rain-storm from the northeast set in, which turned, first to hail, and then to sleet. The cold became more intense, the thermometer rapidly falling to only ten degrees above zero. The like, it is said, had never been known there. Our troops had no shelter whatever, and were without rations; few had blankets and overcoats; some, with the characteristic improvidence of new troops, beguiled by the mild weather, and thoughtless of future need, had thrown them away. At length hail and sleet were followed by a driving snow; and, but that the rebels, who were in the trenches, suffered equally, it would have seemed that Boreas had become a rebel sympathizer, and was emulating the celestial anger of Juno, against our heroes of the new American Iliad.

It would be difficult for a warm, sheltered, and well-fed pen, or rather the hand that holds and the brain that impels such, to depict the sufferings of that night; the wounded freezing to death, and the weary soldiers benumbed by the cold, which even vigorous vitality could not dispel. They were seeing war for the first time, and they had bitter experience of its heat and cold at the same moment.

The morning of Friday dawned sadly upon these war-worn, hungry, freezing men, and brought with it only a new summons to battle. Still anxiously expecting the gunboats and the bulk of Lewis Wallace's new division by the Cumberland, and alive to the immediate hazard of his position, General Grant dispatched a courier to General Lewis Wallace himself, at Fort Henry, with orders to bring across the garrison which had been left there. But no sooner had the messenger been sent, than a scout, who had been posted to watch the river below, came galloping up to headquarters with the welcome intelligence that a boat was just arriving, and a thick cloud of smoke announced that the rest of the fleet was below. The first boat, the Carondelet,,was the herald of the fleet; and as soon as she came within long-range, on that terrible stretch of the river swept by the concentrated rebel fire, she opened upon the water-batteries; and thus began that desperate and unequal battle, in which Flag-Officer Foote was to

engage with only partial success, but with increase of honor to himself and the navy.

Three miles below the fort the troops and the artillery of the Third Division were soon landed, with provisions and supplies for the whole army; they had come in the very nick of time. Rapidly clearing a road through the woods, they were soon placed in line with the First and Second divisions. Wallace, being the only general officer without the command of a division, was put in command of this Third Division, organized after the arrival of the re-enforcements.

These troops, just arrived, together with the garrison left at Fort Henry, constituted the Third Division; it was composed of the brigades of Cruft and Thayer, the former of four, and the latter two brigades united-of seven regiments. Wallace was at once posted in the centre, between Smith and McClernand, and thus the line was completed. Not much time was spent in issuing rations-which gladdened the hearts of our men—and ammunition, of which they were in great need, and in making proper arrangements for the wounded, who had suffered horrible tortures, when the second act in the drama was begun. This was the

ATTACK OF THE GUNBOATS ON THE RIVER-FRONT.

The Carondelet opened the unequal fight: she was not long unaided. As at Fort Henry, the flag-officer steamed up with his iron-clads-the Pittsburg, St. Louis, Louisville, and Carondelet in the first line, followed by the wooden boats Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington. The water-batteries first engaged his attention if he could silence and pass them, he could take a position in the bend, and would be able to enfilade the faces of the fort with broadsides. Until he could do this, however, his vessels were exposed to the concentrated fire of both batteries, and of the fort, the latter having a most destructive plunging, as well as raking, fire upon his decks and armor. Under a feu d'enfer, such as few naval armaments have

ever experienced, Foote moved nearer and nearer in a deadly struggle. But his guns did excellent service; the upper battery of four guns was already silenced; the shot and shell from the heavy guns on the boats had rained upon them for two hours, and the boats were lying within four hundred yards, perhaps even nearer. Notwithstanding that they had not been put in a proper condition for the fight, owing to the pressure of time, and that they had suffered very greatly from the guns of the work, a few minutes more would have enabled them to run by into a position from which they could have paralyzed the water-front, when suddenly Foote was forced to fall back. The rebel cross and plunging fire had at length done its work effectually the Louisville was rendered unmanageable by a shot which cut away her rudder-chains, and she drifted down the narrow and rapid stream, helpless and useless.

