in Cairo, and the seventy-two per cent has prevailed, as it usually
does.”
“Nothing is so bad that it can't be worse,” said Sergeant Whitley, as
he too gave Dick's hand an iron grasp, “and I knew that when we lost you
we'd be pretty glad to see you again. Here you are safe an' sound, an'
here we are safe an' sound, a most satisfactory condition in war.”
“But not likely to remain so long, judging from what we see here,” said
Warner. “We hear that this man Grant is a restless sort of a person who
thinks that the way to beat the enemy is just to go in and beat him.”
Major Hertford came up at that moment, and he, too, gave Dick a welcome
that warmed his heart. But the boy did not get to remain long with his
old comrades. The Pennsylvania regiment had been much cut down through
the necessity of leaving detachments as guards at various places along
the river, but it was yet enough to make a skeleton and its entity was
preserved, forming a little eastern band among so many westerners.
Dick, at General Grant's order, was transferred permanently to the staff
of Colonel Winchester, and he and the other officers slept that night
in a small building in the outskirts of Cairo. He knew that a great
movement was at hand, but he was becoming so thoroughly inured to danger
and hardship that he slept soundly all through the night.
They heard early the next morning the sound of many trumpets and Colonel
Winchester's regiment formed for embarkation. All the puffing steamers
were now in the Ohio, and Dick saw with them many other vessels which
were not used for carrying soldiers. He saw broad, low boats, with
flat bottoms, their sides sheathed in iron plates. They were floating
batteries moved by powerful engines beneath. Then there were eight huge
mortars, a foot across the muzzle, every one mounted separately upon a
strong barge and towed. Some of the steamers were sheathed in iron also.
Dick's heart throbbed hard when he saw the great equipment. The fighting
ships were under the command of Commodore Foote, an able man, but
General Grant and his lieutenants, General McClernand and General Smith,
commanded the army aboard the transports. On the transport next to them
Dick saw the Pennsylvanians and he waved his hand to his friends who
stood on the deck. They waved back, and Dick felt powerfully the sense
of comradeship. It warmed his heart for them all to be together again,
and it was a source of strength, too.
The steamer that bore his regiment was named the River Queen, and many
of her cabins had been torn away to make more room for the troops who
would sleep in rows on her decks, as thick as buffaloes in a herd. The
soldiers, like all the others whom he saw, were mostly boys. The average
could not be over twenty, and some were not over sixteen. But they had
the adaptability of youth. They had scattered themselves about in easy
positions. One was playing an accordion, and another a fiddle. The
officers did not interrupt them.
As Dick looked over the side at the yellow torrent some one said beside
him:
“This is a whopping big river. You don't see them as deep as this where
I come from.”
Dick glanced at the speaker, and saw a lad of about his own age, of
medium height, but powerfully built, with shoulders uncommonly thick.
His face was tanned brown, but his eyes were blue and his natural
complexion was fair. He was clad completely in deerskin, mocassins
on his feet and a raccoon skin cap on his head. Dick had noticed the
Nebraska hunters in such garb, but he was surprised to see this boy
dressed in similar fashion among the Kentuckians.
The youth smiled when he saw Dick's glance of surprise.
“I know I look odd among you,” he said, “and you take me for one of the
Nebraska hunters. So I am, but I'm a Kentuckian, too, and I've a right
to a place with you fellows. My name is Frank Pennington. I was born
about forty miles north of Pendleton, but when I was six months old my
parents went out on the plains, where I've hunted buffalo, and where
I've fought Indians, too. But I'm a Kentuckian by right of birth just as
you are, and I asked to be assigned to the regiment raised in the region
from which we came.”
“And mighty welcome you are, too,” said Dick, offering his hand. “You
belong with us, and we'll stick together on this campaign.”
