- Military arrangements of the enemy -- Marshall and Garfield -- Fishing Creek -- Crittenden's report -- Fort Henry; its surrender -- Fort Donelson; its position -- assaults -- surrender -- losses.
Important changes in the military arrangements of the enemy were made about this time. Major General George B. McClellan was assigned to the chief command of his army, in place of Lieutenant General Scott, retired. A Department of Ohio was constituted, embracing the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky east of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers; Brigadier General D. C. Buell was assigned to its command. At the same time, General Henry W. Halleck superseded General John C. Fremont in command of the United States Department of the West. General W. T. Sherman was removed from Kentucky and sent to report to General Halleck. General A. S. Johnston was now confronted by General Halleck in the West and by General Buell in Kentucky. The former, with armies at Cairo and Paducah, under Generals Grant and C. F. Smith, threatened equally Columbus, the key of the lower Mississippi River, and the water lines of the Cumberland and the Tennessee, with their defenses at Forts Donelson and Henry. The right wing of General Buell also menaced Donelson and Henry, while his center was directed against Bowling Green, and his left was advancing against General Zollicoffer at Mill Springs, on the upper Cumberland. If the last-named position could be forced, the way seemed open to East Tennessee, by either the Jacksboro or the Jamestown routes, on the one hand, and to Nashville on the other. At the northeastern corner of Kentucky there was a force under Colonel Garfield of Ohio, opposed to the Confederate force under General Humphrey Marshall. The strength of Marshall's force in effective men was about sixteen hundred. Knowing that a body of the enemy under Colonel Garfield was advancing to meet him, and that a small force was moving to his rear, he fell back some fifteen miles, and took position on Middle Creek, near Prestonburg. On January 10, 1862, Garfield attacked him. The firing was kept up, with some intervals, about four hours, and was occasionally very sharp and spirited. Marshall says in his report: ‘The enemy did not move me from any one position I assumed, and at nightfall withdrew from the field, leaving me just where I was in the morning. . . . He came to attack, yet came so cautiously that my left wing never fired a shot, and he never came up sufficiently to engage my center or left wing.’ Garfield was said to have fallen back fifteen miles to Paintsville,  and Marshall seven miles, where he remained two days, then slowly pursued his retreat. He stated his loss at ten killed and fourteen wounded, and that of the enemy to have been severe. The battle of Fishing Creek has been the subject of harsh criticism, and I think it will be seen by the report herein inserted that great injustice has been done to General George B. Crittenden, who commanded on that occasion. In July, 1880, I wrote to him requesting a statement of the affair at Fishing Creek, and a short time before his decease he complied with my request by writing as follows:
In November, 1862, I assumed, by assignment, the command of a portion of East Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky, which embraced the troops stationed at Mill Springs, on the Cumberland River, and under the command of General Zollicoffer, who, as I understood the matter, had been stationed there by General Johnston to prevent the enemy under Schopf, and confronting him on the opposite side of the river, from crossing and penetrating into Tennessee, Schopf's camp was at Somerset, on Fishing Creek, a tributary of the Cumberland, emptying into it a mile above Mill Springs. He was several miles away from the bank of the Cumberland, so that both the river and creek intervened between him and General Zollicoffer. While I was detained in Knoxville, on business connected with my command, I received an official communication from General Zollicoffer, informing me that he had crossed the Cumberland by fording, and was fortifying a camp on the right bank, etc. By the messenger who bore me this communication I ordered him to recross the river and resume his original position on the left bank. Early in January, I reached Mill Springs, and found, to my surprise, General Zollicoffer still on the right bank. He called on me immediately, and informed me that his messenger who bore back my order had lost several days in returning and that when it was received he supposed that I would arrive almost immediately; and, hoping to be able to convince me that it would be better to remain on the right bank, he had postponed crossing until, by a rise in the river, it had become impossible to do so; that all his artillery and a large portion of his wagons were on the right bank, and his only means of transferring them to the other bank were a small ferry-boat and a very small stern-wheel steamer, entirely inadequate to the purpose. I was dissatisfied, but, as I knew that the General had been actuated by pure motives, I accepted his excuse. Details were promptly placed in the woods, to prepare timber for flat-boats to