with singular good humor, made the inevitable surrender, and published a proclamation to the inhabitants, giving them "every assurance of safety and protection both in their persons and property." It was, doubtless, a source of much relief to the people to know that Gen. Buell would guard their slave property with the utmost vigilance. In reference to the sacred

ness of that species of property, Gen. Buell was understood to be in perfect sympathy with the slaveholders. "There is one comfort," said a rebel officer; "we can leave our homes, and Gen. Buell will protect our slave property even more vigilantly than we could do it ourselves."

During the week which had passed, the rebels had been enabled to remove all the public property which had not been destroyed. The guns they had thrown into the river. The troops had, of course, all escaped. There was but little openly avowed Union sentiment to be found in Nashville, though a few secretly declared that they had ever been in favor of the Union, though they had not dared to utter such a sentiment, lest they should be hung by the mob. On the 23d, Admiral Foote was permitted to ascend the river with his gun-boats, convoying the transports which carried a division of the army under Gen. Nelson. Gen. Grant also accompanied the expedition. All were charmed with the surpassing loveliness of the river banks. The bluffs which fringed the stream on either side, were broken into the most picturesque forms. Now they rose in conical peaks, luxuriantly wooded, two or three hundred feet. Again, they swept back from the river in an irregular crescent, embracing a meadow of almost Eden-like richness, verdure and beauty, where the cottage of some favored farmer nestled in quietude, with flowers and orchards and fields of grain embellishing the scene. The air of that sunny clime was delicious in its balmy fragrance; and birds of brilliant beauty and sweetest song twittered among the boughs already green with the bursting buds of spring. The fleet reached Nashville just in time to enter the city with Gen. Buell's army. Perhaps Gen. Halleck thought it best that as the fleet had captured Fort Henry without the army, the army, without the fleet, should have the privilege of taking Nashville. If this were the thought, it was paying a heavy price for the privilege, in losing over two millions of governmental stores. If this were not the reason, it is still more difficult to account for the prohibition, which stopped the gun-boats at Clarksville, for a week, when every moment was so precious.

Here, as in every other revolted city, the female rebels, relying upon the immunities of their sex, insulted the National officers in every possible way. They made up faces at them, spit upon them, threw slops at them from the windows, and in all those varieties of expedients which envenomed female ingenuity could devise, lavished indignities upon them. Gen. Butler, at New Orleans, with characteristic promptness, had tamed down these furies into lamb-like docility by his very sagacious order, to send all such characters to the calaboose, as disorderly women. Even, Gen. Buell, notwithstanding his strong sympathies with Southern institutions, could not endure the wanton indignities which he had to bear from this source, as well as his subalterns.

It is stated that one day, as Gen. Buell was riding on horseback through the streets of Nashville, an aristocratic lady, living in a large, elegant mansion, stepped out upon the piazza, and waving a rebel flag defiantly before him, shouted, "Hurrah for Jeff. Davis and the Southern Confederacy." The General reined in his horse, turned toward the lady, lifted his hat with all the courtesy and suavity for which he is remarkable, and surveying the palatial residence, with an admiring eye, from cupola to basement, remarked, "An excellent house for a hospital." In less than two hours every room was filled with sick and wounded soldiers. The lady was very politely requested to take good care of her numerous guests.

A couple of National officers in Baltimore adopted a course, under similar provocation, which operated very happily. They were quietly walking the pavement, when they were met by a woman, elegantly dressed, who grossly insulted them, as she passed. They turned and followed her, at a little distance, and unnoticed, to her residence. It was a mansion of such dimensions as to indicate opulence in the proprietor. Ringing at the door, they inquired for the master of the house. As he entered, a pompous, self-important man, one of the officers rose and said to him, very blandly,

"We are sorry to intrude upon you, sir. But we have been grossly insulted by a female member of your family. As we cannot submit to insults unavenged, and as we cannot avenge ourselves upon a woman, we are under the necessity of holding you responsible. Here is my card. Will you do me the favor to select a friend, who, with my friend, will make arrangements for our meeting. You, of course, have the choice of weapons; swords, pistols, rifles, or whatever you please."