The two youths, one officer and one private, became fast friends in
a moment. Events move swiftly in war. Both now felt the great engines
throbbing faster beneath them, and the flotilla, well into the mouth of
the Ohio, was leaving the Mississippi behind them. But the Ohio here
for a distance is apparently the mightier stream, and they gazed with
interest and a certain awe at the vast yellow sheet enclosed by shores,
somber in the gray garb of winter. It was the beginning of February, and
cold winds swept down from the Illinois prairies. Cairo had been left
behind and there was no sign of human habitation. Some wild fowl,
careless of winter, flew over the stream, dipped toward the water, and
then flew away again.
As far as the eye was concerned the wilderness circled about them and
enclosed them. The air was cold and flakes of snow dropped upon the
decks and the river, but were gone in an instant. The skies were an
unbroken sheet of gray. The scene so lonely and desolate contained a
majesty that impressed them all, heightened for these youths by the
knowledge that many of them were going on a campaign from which they
would never return.
“Looks as wild as the great plains on which I've hunted with my father,”
said Pennington.
“But we hunt bigger game than buffalo,” said Dick.
“Game that is likely to turn and hunt us.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where we're going?”
“Not exactly, but I can make a good guess. I know that we've taken on
Tennessee River pilots, and I'm sure that we'll turn into the mouth of
that river at Paducah. I infer that we're to attack Fort Henry, which
the Confederates have erected some distance up the Tennessee to guard
that river.”
“Looks likely. Do you know much about the fort?”
“I've heard of it only since I came to Cairo. I know that it stands on
low, marshy ground facing the Tennessee, and that it contains seventeen
big guns. I haven't heard anything about the size of its garrison.”
“But we'll have a fight, that's sure,” said young Pennington. “I've
been in battle only once--at Columbus--but the Johnny Rebs don't give up
forts in a hurry.”
“There's another fort, a much bigger one, named Donelson, on the
Cumberland,” said Dick. “Both the forts are in Tennessee, but as the two
rivers run parallel here in the western parts of the two states, Fort
Donelson and Fort Henry are not far apart. I risk a guess that we attack
both.”
“You don't risk much. I tell you, Dick, that man Grant is a holy terror.
He isn't much to look at, but he's a marcher and a fighter. We fellows
in the ranks soon learn what kind of a man is over us. I suppose
it's like the horse feeling through the bit the temper of his rider.
President Lincoln has stationed General Halleck at St. Louis with
general command here in the West. General Halleck thinks that General
Grant is a meek subordinate without ambition, and will always be sending
back to him for instructions, which is just what General Halleck likes,
but we in the ranks have learned to know our Grant better.”
Dick's eyes glistened.
“So you think, then,” he said, “that General Grant will push this
campaign home, and that he'll soon be where he can't get instructions
from General Halleck?”
“Looks that way to a man up a tree,” said Pennington slowly, and
solemnly winking his left eye.
They were officer and private, but they were only lads together, and
they talked freely with each other. Dick, after a while, returned to his
commanding officer, Colonel Winchester, but there was little to do, and
he sat on the deck with him, looking out over the fleet, the transports,
the floating batteries, the mortar boats, and the iron-clads. He saw
that the North, besides being vastly superior in numbers and resources,
was the supreme master on the water through her equipment and the
mechanical skill of her people. The South had no advantage save the
defensive, and the mighty generals of genius who appeared chiefly on her
Virginia line.
Dick had inherited a thoughtful temperament from his famous ancestor,
Paul Cotter, whose learning had appeared almost superhuman to the people
of his time, and he was extremely sensitive to impressions. His mind
would register them with instant truth. As he looked now upon this
floating army he felt that the Union cause must win. On land the
Confederates might be invincible or almost so, but the waters of the
rivers and the sea upheld the Union cause.
The fleet steamed on at an even pace. Foote, the commodore who
had daringly reconnoitered Fort Henry from a single gunboat in the
Tennessee, managed everything with alertness and skill. The transports
were in the center of the stream. The armed and armored vessels kept on
the flanks.
The river, a vast yellow sheet, sometimes turning gray under the gray,
wintry skies, seemed alone save for themselves. Not a single canoe or
skiff disturbed its surface. Toward evening the flakes of snow came
again, and the bitter wind blew once more from the Illinois prairies.
