Muscle Shoals. The reconnoissance was a perfect success, for it discovered the weakness of the Confederacy in that region, and developed a most gratifying evidence of genuine Union feeling among the inhabitants of Tennessee which had been repressed by Confederate despotism. Phelps was assured that nothing but the dreadful reign of terror kept thousands from openly manifesting their love for the old flag.

The report of Phelps's reconnoissance was very cheering, and it was determined to attack Fort Donelson, near Dover, the capital of Stewart county, Tennessee. It was a formidable work, situated with a front on the high left bank of the Cumberland River, among hills furrowed by deep ravines, and its irregular lines of outlying intrenchments covering about one hundred acres. General Grant reorganized his army in three divisions, under Generals McClernand, Smith, and Lewis Wallace; and Commodore Foote hurried back to Cairo with three of his gun-boats to take his mortarboats to the Cumberland River to assist in the attack on Fort Donelson.

The divisions of McClernand and Smith left Fort Henry on the morning of the 12th of February (1862), and marched for Fort Donelson, leaving Wallace with a brigade to hold the vanquished forts on the Tennessee. They invested Fort Donelson the same evening; and after some picketfiring the next morning, General Grant resolved to wait for the arrival of the flotilla (bearing troops that would complete Wallace's division) before making a general attack. On the same morning Ex-Secretary Floyd arrived from Virginia, with troops, and superseded General Pillow, who was in command of Fort Donelson. Floyd and Pillow were materially assisted by General S. B. Buckner, a better soldier than either of them, but he was subordinate to both of the inefficient commanders. All that day (February 13th) there was skirmishing, and toward evening an unexpected enemy appeared in the form of severe frost. The morning had dawned in uncommon splendor, and the air was as balmy as that of late spring; but toward evening a violent rain-storm arose, the temperature fell, and before morning the ground became frozen almost as hard as iron and everything was mailed in ice. The National troops were bivouacked without tents, and they dared not light fires for fear of exposing themselves to the guns of the fort. They were without sufficient food and clothing, and their sufferings were so dreadful that they anxiously awaited the dawn and expected reinforcements.

General Grant perceived the peril of his situation, and had sent to General Wallace to bring his troops over from the Tennessee. The latter moved at day-break on the 14th, the ground encrusted with frozen sleet and the air filled with drifting frost. These troops were in high spirits. With

CHAP. XIV.

SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON.

1555 cheering and singing of songs they pressed forward, and at noon their commander dined with General Grant on crackers and coffee. Meantime the armored flotilla, with the transports, had arrived, and Wallace's division was perfected. It was immediately posted between the divisions of McClernand and Smith, and so the thorough investment of the fort was completed. At three o'clock that afternoon, the Carondelet, Captain Walke, began the assault on Fort Donelson, and was soon joined by the St. Louis, Pittsburg, and Louisville. Unarmored vessels formed a second line; and the flotilla boldly attacked the water-batteries, but without much effect. The mortarboats had not arrived; and never were war-vessels exposed to a more tremendous pounding than were the four armored gun-boats in this fight by missiles from the shore batteries. They received, in the aggregate, one hundred and forty wounds, and fifty-four men were killed or wounded. Foote was compelled to withdraw, when he hastened to Cairo to have damages repaired, and to bring up a competent naval force to assist in carrying on the siege. Grant resolved to await Foote's return and for expected reinforcements.

The night of the 14th was an anxious one for both parties. The Confederates, perceiving their peril, held a council of war. Floyd's opinion was that the fort was untenable with less than fifty thousand men to defend it; and that the garrison might be saved only by a sortie the next morning to route or destroy the investing army, or to cut through it and escape to the open country in the direction of Nashville. This desperate measure was attempted at five o'clock on the morning of the 15th, by about ten thousand men, led by Pillow and Buckner, the former striking McClernand on the right of the Nationals, and the latter prepared to attack Wallace in the centre. Pillow had boasted that he would "roll the enemy in full retreat over upon Buckner, when the latter, attacking them on the flank and rear, would cut up the Federals and put them completely to rout." The attack was quick and furious; but the troops that first received the shock of battle (Oglesby's brigade), maintained their ground gallantly until their ammunition began to fail. Relief was sent, but the pressure was so great that the whole line gave way excepting the extreme left held by Colonel John A. Logan's Illinois regiment, which stood as firm as a wall and prevented a panic. The good service of the light batteries of Taylor, McAllister and Dresser, made the Confederate line recoil again and again. But fresh troops continually strengthened it, until at length the whole of McClernand's division were in great peril. Then he called upon Wallace for help, and it was given so effectually, that after a hard and skillful struggle on the part of the Nationals, with the Confederate forces of Buckner and Pillow combined,

the latter were compelled to fall back to their trenches. "I speak advisedly," wrote Colonel Hillyer (Grant's aide-de-camp) to Wallace, the next day, "God bless you! You did save the day on the right."

In the meantime General Smith had been smiting the Confederate right such telling blows, that when darkness fell upon the scene, the Nationals were victorious and the vanquished Confederates were imprisoned within their trenches, unable to escape.

