THE CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON.

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infantry and Battery A, Illinois , had been left behind at Forts Henry andHeiman under myself. A courier was dispatched to me with an order tobring my command to Donelson. I ferried my troops across the Tennessee in the night, and reported with them at headquarters before noon the nextday. The brigade was transferred to General Smith; at the same time anorder was put into my hand assigning me to command the Third Division,which was conducted to a position between Smith and McClernand , enablingthe latter to extend his line well to the left and cover the road to Charlotte.

Thus on the 14th of February the Confederates were completely invested,except that the river above Dover remained to them. The supineness ofGeneral Floyd all this while is to this day incomprehensible. A vigorousattack on the morning of the 13th might have thrown Grant back upon FortHenry. Such an achievement would have more than offset Foote’s conquest.

The morale to_ _ __ ___

be gained wouldhave alone justi-fied the attempt.

But with McCler-nand’s strong di-vision on theright, my own inthe center, and C.

F. Smith’s on theleft, the opportu-nity was gone. Onthe side of Gen-eral Grant, thepossession of theriver was all thatwas wanting;with that Grantcould force thefighting, or waitthe certain ap-proach of thegrimmest enemyof the besieged— starvation.

It is now — morning of the 14th — easy to see and understand with some-thing more than approximate exactness the oppositions of the two forces.Smith is on the left of the Union army opposite Buckner. My division, inthe center, confronts Colonels Heiman, Drake, and Davidson, each with abrigade. McClernand , now well over on the right, keeps the road to Char-lotte and Nashville against the major part of Pillow’s left wing. The infantryon both sides are in cover behind the crests of the hills or in thick woods,listening to the ragged fusillade which the sharp-shooters and skirmishers

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DOVER TAVERN — GENERAL BUCKNER’S HEADQUARTERS AND THE SCENE OFTHE SURRENDER. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1884.