All the troops who were not under shelter were wrapped in blankets
or overcoats. Dick and the colonel, with the heavy coats over their
uniforms, did not suffer. Instead, they enjoyed the cold, crisp air,
which filled their lungs and seemed to increase their power.
“When shall we reach the Tennessee?” asked Dick.
“You will probably wake up in the morning to find yourself some distance
up that stream.”
“I've never seen the Tennessee.”
“Though not the equal of the Ohio, it would be called a giant river in
many countries. The whole fleet, if it wanted to do it, could go up
it hundreds of miles. Why, Dick, these boats can go clear down into
Alabama, into the very heart of the Confederacy, into the very state at
the capital of which Jefferson Davis was inaugurated President of the
seceding states.”
“I was thinking of that some time ago,” said Dick. “The water is with
us.”
“Yes, the water is with us, and will stay with us.”
They were silent a little while longer and watched the coming of the
early winter twilight over the waters and the lonely land. The sky was
so heavy with clouds that the gray seemed to melt into the brown. The
low banks slipped back into the dark. They saw only the near surface
of the river, the dark hulls of the fleet, occasional showers of sparks
from smoke stacks, and an immense black cloud made by the smoke of the
fleet, trailing behind them far down the river.
“Dick,” said Colonel Winchester suddenly, “as you came across Kentucky
from Mill Spring, and passed so near Pendleton it must have been a great
temptation to you to stop and see your mother.”
“It was. It was so great that I yielded to it. I was at our home about
midnight for nearly an hour. I hope I did nothing wrong, colonel.”
“No, Dick, my boy. Some martinets might find fault with you, but I
should blame you had you not stopped for those few moments. A noble
woman, your mother, Dick. I hope that she is watched over well.”
Dick glanced at the colonel, but he could not see his face in the
deepening twilight.
“My uncle, Colonel Kenton, has directed his people to give her help in
case of need,” he replied, “but that means physical help against raiders
and guerillas. Otherwise she has sufficient for her support.”
“That is well. War is terrible on women. And now, Dick, my lad, we'll
get our supper. This nipping air makes me hungry, and the Northern
troops do not suffer for lack of food.”
The officers ate in one of the cabins, and when the supper was finished
deep night had come over the river, but Dick, standing on the deck,
heard the heavy throb of many engines, and he knew that a great army
was still around him, driven on by the will of one man, deep into the
country of the foe.
The decks, every foot of plank it seemed, were already covered with
the sleeping boys, wrapped in their blankets and overcoats. He saw his
friend, the young hunter from Nebraska, lying with his head on his arm,
sound asleep, a smile on his face.
Dick watched until the first darkness thinned somewhat, and the stars
came out. Then he retired to one of the cabins, which he shared with
three or four others, and slept soundly until he was aroused for
breakfast. He had not undressed, and, bathing his face, he went out at
once on the deck. Many of the soldiers were up, there was a hum of talk,
and all were looking curiously at the river up which they were steaming.
They were in the Tennessee, having passed in the night the little town
of Paducah--now an important city--at its mouth. It was not so broad as
the Ohio, but it was broad, nevertheless, and it had the aspect of great
depth. But here, as on the Ohio, they seemed to be steaming through the
wilderness. The banks were densely wooded, and the few houses that may
have been near were hidden by the trees. No human beings appeared upon
the banks.
Dick knew why the men did not come forth to see the ships. The
southwestern part of the state, the old Jackson's Purchase, and the
region immediately adjacent, was almost solidly for the South. They
would not find here that division of sentiment, with the majority
inclined to the North, that prevailed in the higher regions of Kentucky.
The country itself was different. It was low and the waters that came
into the Tennessee flowed more sluggishly.
But Dick was sure that keen eyes were watching the fleet from the
undergrowth, and he had no doubt that every vessel had long since been
counted and that every detail of the fleet had been carried to the
Southern garrisons in the fort.