transport the artillery and wagons to the left bank of the river. The weather was execrable, and the men unskilled, so that the work progressed slowly. Such was the posture of affairs, when, on the 18th of January, I was informed that General Thomas was approaching with a large force of all arms, and would encamp that night within a few miles of us. Here was thrust upon me the very contingency which my order to General Zollicoffer was intended to obviate. It rained violently throughout this day until late in the afternoon. It occurred to me that Fishing Creek must so rise as to render it impossible for Schopf to connect with Thomas. Acting upon this idea, I summoned a council of superior officers, and, laying before them the circumstances of the case, asked their advice. There  was not one of them who did not concur with me in the opinion that Thomas must be attacked immediately, and, if possible, by surprise; that such attack, if successful merely in repulsing him, would probably give us time to cross the Cumberland with artillery and wagons, by means of our boats, then being built. Accordingly, at twelve o'clock in the night, we marched for the position of the enemy, ascertained to be some six miles away. We had scarcely taken up the line of march, when the rain began to fall, the darkness became intense, and the consequent confusion great, so that day dawned before we reached his position. The attack, as a surprise, failed; nevertheless, it was promptly made. It rained violently throughout the action, rendering all the flint-lock guns useless. The men bearing them were allowed to fall back on the reserve. The action was progressing successfully, when the fall of General Zollicoffer was announced to me. Apprehending disastrous consequences, I hastened to the front. My apprehensions were well founded. I found the line of battle in confusion and falling back, and, after a vain effort to restore the line, yielded to necessity, and, by the interposition of the reserve, covered the shattered line and effected my retreat to camp without loss. I reached camp late in the afternoon. Not long afterward the enemy opened fire at long range; night coming on, he ceased to fire. The few shot and shells that fell in the camp so plainly demonstrated the demoralization of the men, that I doubted, even if I had had rations, which I had not, whether the camp could have been successfully defended for twenty-four hours. There was not, and had not been for some time in the camp, rations beyond the daily need. This state of affairs was due to the exhaustion of the neighboring country, and the impracticability of the roads. It became now my sole object to transfer the men with their arms, the cavalryhorses, and teams to the left bank of the river. This was successfully accomplished by dawn of the next day. I attributed the loss of the battle, in a great degree, to the inferiority of our arms and the untimely fall of General Zollicoffer, who was known and highly esteemed by the men, who were almost all Tennesseeans. I think I have shown that the battle of Fishing Creek was a necessity, and that I ought not to be held responsible for that necessity. As to how I managed it, I have nothing further to say.General Crittenden's gallantry had been too often and too conspicuously shown in battle during the war with Mexico and on the Indian frontier to admit of question, and the criticism has been directed solely to the propriety of the attack at Fishing Creek. His explanation is conclusive against any arraignment of him for the presence of the troops on the right bank of the Cumberland, or for his not immediately withdrawing them to the left bank when his position was threatened. Under these circumstances, to attack one portion of the enemy, when a junction with the other part could not be effected, was to act in accordance with one of the best-settled rules of war. The unforeseen accident of renewed rain, with intense darkness, delayed his march beyond reasonable expectation; whereas the whole force  should have reached the enemy's encampment before dawn, the advance of two regiments only reached there after broad daylight. To hesitate would have been to give the enemy time for preparation, and I think it was wisely decided to attack at once and rely upon the rear coming up to support the advance; the rear, encumbered with their artillery, were so far behind that, though the advance were successful in their first encounter, they did not receive the hoped — for support until they had suffered severely, and then the long-known and trusted commander of the forces there, the gallant and most estimable Zollicoffer, fell—whence confusion resulted. General Crittenden had been but a few days with the troops, a disadvantage which will be readily appreciated. Had the whole force been in position at early dawn, so as to have surprised the enemy, the plan would have been executed, and victory would have been the probable result; after which, Schopf's force might have been readily disposed of. But had the attack done no more than check the advance of Thomas until the boats under construction could have been finished, so as to enable Crittenden to save his artillery and equipments, it would have justified