The proud man was terror-stricken. He went out to see his wife. She was equally terrified. After a time they both came in together, and the feminine rebel made a very humble apology. She was afterwards a marked woman, and her demeanor was so wonderfully improved by the incident, that she was never known to cast even a disrespectful look upon a National officer again.

Nashville was the residence of James K. Polk, formerly President of the United States, and one of the very few who have acquired wealth while in the presidential chair. His honored widow resided in a beautiful mansion, embellished with tasteful surroundings-the grounds richly decorated with cedars and magnolias. In one corner, beneath a costly tomb, slumbered the remains of him who was once the chief of this great Republic. Gen. Grant and his staff called to pay their respects to the widow, whose position demanded this attention. They were received with all that elegant politeness which had formerly graced the White House. But their reception was polite only, not patriotic. The polished coldness of the interview, indicated but too plainly in what direction the sympathies of the widow flowed. She expressed the hope that the tomb of her husband would protect her household from insult, and her property from pillage; further than this, she expected nothing and desired nothing from the United States. And yet these United States had raised her husband to rank and honor, and had conferred upon her that ample fortune which cheered her declining days.

In the capture of Donelson, the fleet, though finally disabled, lent very efficient aid. Still the army is entitled to the highest praise for this wonderful achievement. But for such heroism, on the part of the patriotic troops, as has seldom been witnessed on the field of battle, these massive works, behind which were stationed eighteen thousand determined men, never could have been taken.*

The Hon. J. W. Grimes, in his speech in the United States' Senate, March 13, 1862, introduces a letter from an intelligent gentleman in the West, containing the following words: "When Fort Henry surrendered, the gate was opened by which rebellion will be utterly and finally crushed.

The battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson were but a part of the siege of Columbus. These posts were, in fact, outworks of that great Mississippi fortress, which outworks being taken, the fortress itself became untenable. This was manifest to every mind, of any military sagacity. Commodore Foote, of course, perceived it, and was anxious to move imme diately upon Columbus. He was exceedingly unwilling, by delay, to give the rebels opportunity to escape, with all their resources of war, from that. stronghold. He expressed his most confident assurance that, with his gunand mortar-boats, he could shell them into a speedy surrender. But again, for reasons which are not divulged, and which no ordinary sagacity can divine, he was compelled to give way to the counsels of military commanders.*

On the 27th all the gun-boats and mortar-boats on the Cumberland River, were ordered to rendezvous immediately at Cairo. At two o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, March 4, Admiral Foote took a fleet of six gun-boats and four mortar-boats, with four thousand men in transports, and, in the gloom of the undawned morning, steamed down the river for a reconnoissance, in force, of Columbus, which the rebels called the Gibraltar of America. Two hours down the rapid current brought them to Lucas Bend, three miles above Columbus. It was now broad day, the morning was clear and cold, and the bluffs of Columbus stood out, clearly defined, against the morning sky. As soon as all the boats had arrived, preparations were made for a desperate action. The guns were loaded, and the gunners stationed at their posts. Magazine stewards, shell boys, powder boys, all were ready for their appropriate work. Every article was removed which could interfere with efficient action.