The cold was as sharp as on the day before, and Dick, like the others,
rejoiced in the hot and abundant breakfast. The boats, an hour or two
later, stopped at a little landing, and many of the lads would gladly
have gone ashore for a few moments, risking possible sharpshooters in
the woods, but not one was allowed to leave the vessels. But Dick's
steamer lay so close to the one carrying the Pennsylvanians that he
could talk across the few intervening feet of water with Warner and
Whitley. He also took the opportunity to introduce his new friend
Pennington, of Nebraska.
“Are you the son of John Pennington, who lived for a little while at
Fort Omaha?” asked the sergeant.
“Right you are,” replied the young hunter, “I'm his third son.”
“Then you're the third son of a brave man. I was in the regular army and
often we helped the pioneers against the Indians. I remember being
in one fight with him against the Sioux on the Platte, and in another
against the Northern Cheyennes in the Jumping Sand Hills.”
“Hurrah!” cried Pennington. “I'm sorry I can't jump over a section of
the Tennessee River and shake hands with you.”
“We'll have our chance later,” said the sergeant. At that moment the
fleet started again, and the boats swung apart. Through Dick's earnest
solicitation young Pennington was taken out of the ranks and attached
to the staff of Colonel Winchester as an orderly. He was well educated,
already a fine campaigner, and beyond a doubt he would prove extremely
useful.
They steamed the entire day without interruption. Now and then the river
narrowed and they ran between high banks. The scenery became romantic
and beautiful, but always wild. The river, deep at any time, was now
swollen fifteen feet more by floods on its upper courses, and the water
always lapped at the base of the forest.
Dick and Pennington, standing side by side, saw the second sun set over
their voyage, and it was as wild and lonely as the first. There was a
yellow river again, and hills covered with a bare forest. Heavy gray
clouds trooped across the sky, and the sun was lost among them before it
sank behind the hills in the west.
Dick and Pennington, wrapped in their blankets and overcoats, slept upon
the deck that night, with scores of others strewed about them. They were
awakened after eleven o'clock by a sputter of rifle shots. Dick sat up
in a daze and heard a bullet hum by his ear. Then he heard a powerful
voice shouting: “Down! Down, all of you! It's only some skirmishers in
the woods!” Then a cannon on one of the armor clads thundered, and
a shell ripped its way through the underbrush on the west bank. Many
exclamations were uttered by the half-awakened lads.
“What is it? Has an army attacked us?”
“Are we before the fort and under fire?”
“Take your foot off me, you big buffalo!”
It was Colonel Winchester who had commanded them to keep down, but Dick,
a staff officer, knew that it did not apply to him. Instead he sprang
erect and assisted the senior officers in compelling the others to lie
flat upon the decks. He saw several flashes of fire in the undergrowth,
but he had logic enough to know that it could only be a small Southern
band. Three or four more shells raked the woods, and then there was no
reply.
The boats steamed steadily on. Only one or two of the young soldiers
had been hurt and they but lightly. All rolled themselves again in their
blankets and coats and went back to sleep.
The second awakening was about half way between midnight and dawn.
Something cold was continually dropping on Dick's face and he awoke to
find hundreds of sheeted and silent white forms lying motionless upon
the deck. Snow was falling swiftly out of a dark sky, and the fleet
was moving slowly. In the darkness and stillness the engines throbbed
powerfully, and the night was lighted fitfully by the showers of sparks
that gushed now and then from the smoke stacks.
Dick thought of rising and brushing the snow from his blankets, but he
was so warm inside them that he yawned once or twice and went to sleep
again. When he awoke it was morning again, the snow had ceased and the
men were brushing it from themselves and the decks.
The young soldiers, as they ate breakfast, spoke of the rifle shots that
had been fired at them the night before and, since little damage had
been done, they appreciated the small spice of danger. The wildness
and mystery of their situation appealed to them, too. They were like
explorers, penetrating new regions.
“To most of us it's something like the great plains,” said Pennington
to Dick. “There you seldom know what you're coming to; maybe a blizzard,
maybe a buffalo herd, and maybe a band of Indians, and you take a
pleasure in the uncertainty. But I suppose it's not the same to you,
this being your state.”