the attempt. I therefore think the strategy not only defensible but commendable, and the affair to be ranked with one of the many brilliant conceptions of the war. The reader will not fail to remark the evidence which General Crittenden's report affords of the fallacy of representing the South as having been prepared by supplying herself with the materiel necessary for war. The heart of even a noble enemy must be moved at the spectacle of citizens defending their homes, with muskets of obsolete patterns and shotguns, against an invader having all the modern improvements in arms. The two regiments constituting the advance were Battle's Twentieth Tennessee and the Fifteenth Mississippi, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel E. C. Walthall. With dauntless courage they engaged the whole array of the enemy, and drove him from his first position. When at length our forces fell back to their entrenched camp, it was with sullen determination, and the pursuit was so cautious that whenever it ventured too near it was driven back by our rear guard. The valiant advance—the Fifteenth Mississippi and Twentieth Tennessee—bore the burden of the day. The Mississippians lost two hundred twenty out of four hundred engaged, and the Tennesseeans lost half as many, this being about three-fourths the casualties in our force. That night General Crittenden crossed his troops over the river, with the exception of those too badly wounded to travel. He was compelled to leave his artillery and wagons, not having the means of transporting them across, and moved with the remnant of his army toward Nashville.  Both by General Crittenden and those who have criticised him for making the attack at Fishing Creek, it is assumed that General Zollicoffer made a mistake in crossing to the right bank of the Cumberland, and that thence it resulted as a consequence that General Johnston's right flank of his line through Bowling Green was uncovered. I do not perceive the correctness of the conclusion, for it must be admitted that General Zollicoffer's command was not adequate to resist the combined forces of Thomas and Schopf, or that the Cumberland River was a sufficient obstacle to prevent them from crossing either above or below the position at Mill Springs. General Zollicoffer may well have believed that he could better resist the crossing of the Cumberland by removing to the right bank rather than by remaining on the left. The only difference, it seems to me, would have been that he could have retreated without the discomfiture of his force or the loss of his artillery and equipments, but in either case Johnston's right flank would have been alike uncovered. To Zollicoffer and the other brave patriots who fell with him, let praise, not censure, be given; to Crittenden, let tardy justice render the meed due a gallant soldier of the highest professional attainments, and whose fault, if fault it be, was a willingness to dare much in his country's service. When the state of Tennessee seceded, measures were immediately adopted to occupy and fortify all the strong points on the Mississippi, such as Memphis, Randolph, Fort Pillow, and Island No.10. As it was our purpose not to enter the state of Kentucky and construct defenses for the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers on her territory, they were located within the borders of Tennessee, and as near to the Kentucky line as suitable sites could be found. On these were commenced the construction of Fort Donelson on the west side of the Cumberland, and Fort Henry on the east side of the Tennessee, about twelve miles apart. The latter stood on the low lands adjacent to the river about high-water mark, and, being just below a bend in the river and at the head of a straight stretch of two miles, it commanded the river for that distance. It was also commanded by high ground on the opposite bank of the river, which it was intended should be occupied by our troops in case of a land attack. The power of ironclad gunboats against land defenses had not yet been shown, and the low position of the fort brought the battery to the water level, and secured the advantage of ricochet firing, the most effective against wooden ships. Fort Donelson was placed on high ground; with the plunging fire from its batteries, it was thereby more effective against the ironclads  brought to attack it on the water side. But on the land side it was not equally strong, and required extensive outworks and a considerable force to resist an attack in that quarter. In September, 1861, Lieutenant Dixon of the Engineer Corps was instructed to make an examination of the works at the two forts. He reported that Fort Henry was nearly completed. It was built, not at the most favorable position, but it was a strong work, and, instead of abandoning it and building at another place, he advised that it should be completed, and other works constructed on the high lands just above the fort on the opposite side of the river. Measures for the accomplishment of this plan were adopted as rapidly as the means at disposal would allow. In relation to Donelson, it was his opinion that, although a better position might have been chosen for this fortification on the Cumberland, under the circumstances surrounding the command, it would be better to retain and strengthen the position chosen. General Polk, in a report to General Johnston just previous to the battle of Shiloh, said: ‘The principal difficulty in the way of a successful defense of the rivers, was the want of an adequate force—a force of infantry and a force of experienced artillerists.’ This was the unavoidable result of the circumstances heretofore related, but tells only half of the story. To match the vessels of the enemy (floating forts) we required vessels like theirs, or the means of constructing them. We had neither. The efforts which were put forth to resist the operations on the Western rivers, for which the United States made such vast preparations, were therefore necessarily very limited. There was a lack of skilled labor, of shipyards, and of materials for constructing ironclads, which could not be readily obtained or prepared in a beset and blockaded country. Proposals were considered both for building gunboats and for converting the ordinary side-wheel, high-pressure steamboats into gunboats. But the engineer department, though anxious to avail itself of this means of defense, decided that it was not feasible. There was not plate iron with which to armor a single vessel, and even railroad iron could not be spared from its uses for transportation. Unless a fleet could have been built to match the enemy's we had to rely on land batteries, torpedoes, and marching forces. It was thought best to concentrate the resources on what seemed practicable. One ironclad gunboat, however, the Eastport, was undertaken on the Tennessee River, but under so many difficulties that, after the surrender of Fort Henry, while still unfinished, it was destroyed, lest it should fall to the enemy.1  The fleet of gunboats prepared by the United States for the Mississippi and its tributaries consisted of twelve, seven of which were ironclads and able to resist all except the heaviest solid shot. The boats were built very wide in proportion to their length, so that in the smooth river waters they might have almost the steadiness of land batteries when discharging their heavy guns. This flotilla carried one hundred forty-three guns, some sixty-four pounders, some thirty-two pounders, and some seven-inch rifled guns carrying eighty-pound shells. On February 2d General Grant started from Cairo with seventeen thousand men on transports. Commodore Foote accompanied him with seven gunboats. On the 4th the landing of the troops commenced three miles or more below Fort Henry. General Grant took command on the east bank with the main column, while General Charles F. Smith, with two brigades of some five to six thousand men, landed on the left bank, with orders to take the earthwork opposite Fort Henry, known as Fort Hindman. On the 5th the landing was completed, and the attack was made on the next day. The force of General Tilghman, who was in command at Fort Henry, was about thirty-four hundred men. It is evident that on the 5th he intended to dispute Grant's advance by land; on the 6th, however, before the attack by the gunboats, he changed his purpose, abandoned all hope of a successful defense, and made arrangements for the escape of his main body to Fort Donelson, while the guns of Fort Henry should engage the gunboats. He ordered Colonel Hindman to withdraw the command to Fort Donelson, while he himself would obtain the necessary delay for the movement by use of the battery, and standing a bombardment in Fort Henry. For this purpose he retained his heavy artillery company—seventy-five men—to work the guns, a number unequal to the strain and labor of the defense.2 Noon was the time fixed for the attack. But Grant, impeded by the overflow of water and unwilling to expose his men to the heavy guns of the fort, held them back to await the result of the gunboat attack. In the meantime the Confederate troops were in retreat. Four ironclads, mounting forty-eight heavy guns, approached and took position within six hundred yards of the fort, firing as they advanced. About half a mile behind these came three unarmored gunboats, mounting twenty-seven heavy guns, which took a more distant position, and kept up a bombardment of shells that fell within the works. Some four hundred of the formidable missiles of the ironclad boats were also thrown into the fort. The officers and men inside were not slow to respond, and as many as 
|Map: battlefield of Fort Donelson|
The Louisville was disabled by a shot, which cut away her rudder-chains, making her totally unmanageable, so that she drifted with the current out of action. Very soon the St. Louis was disabled by a shot through her pilot-house, rendering her steering impossible, so that she also floated down the river. The other two armored vessels were also terribly struck, and a rifled cannon on the Carondelet burst, so that these two could no longer sustain the action; and, after fighting for more than an hour, the little fleet was forced to withdraw. The St. Louis was struck fifty-nine times, the Louisville thirty-six times, the Carondelet twenty-six, the Pittsburg twenty, the four vessels receiving no less than one hundred and forty-one wounds. The fleet, gathering itself together, and rendering mutual help to its disabled members, proceeded to Cairo to repair damages.The loss of the enemy was fifty-four killed and wounded. The report of Major Gilmer, who laid out these works, says:
Our batteries were uninjured, and not a man in them killed. The repulse of the gunboats closed the operations of the day, except a few scattering shots along the land defenses.In consequence of reenforcements to the enemy, the plan of operations for the next day was determined by the Confederate generals about midnight. The whole of the left wing of the army, except eight regiments, was to move out of the trenches, attack, turn, and drive the enemy's right until the Wynn's Ferry road, which led to Charlotte through a good country, was cleared, and an exit thus secured. The troops, moving in the small hours of the night over the icy and broken roads, which wound through the obstructed area of defense, made slow progress, and delayed the projected operations. At 4 A. M. on the 15th, Pillow's troops were ready, except one brigade, which came late into action. By six o'clock Baldwin's brigade was engaged with the enemy, only two or three hundred yards from his lines, and the bloody contest of the day had begun. At one o'clock the enemy's right was doubled back. The Wynn's Ferry road was cleared, and it remained only  for the Confederates to do one of two things: the first was, to seize the golden moment and, adhering to the original purpose and plan of the sortie, move off rapidly by the route laid open by such strenuous efforts and so much bloodshed; the other depended on the inspiration of a master mind equal to the effort of grasping every element of the combat, and which should complete the partial victory by the utter route and destruction of the enemy.
While one or the other alternative seems to have been the only possible safe solution, [says the author of The Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston] the Confederate commander tried neither. A fatal middle policy was suddenly but dubiously adopted, and not carried out. The spirit of vacillation and divided counsels prevented that unity of action which is essential to success. For seven hours the Confederate battalions had been pushing over rough ground and through thick timber, at each step meeting fresh troops massed, where the discomfited regiments rallied. Hence the vigor of assault slackened, though the wearied troops were still ready and competent to continue their onward movement. Ten fresh regiments, over three thousand men, had not fired a musket. But in the turmoil of battle no one knew the relations of any command to the next, or indeed whether his neighbor was friend or foe. General Buckner had halted, according to the preconcerted plan, to allow the army to pass out by the opened road and to cover their retreat. At this point of the fight, Pillow, finding himself at Hindman's position, heard of (or saw) preparations by General C. F. Smith for an assault on the Confederate right; but, whether he understood this to be the purpose or construed the movement as the signs of a flight, was left uncertain by his language at the time. . . . He ordered the regiments which had been engaged to return to the trenches, and instructed Buckner to hasten to defend the imperiled point. Buckner, not recognizing him as a superior authorized to change the plan of battle, or the propriety of such change, refused to obey, and, after receiving reiterated orders, started to find Floyd, who at that moment joined him. He urged upon Floyd the necessity of carrying out the original plan of evacuation. Floyd assented to this view, and told Buckner to stand fast until he could see Pillow. He then rode back and saw Pillow, and, hearing his arguments, yielded to them. Floyd simply says that he found the movements so nearly executed that it was necessary to complete it. Accordingly, Buckner was recalled. In the mean time, Pillow's right brigades were retiring to their places in the trenches, under orders from the commanders.The conflict on the left soon ended. Three hundred prisoners, five thousand stand of small arms, six guns, and other spoils of victory, had been won by our forces. But the enemy, cautiously advancing, gradually recovered most of his lost ground. It was about 4 P. M. when the assault on the right was made by General C. F. Smith. The enemy succeeded in carrying the advanced work, which General Buckner considered the key to his position. The loss of the enemy during the siege was four hundred killed, seventeen hundred eighty-five wounded, and three hundred prisoners. Our losses were about three hundred twenty-five killed and  one thousand ninety-seven wounded; including those missing, it was estimated at fifteen hundred. After nightfall a consultation of the commanding officers was held, and after a consideration of the question in all its aspects as to what should be done, it was decided that a surrender was inevitable, and that to accomplish its objects it must be made before the assault, which was expected at daylight. General Buckner in his report, says:
I regarded the position of the army as desperate, and that the attempt to extricate it by another battle, in the suffering and exhausted condition of the troops, was almost hopeless. The troops had been worn down with watching, with labor, with fighting. Many of them were frosted by the cold, all of them were suffering and exhausted by their incessant labors. There had been no regular issue of rations for several days, and scarcely any means of cooking. The ammunition was nearly expended. We were completely invested by a force fully four times the strength of our own.The decision to surrender having been made, it remained to determine by whom it should be made. Generals Floyd and Pillow declared they would not surrender and become prisoners; the duty was therefore allotted to General Buckner. Floyd said, ‘General Buckner, if I place you in command, will you allow me to draw out my brigade?’ General Buckner replied, ‘Yes, provided you do so before the enemy act upon my communication.’ Floyd said, ‘General Pillow, I turn over the command.’ General Pillow, regarding this as a mere technical form by which the command was to be conveyed to Buckner, then said, ‘I pass it.’ Buckner assumed the command, sent for a bugler to sound the parley, for pen, ink, and paper, and opened the negotiations for surrender. There were but two roads by which it was possible for the garrison to retire. If they went by the upper road, they would certainly have to cut through the main body of the enemy; if by the lower road, they would have to wade through water three feet deep. This, the medical director stated, would be death to more than one half the command, on account of the severity of the weather and their physical prostration. To cut through the enemy, if effected, would, it was supposed, involve the loss of three-fourths of the command, a sacrifice which, it was conceded, would not be justifiable. The enemy had, in the conflict of the preceding day, gained possession of our rifle pits on the right flank, and General Buckner, an experienced soldier, held that the fort would immediately fall when the enemy attacked in the morning. General Pillow dissented from this conclusion, believing that the fort could be defended until boats could be obtained to convey the garrison across the river, and also advocated an attempt  to cut through the investing lines of the enemy. Being overruled on both points, he announced his determination to leave the post by any means available, so as to escape a surrender, and he advised Colonel N. B. Forrest, who was present, to go out with his cavalry regiment, and any others he could take with him through the overflow. General Floyd's brigade consisted of two Virginia regiments and one Mississippi regiment; these, as before mentioned, it was agreed that General Floyd might withdraw before the surrender. Two of the field officers, Colonel Russell and Major Brown of the Mississippi regiment, the twentieth, had been officers of the First Mississippi Riflemen in the war with Mexico; the twentieth, their present regiment, was reputed to be well instructed and under good discipline. This regiment was left to be surrendered with the rest of the garrison, under peculiar circumstances, of which Major Brown, then commanding, gives the following narrative:
About twelve o'clock of the night previous to the surrender, I received an order to report in person at headquarters. On arriving I met Colonel N. B. Forrest, who remarked: ‘I have been looking for you; they are going to surrender this place, and I wanted you with your command to go out with me, but they have other orders for you.’ On entering the room, Generals Floyd and Pillow also informed me of the proposed proceedings. General Floyd ordered me to take possession of the steamboat-landing with my command; that he had reserved the right to remove his brigade; that, after having guarded the landing, my command should be taken aboard the boat; the Virginia regiments, first crossing to the other side of the river, could make their way to Clarksville. I proceeded at once with my command to the landing; there was no steamboat there, but I placed my regiment in a semicircular line so as to cover the landingplace. About daylight the steamer came down, landed, and was soon loaded with the two Virginia regiments, they passing through my ranks. At the same time the General and staff, or persons claiming to belong to the staff, passed aboard. The boat, being a small one, was considerably crowded. While the staging of the boat was being drawn aboard, General Floyd hallooed to me, from the ‘hurricane-roof,’ that he would cross the river with the troops aboard and return for my regiment. But, about the time of the departure of the boat, General S. B. Buckner came and asserted that he had turned over the garrison and all the property at sunrise; that, if the boat was not away immediately, he would be charged by the enemy with violating the terms of the surrender. I mention this incident as furnishing, I suppose, the reason why my regiment was left on the bank of the river. Sorrowfully I gave the necessary orders to stack arms and surrender. . . . Both morally and materially the disaster was a severe blow to us. Many, wise after the event, have shown their skill in telling what all knew afterward, but nobody told before.