The flag-ship, the St. Louis, had her wheel shot away; the pilot, by whose side the Flag-Officer was standing, was killed, and Foote himself wounded in the foot by falling timber. Rushing to an additional steering apparatus, upon which he had depended in such an emergency to keep her up, he found that too shot away, and the St. Louis was thus compelled to drift down in an equally helpless condition. Fifty-nine shots had struck the flag-ship, some of them raking her from stem to stern. The Louisville had received thirty-five; the Carondelet, twenty-six; and her rifled gun had burst during the action. The Pittsburg had been struck twenty-one times. The fire of at least twenty guns had been concentrated upon the boats, and could only be returned by twelve boat-guns.

To sum up, two of the iron-clads were unmanageable, the other two greatly damaged between wind and water; and thus, when on the very verge of victory, the gallant commodore, himself drifting powerless, was obliged to make signal for all to withdraw, having lost fifty-four killed and wounded.

After consultation with Grant, Foote returned with his fleet to Cairo to repair, after which he was to bring down a competent naval force for a new attack, if the siege should last

long enough to require it: but it did not; the end was already at hand.

We need hardly enforce upon our readers the fact that the withdrawal of Flag-Officer Foote was an absolute necessity; he could not continue the action. But the services of the navy on that day must not be by any means undervalued. They were of the greatest utility: they relieved General Grant from all danger of attack, while yet too weak to complete the investment; they made a grand diversion in his favor, while he was posting his new troops and maturing his plans; and they gave a brighter lustre to the gallantry, skill, and endurance of the American sailor, of whom the country has always been proud. The withdrawal of the fleet after the action on Friday checked for a moment, however, the prosecution of the original plans of the general. The proper course now seemed to be to wait for large re-enforcements, which he knew might be had from St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Cairo; to strengthen and perfect the investment; and, perhaps, by marching up the river, to isolate the work, and starve it into surrender. In the mean while, the gunboats could be thoroughly repaired, and return to try another attack. Had the rebels now strengthened their intrenchments and awaited Grant's attack, such might have been the modus operandi.

But the rebel counter-plans, formed in a council of war, held on Friday night at Floyd's headquarters, in Dover, determined Grant's battle tactics in a different manner, and hurried their own ruin. The council was composed of the division and brigade commanders, and they unanimously assented to the plan proposed by General Floyd, which was to throw an overwhelming force-half his army, with Forrest's cavalry, all under Pillow and Johnson-upon our right wing, under McClernand; to drive it from the heights overlooking the Cumberland, from which there was danger that our batteries would soon sweep and close the river above; to throw it back upon Wallace, while Buckner with the remaining force, less the necessary garrison of the fort, should march directly upon our encampment in the centre, on the Wynn's Ferry

road, and attack Wallace in front. If these flank and centre attacks should be successful, Grant's army would thus be thrown back around Smith as a pivot, and then it might be easily routed and destroyed. It was a good plan, and partially successful, and yet it was the prelude to their immediate and overwhelming defeat. In case, however, they could only partially succeed, the least Floyd expected was to open a pathway by which he might evacuate the fort-now very like a trap-withdraw his army, and save his precious person; which, in any event, he meant to do, whatever should happen to his troops. Such were Floyd's plans; they were to be tried with the early morning of Saturday, the 15th. Accordingly, at five A. M., the rebel column, under Pillow and Johnson, moved out from Dover, the advance being taken by Colonel Baldwin's brigade, composed of the First and Fourteenth Mississippi and the Twenty-sixth Tennessee. These were followed by Wharton's brigade, of two regiments; McCousland's, of two; Davidson's, of three; Drake's, of five; and other troops, amounting in all to ten thousand men, with thirty guns, which were to crush McClernand, and clear a pathway through our right.

McClernand's troops were thus disposed of: McArthur on the right; and then, in order, Oglesby and W. H. L. Wallace. McClernand's left was near the Fort Henry road, on the left of which was Cruft's brigade, of Lewis Wallace's division. Our lines corresponded to the contour of the rebel intrenchment, and with each brigade was a field-battery. It was well posted, and, if on the alert, could certainly repel any rebel attack. But, unfortunately, the first attack of the rebels was of the nature of a surprise. Reveille was just sounding, the troops were not under arms, and seemed to be in utter ignorance of the rebel designs; but it at once became evident that our right flank was seriously menaced. The brigade and regimental commanders soon got their men into line, and, guided by the crack of the rebel rifles and the flashes of their guns, executed a partial change of front to meet them. It was not a moment too soon, for Pillow had sent his cavalry