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To the wide-spread terror inspired by them may be ascribed the loss of Fort Donelson and New Orleans. Omne ignotum pro magnifico; and it was popularly believed that the destructive powers of these monsters were not to be resisted.
Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical elements that presented themselves at every point; but that victory admitted the ray of light which I have followed ever since.
With us, now twenty years after the close of the most stupendous war ever known, we have writers who profess devotion to the nation engaged in trying to prove that the Union forces were not victorious; practically, they say, we were slashed around from Donelson to Vicksburg and to Chattanooga; and in the East from Gettysburg to Appomattox, when the physical rebellion gave out from sheer exhaustion.
The armies in Virginia did nothing till many weeks after the anniversary of Washington's birthday; whereas, in the West, Admiral Foote and General Grant did not conceive that they were enforced to rest in idleness until that historic date. Before it arrived they had performed the brilliant exploits of capturing Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.
It was his own regimental chief, Arthur Winchester, who called him, and who told him to make ready for an instant departure from Donelson. "You are to be a cavalryman for a while, Dick," said Colonel Winchester. "So much has happened recently that we scarcely know how we stand.
Could not a cavalry force from General Thomas on the upper Cumberland dash across, almost unresisted, and cut the railroad at or near Knoxville, Tennessee? In the midst of a bombardment at Fort Donelson, why could not a gunboat run up and destroy the bridge at Clarksville? Our success or failure at Fort Donelson is vastly important, and I beg you to put your soul in the effort.
Other armies nearly a hundred thousand strong spread over Kentucky and threatened Tennessee at Cumberland Gap, Bowling Green, and Forts Henry and Donelson. In February Ulysses S. Grant saw the strategic importance of the forts on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, and before the first of March he had captured both, and the whole of West Tennessee lay open to him.
Orders went out from the War Department to consolidate fragments of companies that were being recruited in the Western States so as to make full companies, and to consolidate companies into regiments. General Halleck did not approve or disapprove of my going to Fort Donelson. He said nothing whatever to me on the subject.
As soon as Fort Henry fell, General Grant marched straight across to Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River, invested the place, and, as soon as the gunboats had come round from the Tennessee, and had bombarded the water-front, he assaulted; whereupon Buckner surrendered the garrison of twelve thousand men; Pillow and ex-Secretary of War General Floyd having personally escaped across the river at night, occasioning a good deal of fun and criticism at their expense.
Its abandonment was due to want of troops to garrison it properly; the pressure of the United States armies in Kentucky and Tennessee, after the fall of Fort Donelson in the previous February, having necessitated the withdrawal of all men that could be spared from other points.
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