CHAPTER XIV.

FORT DONELSON.-NASHVILLE.

THE TENNESSEE RIVER OPENED.-GENERAL GRANT.-COMMODORE FOOTE AS A PREACHER.— SIEGE OF FORT DONELSON.-SHARPSHOOTERS.-A GALLANT BOY.-SLEET AND SNOW.-FOOTE AND HIS GUNBOATS.-THE COMMODORE WOUNDED.-A BOLD SORTIE.-THE CONFEDERATES CHECKED.-ESCAPE OF FLOYD AND PILLOW.-FOREST AND HIS CAVALRY.-UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER GRANT.-TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.-CLARKSVILLE AND NASHVILLE OCCUPIED.-ANDREW JOHNSON.-A SHARP NEWSBOY.-THE CONFEDERATES ABANDON COLUMBUS.-JOHN MORGAN-THE DISOBEDIENT SOLDIER-AN UNFORTUNATE GATEKEEPER.-A COSTLY LOAD OF MEAL.-MORGAN AND THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR.

HE capture of Fort Henry opened the Tennessee to the Union fleet, and the three wooden gunboats actually went up the river as far as Florence, Alabama, seizing and destroying Confederate vessels and property. The drawbridge of the railroad between Bowling Green and Memphis, which crosses the Tennessee River about ten miles above Fort Henry, was also destroyed. This was of great importance, because it cut the railway connection between the Confederate positions at Bowling Green and Columbus. But to make the success a permanent one it was necessary to take Fort Donelson, which it will be remembered was only about twelve miles from Fort Henry; for it was possible that the Confederates might send large reinforcements to that place and then recapture Fort Henry.

General Grant, who saw the necessity of attacking Fort Donelson at once, sent Commodore Foote back to Cairo to get more troops and to take his gunboats up the Cumberland instead of the Tennessee River. On the Sunday after his arrival in Cairo the Commodore attended the Presbyterian Church. A large congregation was in attendance, but the minister did. not come. Commodore Foote, who was himself always very punctual, became impatient at the delay and asked one of the elders to conduct the services; on his refusing, he entered the pulpit himself, read a chapter in the Bible, made a prayer, and then preached a sermon from the text: "Let not your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in God: believe also in me." The congregation were delighted at the discourse, and an army chaplain, who had come in meanwhile, congratulated the Commo

dore on his success in preaching. "Ah!" replied the old sailor, "you should have come forward and taken my place."

Donelson was a much larger and stronger fort than Henry. It was built upon a hill commanding a bend in the Cumberland River, and enclosed about one hundred acres of ground. It had also strong water-batteries-that is, batteries at the edge of the water and side defences, all mounted with heavy guns. Back of the fort the forest had been cut down, the trees being felled with their branches lying outward so as to form an abatis, and about a mile in the rear and on the sides was a strong breastwork of logs and earth, with rifle-pits and places for cannon. Just above the fort, within the outer line of fortifications, was the little town of Dover.

ULYSSES S. GRANT.

draw the best of his troops from Bowling Green, and, as he said, to "fight for Nashville at Donelson." General Pillow and Buckner were sent there with heavy reinforcements, and on the morning of the 13th of February General Floyd, who had been driven out of West Virginia in 1861 by Rosecrans, arrived with more troops and took the chief command, Pillow being second to him. There were then in the fort about sixteen thousand troops.

General Grant moved against Donelson from Fort Henry on the morning of Wednesday, February 12, with fifteen thousand men, and before night he had taken positions nearly surrounding the enemy's lines on the land side. A third small

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division, under General Lewis Wallace, was left at Fort Henry. In the morning, after an examination of the ground, Grant saw that his line, stretched out over such a distance, was too weak to make a general attack, and he determined to wait for the gunboats and reinforcements; but there was a heavy artillery fire all day, and the riflemen kept the Confederates busy by picking off their gunners. In the afternoon attacks were made. on batteries both on the right and on the left of the line, but they were repulsed by the Confederates, and the Union troops. suffered severe losses.

Among the Union riflemen who did the best service was the Sixty-sixth Illinois, known as

Berge's Sharpshooters, from the name of their colonel. They were armed with Henry rifles, and each man had been chosen for his skill as a marksman. Their uniform was gray, with a gray felt hat ornamented with a squirrel-tail plume, dyed black. The sharpshooters used to creep up behind trees, rocks, or anything which would hide them, until they got near enough to pick off the gunners of the enemy. One of them got behind a stump so near to the fort that he could speak to those within, and shot down the gunners as fast as they tried to load one of the cannons. The Confederates set men with rifles to watch him, but they could never get a good shot at him, and finally they had to give up using that cannon.

BERGE'S SHARPSHOOTER.

Another sharpshooter had a fight which lasted nearly all day long with one of the best of the Confederate marksmen. The Union man lay behind a log, and the Confederate behind the breastwork. Each tried to deceive the other by holding up his hat or his coat on his ramrod. Whatever was thus shown on either side at once got a bullet through it, but both men were careful not to expose any part of their persons. It seemed

as if the two might fire at each other forever in this way without doing any harm. About four o'clock in the afternoon, however, the Confederate, not having heard from his enemy for several minutes, took a quick look over the breast work. His head was not in sight five seconds, but in that brief time the sharpshooter, who was ever on the watch, sent a bullet into his brain, and the poor fellow fell dead, scarcely knowing what had hit him.

Another story is told of a boy about eleven years old, whose father, a Union volunteer, had been taken prisoner some time before. Having no mother, and no one to care for him, he made up his mind that he would go to fight his father's captors, and smuggled himself on board of a transport at Cincinnati laden with troops for the attack on Donelson. When the troops marched from Fort Henry, he joined the Seventy-eighth Ohio and trudged along with the rest. One of the officers questioned him and tried to turn him back, but he would not go. On the field of battle he succeeded in getting a musket, and posting himself behind a tree fired at every head he saw above the enemy's breastwork. The Confederate sharpshooters tried hard to drive him away, but he kept himself well hidden all the time. At last a Confederate soldier on the outside of the breastwork took good aim at him, but the little fellow was too quick and brought him down with a shot from his musket. As the Confederate had a fine Minié rifle, the boy ran out, while the bullets were flying in all directions, and despoiling the soldier of his rifle, cartouch, and knapsack, retreated in safety to his tree, and returned to the Seventy-eighth at night with all his prizes.

The weather, beautiful and spring-like in the morning, changed in the afternoon to a violent rain-storm, followed at night by severe cold with sleet and snow. The Union soldiers, poorly clothed and without tents, and many even without blankets, which they had thrown aside in the warm morning, suffered terribly. They dared not light any fires, for fear of making a mark for the enemy's guns; so officers and men were obliged to shiver through the long night, watching anxiously for the dawn. The Confederates were little better off, for a large part of them had to lie on their arms in the trenches, not knowing when an attack might be made. The wounded be

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tween the two lines still lay where they had fallen, and in the morning only frozen corpses were found.

General Grant now ordered General Wallace to come to his aid with the troops left at Fort Henry. Wallace arrived about

noon (February 14), and the gunboats and reinforcements, about five thousand men, having in the mean time come up the river, he was posted between the divisions of McClernand and Smith, as shown in the map. This made the Union lines on the land