THE GUN-BOATS AT BELMONT AND FORT HENRY.
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When I took possession of the fort the Confederate surgeon was laboringwith his coat off to relieve and save the wounded; and although the officersand crews of the gun-boats gave three hearty cheers when the Confederateflag was hauled down, the first inside view of the fort sufficed to suppressevery feeling of exultation and to excite our deepest pity. On every side theblood of the dead and wounded was intermingled with the earth and theirimplements of war. Their largest gun, a 128-pounder, was dismounted andfilled with earth by the bursting of one of our shells near its muzzle; thecarriage of another was broken to pieces, and two dead men lay near it,almost covered with heaps of earth; a rifled gun had burst, throwing itsmangled gunners into the water. But few of the garrison escaped unhurt.
General Grant, with his staff, rode into the fort about 3 o’clock on thesame day, and relieved me of the command. The general and staff thenaccompanied me on board the Carondelet (anchored near the fort), where hecomplimented the officers of the flotilla in the highest terms for the gallantmanner in which they had captured Fort Henry. He had expected his troopsto take part in a land attack, but the heavy rains had made the direct roadsto the fort almost impassable.
The wooden gun-boats Conestoga , Commander S. L. Phelps, Tyler , Lieu-tenant-Commander William Gwin, and Lexington , Lieutenant J. W. Shirk ,engaged the enemy at long range in the rear of the iron-clads. After thebattle they pursued the enemy’s transports up the river, and the Conestogacaptured the steamer Eastport. The news of the capture of Fort Henry wasreceived with great rejoicing all over the North.
Following upon the capture of Fort Henry (Feb-ruary 6th, 1862) and of Fort Donelson (February16th), the fortifications at Columbus on the Mis-sissippi were evacuated February 20th. In JanuaryGeneral Halleck reached the conclusion that theobject for which General Polk had labored infortifying Columbus had been accomplished, foron the 20th he wrote General McClellan : “ Colum-bus cannot be taken without an immense siege-train and a terrible loss of life. I have thoroughlystudied its defenses — they are very strong; butit can be turned, paralyzed, and forced to surren-der.” In accordance with the idea suggested inthis dispatch, the Federal movement upon FortsHenry and Donelson was decided upon.
In the latter part of January General Beaure-gard was ordered to report to General Johnstonfor assignment to duty at Columbus. He arrivedat Jackson, Tennessee , about the middle of Feb-ruary, but, being too ill to proceed to Columbus,he requested General Polk to visit him at Jackson .The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, and the de-clared purpose of the Federals to push their forcesup the Tennessee River, made the further occu-pation of Columbus a serious question. GeneralBeauregard had sent his chief of staff, ColonelJordan, and his engineer officer, Captain Harris, upto Columbus, and they had made such reports tohim concerning the nature of the works that hewas inclined to doubt their efficiency. This, to-
gether with the necessity he was under to gatheras large a force as possible with which to meet theenemy’s movement up the Tennessee , convincedhim that Columbus should be evacuated, and thedefense of the river made at Island Number Ten andFort Pillow. These points he considered not onlymore defensible than Columbus, but defensiblewith a smaller force, which would enable him totake a part of the command then holding the riverfor operations in conjunction with the troops hewas gathering along the line of the Memphis andCharleston railroad. When, in the conference atJackson , Beauregard unfolded these views to Gen-eral Polk, the latter was not disposed to yield aready assent to all of them. He recognized thenecessity for gathering a force for field operations.It was, indeed, exactly what he and every otherprominent officer in the department had, for sixmonths, been urging upon the authorities. He,however, questioned the advisability of giving upColumbus. The works had been accepted byColonel Gilmer, the chief engineer of the depart-ment, an officer who subsequently became thehead of the Corps of Engineers in the Confed-eracy. In spite of the strategical fault whichmight be committed in an attempt to hold it,General Polk maintained that, just at that time,the moral effect of a determined stand at Colum-bus would be of great service to the Confederatearms.— Dr. Wm. M. Polk.