“I don't know much about Western Kentucky,” said Dick, “my part lies to
the center and east, but anyway, our work is to be done in Tennessee.
Those two forts, which I'm sure we're after, lie in that state.”
“And when do you think we'll reach 'em?”
“Tomorrow, I suppose.”
The day passed without any interruption to the advance of the fleet,
although there was occasional firing, but not of a serious nature. Now
and then small bands of Confederate skirmishers sent rifle shots from
high points along the bank toward the fleet, but they did no damage and
the ships steamed steadily on.
The third night out came, and again the young soldiers slept soundly,
but the next morning, soon after breakfast, the whole fleet stopped in
the middle of the river. A thrill of excitement ran through the
army when the news filtered from ship to ship that they were now in
Tennessee, and that Fort Henry, which they were to attack, was just
ahead.
Nevertheless, they seemed to be yet in the wilderness. The Tennessee, in
flood, spread its yellow waters through forest and undergrowth, and the
chill gray sky still gave a uniform somber, gray tint to everything.
Bugles blew in the boats, and every soldier began to put himself and
his weapons in order. The command to make a landing had been given, and
Commodore Foote was feeling about for a place.
Dick now realized the enormous advantage of supremacy upon the water.
Had the Confederates possessed armored ships to meet them, the landing
of a great army under fire would be impossible, but now they chose their
own time and went about it unvexed.
A place was found at last, a rude wharf was constructed hastily, and the
fleet disgorged the army, boat by boat. Vast quantities of stores and
heavy cannon were also brought ashore. Despite the cold, Dick and his
comrades perspired all the morning over their labors and were covered
with mud when the camp was finally constructed at some distance back of
the Tennessee, on the high ground beyond the overflow. The transports
remained at anchor, but the fighting boats were to drop down the stream
and attack the fort at noon the next day from the front, while the army
assailed it at the same time from the rear.
The detachment of Pennsylvanians was by the side of Colonel Winchester's
Kentucky regiment, and Colonel Newcomb and his staff messed with Colonel
Winchester and his officers. There was water everywhere, and before they
ate they washed the mud off themselves as best they could.
“I suppose,” said Warner, “that seventy per cent of our work henceforth
will be marching through the mud, and thirty per cent of it will be
fighting the rebels in Fort Henry. I hear that we're not to attack until
tomorrow, so I mean to sleep on top of a cannon tonight, lest I sink out
of sight in the mud while I'm asleep.”
“There's some pleasure,” said Pennington, “in knowing that we won't die
of thirst. You could hardly call this a parched and burning desert.”
But as they worked all the remainder of the day on the construction of
the camp, they did not care where they slept. When their work was
over they simply dropped where they stood and slumbered soundly until
morning.
The day opened with a mixture of rain, snow, and fiercely cold winds.
Grant's army moved out of its camp to make the attack, but it was
hampered by the terrible weather and the vast swamp through which its
course must lead. Colonel Winchester, who knew the country better
than any other high officer, was sent ahead on horseback with a small
detachment to examine the way. He naturally took Dick and Pennington,
who were on his staff, and by request, Colonel Newcomb, Major Hertford,
Warner and Sergeant Whitley went also. The whole party numbered about a
hundred men.
Dick and the other lads rejoiced over their mission. It was better to
ride ahead than to remain with an army that was pulling itself along
slowly through the mud. The fort itself was only about three miles away,
and as it stood upon low, marshy ground, the backwater from the flooded
Tennessee had almost surrounded it.
Despite their horses, Winchester's men found their own advance slow.
They had to make many a twist and turn to avoid marshes and deep water
before they came within the sight of the fort, and then Dick's watch
told him that it was nearly noon, the time for the concerted attacks of
army and fleet. But it was certain now that the army could not get up
until several hours later, and he wondered what would happen.
They saw the fort very clearly from their position on a low hill,
and they saw that the main Confederate force was gathered on a height
outside, connected with the fort, and as well as he could judge, the
mass seemed to number three or four thousand men.
“What does that mean?” he asked Colonel Winchester.
