THE CAMPAIGN OF SHILOH.
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Grant on the Tennessee River. That recommendation was not adopted, forthe alleged reason that, in the event of a failure to defeat General Grant asproposed, our forces thus assembled might be caught and crushed betweenthe armies of Grant and Buell, and that it would also expose to capture thelarge stock of military supplies collected so far in advance as Bowling Greenand Clarksville, as well as at Nashville . In this decision sight was certainlylost of the facts that, having no pontoon-train, General Buell could not possi-bly throw his army across the Cumberland, between Donelson and Nashville ,so as to prevent the Confederates from falling safely back behind DuckRiver, or retreating upon Nashville behind the Cumberland, as we would holdthe interior or shorter lines.
Fort Henry having fallen after an ineffective but gallant defense of twenty-four hours, immediately thereafter the railroad bridge across the Tennessee,about twelve miles southward of the surrendered fortress, was destroyed. Thedirect line of communication between our forces eastward of that stream andthose at Columbus having thus been broken, on the 7th of February I againurged as imperative the swift concentration of all our then available forcesupon Donelson. General Johnston, however, asserting that Fort Donelsonwas not “ tenable,” would only support the position by directing the force atClarksville to cross to the south side of the Tennessee River, and orderedimmediate “preparations” to be made for the “removal” of the army at Bowl-ing Green, “to Nashville , in rear of the Cumberland River.”& He also pre-scribed that, “from Nashville , should any further retrograde movementbecome necessary,” it should be “ made to Stevenson and thence according tocircumstances.”He further declared that as “the possession of the Ten-nessee River by the enemy, resulting from the fall of Fort Henry, separatedthe army at Bowling Green from the one at Columbus,” henceforth the forcesthus sundered must “act independently of each other until they can againbe brought together.” $
Fort Henry fell on the 6th of February, but General Grant, failing to pressthe signal advantage thus gained, did not advance against Fort Donelsonuntil the 12th, and then with but 15,000 men, having dispatched, at the sametime, 6 regiments under General Lew Wallace by water. The investment ofthe position was not completed, however, until early on the 13th of February,the Confederate commander having had a whole week for preparation. Onthe 6th of February the Confederate garrison at Fort Donelson embracedabout 600 artillerists and 3 regiments of infantry, or at most 2350 officersand men; to this force Heiman’s brigade and other troops, some 2500 men,were added that night, having been detached that morning from FortHenry. Between the morning of the 7th of February and the investment ofthe position by the Federal army of 15,000 men, on the morning of the 13th,it was further increased from the troops on the east and north side of theCumberland, under Brigadier-General Floyd, to whom the command of thedefense was now intrusted, so as to be, in numbers, about equal to that of theenemy on the land side, until the latter was reenforced by General Wallace ’s
•3> See p. 487, “Life of General A. S. Johnston,” "by W. P. Johnston. New York : D. Appleton & Co.