future problems of a higher degree-the clearing of the Mississippi and the advance from Chattanooga-these were the plans of our Government; and among the intelligent and energetic agents in carrying them out, none was more so than General Grant. We cannot read his history from first to last without being struck with the manifest foresight he has displayed. He goes on from action to action-vires acquirit eundo-as though each was only a means to an end, the end becoming a new means, until the final goal should be reached.

During the autumn and early winter, numerous gunboats had been built, and many river-boats altered into gunboats, at Cairo, St. Louis, and numerous river-towns, by citizens and quartermasters, under the general superintendence of FlagOfficer A. H. Foote, of the navy; and a number of these were now in readiness to co-operate with the army in its advance by the rivers into Southern territory. To man them, volunteers were called for among the river-hands and sea-faring men who had entered the army, and they responded readily: it was, for a time at least, a popular service, and one that the sequel proved to be full of the most romantic adventures.

Let us now return for a moment to consider the movements of the reconnoitring column of General Grant's army which moved from Paducah. These were also of the greatest importance. Upon his return, in accordance with Grant's orders, General C. F. Smith struck the Tennessee River about twenty miles below Fort Henry. There he met Commander Phelps, of the navy, with a gunboat, patroling the river. After a brief conference with that energetic officer, General Smith decided to get upon the gunboat, and run up for a look at Fort Henry.

The boat steamed up sufficiently near to draw the enemy's fire, and obtain a just idea of the armament of the work. Smith returned at once, and reported to General Grant his conviction that, with three or four of "the turtle iron-clads" and a strong co-operating land force, Fort Henry might be easily captured, if the attack should be made within a short time. It was about the 24th of January that Grant for

warded this report to Halleck. No action having been at once taken, General Grant and Flag-Officer Foote sent dispatches, on the 28th of January, asking for permission to storm Fort Henry, and hold it as a strong point from which to operate in any direction. Time was valuable. General Grant wrote an urgent letter to Halleck (dated Cairo, January 29th), still further explaining his dispatches, and setting forth the feasibility and the great importance of this movement. At length the desired order came. On the 30th, in the afternoon, Grant received a dispatch from Halleck directing him to make preparations without delay to take and hold Fort Henry, and promising that full instructions should be sent by messenger.

Without for an instant proposing to say that Halleck had not blocked out these movements in his own mind, we do say that the plans of General Grant, based upon the energetic action of his subordinates, and especially of C. F. Smith, were formed and suggested to Halleck in entire ignorance of the plans of General Halleck. From the concentration of troops in Grant's command it was evident that Halleck intended a vigorous move in some direction, but Grant's title to the actual plan of movement is at least as good as that of either General Halleck or General Buell.

All preparations having been made, the first point of attack designated was Fort Henry. It was an irregular field-work,

with five bastions, on the eastern bank of the Tennessee. The embrasures were revetted with sand-bags; and its armament, a large portion of which swept the river below, comprised one sixty-two pounder, one ten-inch columbiad, twelve thirty-twos, two forty-twos, and one twelve-pounder. Twelve of the guns bore upon the river.

Both above and below the fort were creeks, defended by rifle-pits and abatis of slashed timber, and around it was swampy land with a sheet of back-water in the rear. The land approaches are difficult, and across the river, which is here about half a mile wide, was an unfinished work, begun too late, and therefore abandoned, but originally designed to aid Fort Henry in stopping the passage of the river. Panther Creek, a short distance below the fort, falls into the Tennessee just abreast of Panther Island.

On

The command of this important work, a link in the great chain, although, as events proved, a very weak one, was confided to Brigadier-General Lloyd Tilghman, of the Confederate service, with a force of more than three thousand men, and with a clear exposition-manifest without words—of the importance of his command. Tilghman was of the Maryland family of revolutionary repute, a graduate of West Point, and a gallant volunteer in our army during the Mexican war. the 6th of May, 1861, as colonel commanding the Western Division of " Neutral Kentucky," in an interview with Colonel Prentiss at Cairo, he had declared that he had no hostile purpose against the Government; but in less than a year he was captured at Fort Henry as a Confederate brigadier, and was afterwards killed in the ranks of treason at Baker's Creek, near Vicksburg.