“I surmise,” replied the colonel, “that Tilghman, the Confederate
commander, is afraid his men may be caught in a trap. We know his troops
are merely raw militia, and he has put them where they can retreat in
case of defeat. He, himself, with his trained cannoneers, is inside the
fort.”
“There can be no attack until tomorrow,” said Colonel Newcomb. “It will
be impossible for General Grant's army to get here in time.”
“You are certainly right about the army, but I'm not so sure that you're
right about the attack. Look what's coming up the river.”
“The fleet!” exclaimed Newcomb in excitement. “As sure as I'm here it's
the fleet, advancing to make the attack alone. Foote is a daring and
energetic man, and the failure of the army to co-operate will not keep
him back.”
“Daring and energy, seventy per cent, at least,” Dick heard Warner
murmur, but he paid no more attention to his comrades because all his
interest was absorbed in the thrilling spectacle that was about to be
unfolded before them.
The fleet, the armor clads, the floating batteries, and the mortar
boats, were coming straight toward the fort. Colonel Winchester lent
Dick his glasses for a moment, and the boy plainly saw the great,
yawning mouths of the mortars. Then he passed the glasses back to the
colonel, but he was able to see well what followed with the naked eye.
The fleet came on, steady, but yet silent.
There was a sudden roar, a flash of fire and a shell was discharged from
one of the seventeen great guns in the fort. But it passed over the
boat at which it was aimed, and a fountain of water spurted up where it
struck. The other guns replied rapidly, and the fleet, with a terrific
roar, replied. It seemed to Dick that the whole earth shook with the
confusion. Through the smoke and flame he saw the water gushing up in
fountains, and he also saw earth and masonry flying from the fort.
“It's a fine fight,” said Colonel Winchester, suppressed excitement
showing in his tone. “By George, the fleet is coming closer. Not a boat
has been sunk! What a tremendous roar those mortars make. Look! One of
their shells has burst directly on the fort!”
The fleet, single handed, was certainly making a determined and powerful
attack upon the fort, which standing upon low, marshy ground, was not
much above the level of the boats, and offered a fair target to their
great guns. Both fort and fleet were now enveloped in a great cloud of
smoke, but it was repeatedly rent asunder by the flashing of the great
guns, and, rapt by the spectacle from which he could not take his eyes,
Dick saw that all the vessels of the fleet were still afloat and were
crowding closer and closer.
The artillery kept up a steady crash now, punctuated by the hollow
boom of the great mortars, which threw huge, curving shells. The smoke
floated far up and down the river, and the Southern troops on the height
adjoining the fort moved back and forth uneasily, uncertain what to do.
Finally they broke and retreated into the forest.
But General Tilghman, the Confederate commander, and the heroic gunners
inside the fort, only sixty in number, made the most heroic resistance.
The armor clad boats were only six hundred yards away now, and were
pouring upon them a perfect storm of fire.
Their intrenchments, placed too low, gave them no advantage over the
vessels. Shells and solid shot rained upon them. Some of the guns were
exploded and others dismounted by this terrible shower, but they did not
yet give up. As fast as they could load and fire the little band sent
back their own fire at the black hulks that showed through the smoke.
“The fleet will win,” Dick heard Colonel Winchester murmur. “Look how
magnificently it is handled, and it converges closer and closer. A
fortification located as this one is cannot stand forever a fire like
that.”
But the fleet was not escaping unharmed. A shell burst the boiler of the
Essex, killing and wounding twenty-nine men. Nevertheless, the fire of
the boats increased rather than diminished, and Dick saw that Colonel
Winchester's words were bound to come true.
Inside the fort there was only depression. It had been raked through
by shells and solid shot. Most of the devoted band were wounded and
scarcely a gun could be worked. Tilghman, standing amid his dead and
wounded, saw that hope was no longer left, and gave the signal.
Dick and his comrades uttered a great shout as they saw the white flag
go up over Fort Henry, and then the cannonade ceased, like a mighty
crash of thunder that had rolled suddenly across the sky.