The four mortar-boats were towed to the right bank of the Missouri, and made fast to some trees near Belmont Point, from which spot they could throw their terrific shells into the fort. Everything was now ready for the attack. Just then a farmer was seen upon the Missouri shore. He was hailed, and he said that the rebels had left Columbus, carrying all their arms and munitions with them, and laying the town in ashes. This was startling and humiliating intelligence, and it could hardly be believed that it was true. The fleet drifted slowly down the stream for half an hour, when, by the aid of a very powerful glass, a large and very singular-looking flag was seen floating over the ramparts. It had manifestly too many stripes for the rebel flag, and it was hardly conceivable that the banner of the Union could as yet be raised there. Under these circumstances of perplexity Admiral Foote refrained from throwing any shells into the works, but sent a couple of tugs to land a detachment of the 27th Illinois, under

In a few days Commodore Foote will open the Mississippi, provided he is not hampered by the Government. He has done a great work for his country—a work which, I am sorry to say, has not been properly appreciated. I see it stated in the papers, that the gun-boats did but little service at Donelson. This is a monstrous mistake. They silenced nearly all the enemy's guns; and had not the wheels of one boat, and the tiller ropes of another, been shot away, in fifteen minutes more the batteries would have been flanked, and the entire rebel army exposed to the broadsides of the fleet. He would have mowed them down like grass. As it was he made the work of the army, in the fight of Saturday, much easier than it otherwise would have been."

* See Speech of Hon. James W. Grimes, to which we have referred.

Col. Beaufort, in the vicinity of the upper batteries, cautiously to explore the ground, under the protection of the gun-boats. As the tugs descended the river, and approached the designated spot for landing, the strange banner was clearly revealed as our National flag, rudely improvised from strips of calico.

Never before, writes an eye-witness, was a hill of such magnitude clambered so rapidly as was the great bluff of Columbus to-day by the Illinois volunteers. The rebels had all fled. Not a man, gun, wagon, or ration scarcely, was left behind. In less than five minutes from the time the men landed, they were all in the fort, and a beautiful silk flag was unfurled. The scene around them was one of utter desola ion. As the rebels had held the whole command of the river below, they could move at their pleasure. As all Union men had been mercilessly driven from the rebel lines, and as no colored men, by Gen. Halleck's irrational order, were permitted to enter our lines, our troops, though in great force at Cairo, but twenty miles distant, could receive no information whatever respecting the movements of the foe. Thus was our heroic army exposed to the disgrace of having the rebels escape them, without any loss. The foe must have smiled complacently over his achievement. Soon after the same feat, on a still more humiliating scale, was performed at Manassas, and again at Corinth. Posterity will hardly credit such statements.

The rebels at Columbus, having made all needful preparations, commenced their leisurely evacuation on the preceding Thursday. Having taken away everything which they wished to remove, and tumbled the heavy guns down over the bluff, into the river, they applied, on Friday, the torch to everything that could be burned. The conflagration raged, with great fury, until Sunday. On Monday afternoon, Col. Hogg, with two hundred and fifty men of the Illinois cavalry, from Paducah, probably judging from the smoke and other appearances, that the place was being evacuated, cautiously approached. Meeting with nothing but silence and solitude, they entered, in amazement, the deserted intrenchments at five o'clock in the afternoon, and hastily constructed and reared the rude banner, which the earliest light of the next morning revealed to the eyes of our descending fleet.

At the time of the evacuation, nineteen thousand troops were in the place, under command of Bishop General Polk.* They departed by railroad and by twenty transports. They tore up the railroad behind them for six miles, burning all the bridges. Their destination was Island No. 10, thirty miles below, and New Madrid, forty miles distant. Our troops

* Leonidas Polk was born in North Carolina about the year 1805. He was educated at the expense of the United States at the Military Academy at West Point, where he took the oath of allegiance to the National flag, which oath he afterwards so outrageously dishonored. He entered West Point in 1823, and graduated in the artillery in 1827. In six months after graduation, he resigned his commission, and studying for the church, entered the Episcopal ministry, being ordained in 1831. In 1838, he was appointed "Missionary Bishop" of Arkansas and the Indian Territory. In 1841, he was elected to the Episcopal See of Louisiana. Being an earnest proslavery man, he was in warm sympathy with the rebels, and upon the breaking out of the rebellion, he resigned his bishopric, and accepted from Jeff. Davis a commission in the rebel army, as Major-General. Thus far, he has acquired no distinction.