On the morning of Monday, February 2, and after a quiet Sunday at Cairo, Flag-Officer Foote having devotedly invoked God's blessing on the expedition, with all the fervor, but without the superstition, of a Spanish conquistador, moved up the Ohio to Paducah, and thence up the Tennessee. His fleet consisted of the iron-clad gunboats Cincinnati, Essex, Carondelet, and St. Louis, and the wooden boats Lexington, Tyler, and

Conestoga the Cincinnati was his flag-ship. By nightfall they were in the Tennessee; and by easy steaming they were three or four miles below Fort Henry at daylight on Tuesday, February 3. Caution was necessary, on account of the information obtained from people on the river-banks that the stream was mined with torpedoes. Foote had the river channel dragged with grappling-irons, and succeeded in fishing up several, which, however, being imperfectly prepared, would have proved harmless.

Steaming up to within a mile of the fort, the commodore fired the first gun from the Cincinnati as she passed the head of Panther Island, at half-past twelve o'clock, and from that time the bombardment was careful and slow, mostly with curvated fire, until the fort surrendered.

And where was Grant's army at this time? He had moved to the combined attack, with the divisions of McClernand and C. F. Smith, thus disposed: McClernand, with the First Division, landing at Marbury's, three miles below, was to move in rear of the fort, to occupy the road leading to Dover and Fort Donelson,-thus to cut off the retreat of the garrison and prevent re-enforcements from coming in, and also to be "in readiness to charge and take Fort Henry by storm promptly on receipt of orders." We quote the words of

Grant's order of march and battle.

Two brigades of Smith's (Second) division, landing on the west bank, were to reconnoitre and occupy the unfinished work, Fort Heiman, and the surrounding eminences, and bring their artillery to bear on Fort Henry. The third brigade of Smith was to march up the east bank in the track of McClernand, and either to support him or form a special column of attack on the fort, as circumstances might prompt. The orders of General Grant were clear, practicable, and well timed. It was supposed that if the attack by the fleet in front began at twelve o'clock of the 5th, the army would be in position to co-operate; and had the fort made any thing like the defence which was anticipated, this would have been the case. But the roads were very bad, and Grant moved with

proper caution over ground entirely untried, and in partial ignorance of the disposition of the enemy's forces between Forts Henry and Donelson.

But to return to the gunboats. Constantly steaming slowly up towards the fort, and passing Panther Island by the western channel, they came into position just below the fort, and in a line diagonally across the river. The order of the iron-clads, from left to right, was as follows: the Essex, Carondelet, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. In second line, just above Panther Island, were the wooden boats Lexington, Conestoga, and Tyler.

The firing from the boats was at once warmly responded to by the fort, and a terrific cannonade was kept up; the naval guns, with both direct and curvated fire, raining in upon the terreplein, knocking the sandbag embrasures to pieces, and dismounting several of the guns in the fort. The rifled gun in the fort soon bursts, killing three men and disabling many others; the flagstaff is shattered and falls; seven of the guns are dismantled or useless. The garrison becomes discouraged, and at last panic-stricken. The three thousand men who were encamped outside scarcely wait for Tilghman's orders to save themselves. Some, fearing McClernand's approach, make a rapid flight by the upper Dover road, while others, seizing a small steamer lying at the mouth of the creek above the fort, steam hastily up the river. And thus Tilghman is left, with eighty or ninety artillerists, to surrender the work. Meanwhile the metal of the gunboats has been fairly put to the test. The Cincinnati, flag-ship, has received thirty-one shots; the Essex, sixteen; the St. Louis, seven; the Carondelet, six. The iron sides of the boats shed most of the balls, but the Essex receives one of the shots in her boiler, which results in the wounding and scalding of twenty-nine, officers and men, among whom is the intrepid commander, W. D. Porter.

At length, when he had only four guns bearing on the river still fit for service; when his frightened garrison had deserted him, leaving only "fifty privates and twenty sick;" and when