swings up behind the Fourth Kentucky, and the Ninth Ohio takes the place of the Tenth Indiana. The Mississippians are in front of the Minnesota regiment. Colonel Frye rides down by the rail-fence. He sees in the dim light an officer on a white horse, wearing a rubber blanket concealing his uniform. Colonel Frye does not know him, but rides up so near that they might shake hands.

"We must not shoot our own men," says the officer.

"Of course not."

"Those are our men."

The officer points, but Colonel Frye cannot see any soldiers in that direction, and rides a few steps away. He turns his horse to look once more. Suddenly an officer by the side of the man on the white horse fires a pistol at Colonel Frye, missing him, but wounding his horse.

What! A Confederate! The man on the white horse not a Union officer! Colonel Frye raises his pistol, fires, and General Zollicoffer falls from his saddle dead. How strange Zollicoffer's mistake! for Colonel Frye has no cloak or blanket concealing his uniform.

For a half hour the struggle goes on east of the road. Stepping over, now, west of the road we see the Ninth Ohio fixing bayonets. They have fired away nearly all their ammunition, and they will finish the battle by a charge. The line closes-shoulder touching shoulder. They break into a run. The Confederate Tennesseeans give way. A panic seizes the whole Confederate line; officers and soldiers alike think only of saving themselves.

What a pitiful scene it was! More than four hundred Confederates killed and wounded, the living throwing away their guns and everything that hindered them. Back to Beech Grove, across the Cumberland River, they fled, most of them crossing on the steamboats, but some attempting to swim were swept away by the swirling ice-cold stream.

They had nothing to eat; all had been lost. Hungry, weary, faint, footsore, freezing, the regiments melted wholly away. It was a terrible blow; Kentucky was hopelessly lost to the Confederacy. The Union men in eastern Tennessee, hearing the news, took heart.

Never, never would they yield, but stand forever for the flag of the Union!

On January 9th I reached Cairo, with credentials from the Secretary of War to the general in command. I entered the headquarters—a mean room in an old building, up a flight of rickety stairs. "Come in," was the response to my knock. Entering, I found a gentleman with a closecut beard, wearing a blue blouse, without sign of any rank, sitting on an

empty nail-cask at a pine table, smoking a pipe, with a pile of papers before him. He had the appearance of being a clerk.

"Is General Grant in?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," was the reply.

"Will you be kind enough to give him this letter?"

Instead of carrying it to an adjoining room, the gentleman opened it, ran his eye over the page, greeted me cordially, and said, "I am happy to see you. Please take a nail-cask. Colonel Webster will give you a pass." It was my first interview with General Grant.

In the ship-yards at Cincinnati and St. Louis there had been a clattering of axes: carpenters hewing oaken timbers, building vessels-broad, flat-bottomed, with sloping sides, flat roofs-to be clad with iron plates. Never before had floated on the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi such strange craft.

"They look like mud-turtles," said the soldiers when the gunboats Essex, Carondelet, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Benton steamed up to the levee at Cairo.

But these queer-looking gunboats, with cannon peeping from their port-holes, were destined to play an important part in the war. Let us keep in mind that the war was a revolt against free labor. The workingmen of the great States of the West, the iron-workers and the ship-carpenters, had wielded hammers and axes, and here were the vessels which they had constructed, with which they proposed to open once more to commerce the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers.

The Cumberland and Tennessee run side by side northward from the

northern boundary of the State of Tennessee. They are only twelve miles apart. Just south of the State line stood Fort Henry, on the east bank of the Tennessee, while Fort Donelson stood on the west bank of the Cumberland. There was no bluff at Fort Henry, and the mud fortification thrown up by slaves under the direction of Major Gilmer was on a low bank, screened by a thicket of willows. There were sixteen cannon -one of which threw a ball ten inches in diameter, one sixty-pounder, twelve thirty-two-pounders, and two twelve-pounders. They were so arranged that they could all be pointed down the river to knock the gunboats to pieces, or inland to throw shells upon troops advancing to attack it from the rear. Outside of the fort were rifle-pits and breast works. The tall trees were cut down to form an abatis.

Inside the intrenchments were nearly four thousand men, under General Tilghman. At Columbus, on the Mississippi, were twenty-two thousand Confederates, under General Leonidas Polk. At Fort Donelson was General Buckner, with nearly twenty thousand troops. At Bowling Green, in Kentucky, on the south bank of the Big Barren River, in a very strong position, was General Johnston, with twelve thousand troops.

Opposite the Confederates, at Bowling Green, in central Kentucky, was a Union army, under General Buell. At Cairo was another army, under General Grant. General Garfield, by his victory in eastern Kentucky, and General Thomas, by the victory at Mill Springs, had broken the Confederate lines of defence. Where, now, would it be easiest for the Union troops to break through?

On January 28th Commodore A. H. Foote, commanding the gunboats at Cairo, sent this despatch to General Halleck at St. Louis: "General Grant and myself are of the opinion that Fort Henry can be carried with four gunboats and the troops."

"From Fort Henry," wrote General Grant, "it will be easy to operate either on the Cumberland, twelve miles distant, on Memphis, or Columbus."

If Fort Henry were taken, it would be easy to land an army on the east bank, march across and attack Fort Donelson in the rear; or the army could land on the west bank and attack Columbus in the rear.

"I strike where the enemy least expects me, and I move to turn his positions," were the military rules adopted by Napoleon.

If Fort Henry could be taken, it would turn the Confederate position. There was so much to be done that a month passed before the gunboats were ready. But up the Ohio, on February 2d, they moved, followed by a fleet of steamboats, with ten regiments of soldiers crowding the cabins and the decks. The gunboats turned up the Tennessee. The

melting snow on the far-off mountains was sending down a flood, which was overflowing all the lowlands. At daylight the next morning the steamboats ran their prows against the bank and tied them up to the trees. The troops went on shore. Scouts called at a farm-house. "You never will take Fort Henry," said a woman.

"Oh yes, we shall; the gunboats will knock it to pieces."

They will be blown sky-high before they get near the fort."

"How so?"

"The river is full of torpedoes."

The scouts reported the information to Admiral Foote, and the sailors, jumping into the boats, went out with grappling-irons, and in a short time fished up six torpedoes.

General Grant and Commodore Foote agreed that the gunboats should commence the attack at twelve o'clock.

Panther

"I shall take the fort in about an hour," said the commodore. "I shall commence firing when I reach the head of Panther Island, and it will take me about an hour to reach the fort, for I shall steam up slowly. I am afraid, general, that the roads are so bad the troops will not get around in season to capture the enemy. I shall take the fort before. you get into position."

The boats reach the head of the island, and the fort is in full view. It is thirty-four minutes past twelve o'clock. There is a flash and a creamy cloud of smoke at the bow of the Cincinnati. An eight-inch shell screams through the air. The gunners watch its course; their practised eyes follow its almost viewless flight. The fort accepts the challenge, and instantly twelve guns open upon the advancing

boats. The shot and shell plough furrows in the stream, and throw columns of water high in air.

The gunboats move on slowly and steadily; their fire is regular and deliberate. Every shot goes into the fort. The Confederate gunners are blinded and smothered by clouds of sand; the gun-carriages are crushed, splintered, and overturned; men are cut to pieces. Something unseen tears them like a thunder-bolt. The fort is full of

000

St. Louis rondelet

Cincinnati

explosives. The heavy rifled gun bursts, crushing and killing those who serve it; the flag-staff is splintered and torn as by lightning.

Yet the fort replies. The gunners have the range of the boats, and nearly every shot strikes the iron plating. They are like the strokes of