66

Finding themselves closely held by Grant, the question, "How shall we escape?" was a paramount one in the minds of the Confederates, especially of Floyd and Pillow. They were both terror-stricken by the impending danger of falling into the hands of their outraged Government. At midnight, Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner held a private council at Pillow's quarters in Dover, where it was concluded that the garrison must be surrendered. But, gentlemen," said Floyd, nervously, “I cannot surrender; you know my position with the Federals; it won't do, it won't do." Pillow then said: "I will not surrender myself nor my command-will die first." "Then," said Buckner, coolly, "I suppose, gentlemen, the surrender will devolve upon me." The terrified Floyd said, quickly, "General, if you are put in command, will you allow me to take out, by the river, my brigade?” “If you will move before I offer to surrender," Buckner replied. “Then, sir," answered Floyd, "I surrender the command." Pillow, who was next in rank, and to whom Floyd offered to transfer the command, quickly exclaimed, "I will not accept it-I will never surrender." As he spoke he turned toward Buckner, when the latter, with the courage, the manliness and the honor of a soldier, said: "I will accept, and share the fate of my command."

Within one hour after that conference, Floyd, with a part of his Virginians, deserted his companions-in-arms and fled up the river, toward Nashville, in a steamboat. At the same time Pillow sneaked away in the darkness, after declaring he would "die" before he would surrender, and finally escaped to his home in Tennessee. History affords no meaner picture than this. The indignant authorities at Richmond suspended both the cowards from command; and an epigrammatist of the day wrote as follows concerning Floyd's escape:

"The thief is a coward by Nature's law;

Who betrays the State, to no one is true:

And the brave foe at Donelson saw,

Their light-fingered Floyd was light-footed too."

Early the next morning-the Christian Sabbath-Buckner asked for the appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of surrender. Grant

CHAP. XIV.

ARMY POSTAL-SERVICE.

1557 replied: "No terms other than unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." This answer was followed by the speedy surrender of the fort, and of thirteen thousand five hundred men as prisoners of war; and the spoils of victory were three thousand horses, forty-eight field-pieces, seventeen heavy guns, twenty thousand muskets, and a large quantity of military stores. This catastrophe greatly dispirited the Confederates; and from the time when the fact became known in Europe, no court ever entertained an idea of recognizing the independence of the Southern Confederacy. It was estimated that during the siege the Confederates lost two hundred and thirty-seven killed and one thousand wounded. The estimated loss of the Nationals was four hundred and forty-six killed, seventeen hundred and fifty-five wounded, and one hundred and fifty who were made prisoners, and who, being sent across the river, were not recaptured.

The admirably arranged army mail-service was begun at Forts Henry and Donelson, under the auspices of General Grant, to whom it was suggested by Colonel A. H. Markland, special agent of the National Postoffice. In the following letter to me, dated "July 30, 1866," General Grant gives a brief account of its origin:

"DEAR SIR

Among the subjects that occupied my mind when I assumed command at Cairo, in the fall of 1861, was the regular supply of mails to and from the troops; not only those in garrison, but those on the march when active movements should begin. When I commenced the movement on Fort Henry, on January 7, 1862, a plan was proposed by which the mails should promptly follow, and as promptly be sent from the army. So perfect was the organization that the mails were delivered to the army immediately upon its occupation of the fort. Within one hour after the troops began to march into Fort Donelson, the mail was being distributed to them from the mail wagons. The same promptness was always observed in the armies. under my command, up to the period of the final disbandment. It is a source of congratulation that the postal service was so conducted, that officers and men were in constant communication with kindred and friends at home, and with as much regularity as the most favored in the large cities of the Union. The postal system of the army, so far as I know, was not attended with any additional expense to the service. The system adopted by me was suggested and ably superintended by A. H. Markland, special agent of the Post-office Department. Respectfully,

"U. S. GRANT, General."

The chaplain of each regiment was recognized at first as "Regimental Postmaster." Afterward, the mails were "brigaded." They were placed in canvas bags at the General Post-office and sent to each brigade, under charge of military authority. The Post-office Department had no further control of the army mails after they left the office at Washington city. The regularity with which the great armies of Grant, Sherman, Thomas and others in the West, as well as those in the Atlantic States, were supplied with mails, under the general superintendence of Colonel Markland, was marvelous. He and his assistants encountered dangers as appalling as those to which the soldiers were exposed-perils from bullets, fatigue and privations-yet they never lost a mail by capture, over which they had personal control. The mail was nearly always in advance of the armies, or moving in a direction to meet them. The number of letters thus carried was enormous. "For months," wrote Mr. S. J. Bowen, the Postmaster of Washington city, in a letter to me dated July 26, 1866, "we received and sent an average of 250,000 military letters per day. It is believed that this number was exceeded after General Sherman's army reached Savannah, and up to the time of the review of the troops in this city in the month of May, 1865." He says that the vast number of packages of clothing and articles of every kind which were sent by the mails, reached their destination as regularly as if the recipient lived in a large city. The only loss of any moment which this extra service inflicted upon the Post-office Department, was in mail-bags. "It is estimated," wrote Mr. Bowen, "that at least thirty thousand of these were sent out which never found their way back to this office, though every effort was made by us to have them returned." This army mail-service presents one of the moral wonders of the great conflict; and its value, in keeping whole armies in continual communication with friends at home, is incalculable. It was a powerful preventive of that terrible home-sickness with which, at first, raw troops are often prostrated; and it brought the sweet influence of the domestic circle to bear most powerfully in strengthening the men against the multifarious temptations of army life.

It was clearly perceived by General A. S. Johnston, that the fall of Fort Donelson rendered Bowling Green and Columbus untenable, and their evacuation was ordered to take place immediately. The troops at Bowling Green, who were menaced by the swiftly approaching advance of Buell's army under the energetic General Mitchel, were ordered to retire to Nashville. They did so, in haste, after destroying their property at Bowling Green valued at half a million dollars, and were followed by the Army of the Ohio. At the same time National gun-boats ascended the Cumberland