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The Secessionists in Memphis, like their brethren elsewhere, insisted that all the points we had captured were given up because they had no further use for them. The evacuation of Columbus, Fort Pillow, Fort Henry, and Bowling Green, with the surrender of Donelson, were parts of the grand strategy of the Rebel leaders, and served to lure us on to our destruction.
He reached this latter place on the 14th of February, while Donelson was still besieged. Buell followed with a portion of the Army of the Ohio, but he had to march and did not reach the east bank of the Cumberland opposite Nashville until the 24th of the month, and then with only one division of his army.
White folks would whup de slaves ef dey 'yeard dem sing er pray. I wuz a big girl w'en dey build de Capitol. I played on de hill 'fore hit wuz built en I toted blocks fum dere w'en hit wuz bein' built. I wuz livin' in Dickson County w'en Fort Donelson wuz tuk. I seed de fust gun boat dat kum up de Cumberland River.
They have not yet reached Me.... The hope is still entertained that our reported losses at Fort Donelson have been greatly exaggerated...." He went on to condemn the policy of enlistments for short terms, "against which," said he, "I have steadily contended"; and he enlarged upon the danger that even patriotic men, who intended to reenlist, might go home to put their affairs in order and that thus, at a critical moment, the army might be seriously reduced.
Dick went gladly with the group of Union officers, who approached Fort Donelson under the white flag, and who met a group of Confederate officers under a like white flag. He noticed in the very center of the Southern group the figure of General Buckner, a tall, well-built man in his early prime, his face usually ruddy, now pale with fatigue and anxiety.
Then Randall, who had succeeded to the Speakership, transferred Morrison from the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee to the chairmanship of the committee on public lands. But Morrison was a man who would not submit to defeat. He was a veteran of the Civil War, and had been severely wounded in leading his regiment at Fort Donelson.
Donelson, our representative at Frankfort, remained there several months in the expectation that a union of the German States under one constitution or form of government might at length be organized. It is believed by those well acquainted with the existing relations between Prussia and the States of Germany that no such union can be permanently established without her cooperation.
We ascertained that they were about the last installment of the Fort Donelson prisoners, and were being shipped to a northern military prison. Naturally, we scanned them with great curiosity, and the boys soon began to joke and chaff them in a perfectly good natured way. They took this silently, with no other manifestation than an occasional dry grin.
On the 7th, the day after the fall of Fort Henry, I took my staff and the cavalry a part of one regiment and made a reconnoissance to within about a mile of the outer line of works at Donelson. I had known General Pillow in Mexico, and judged that with any force, no matter how small, I could march up to within gunshot of any intrenchments he was given to hold.
About this time another force of twenty or twenty-five thousand men was collected on the west bank of the Mississippi, above Cairo, under the command of Major-General John Pope, designed to become the "Army of the Mississippi," and to operate, in conjunction with the navy, down the river against the enemy's left flank, which had held the strong post of Columbus, Kentucky, but which, on the fall of Fort Donelson, had fallen back to New Madrid and Island No. 10.
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