Disaster followed disaster for the South now in swift succession. The United States Navy, not content with the supremacy of the high seas, set to work with determination to build a war fleet on the great rivers of the West which could pierce the heart of the lower South.
Before the South could possibly secure arms and ammunition with which to equip the army of Albert Sidney Johnston, these gunboats were steaming down the Ohio and Mississippi bearing thousands of troops armed, drilled and led by stark, game-fighting generals from the West.
By the end of November the Federal troops threatening Tennessee numbered fifty thousand and they were rapidly re?nforced until they aggregated a hundred thousand.
General Albert Sidney Johnston sent the most urgent appeals for arms to the Governors of Georgia and Alabama, to General Bragg at Pensacola and to the Government at Richmond. He asked for thirty thousand muskets and got but one thousand. The guns were not in the South. They could not be manufactured. Fully one-half his men had no arms at all. Whole brigades remained without weapons for months. The entire force at his command never numbered more than twenty-two thousand during this perilous fall. And yet, by the masterly handling of his little army, its frequent and rapid expeditions, he kept his powerful opponents in constant expectations of an attack and produced the impression that he commanded an enormous force.
In the meantime the sensational newspapers were loud in their demands.
The Richmond yellow Journal shouted:
"Let Johnston muster his forces, advance into Kentucky, capture Louisville, push across the Ohio and carry the war into Africa."
Swift and terrible the blow fell.
And always the navy\'s smoke on the horizon. From the Ohio, the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers could be navigated for hundreds of miles into Tennessee and Alabama. But two forts guarded the rivers and protected these States.
Early in February, 1862, the gunboats under Admiral Foote slowly steamed up the Tennessee and attacked Fort Henry. The array they covered was commanded by General Grant. The Federal fleet and army hurled twenty thousand men and fifty-four cannon against the little fort of eleven guns. With but forty men General Tilghman fought this host and held them at bay for two hours and ten minutes, until the main body of his garrison of twenty-five hundred troops had marched out and were safely on their way to Fort Donelson, twelve miles across the country on the banks of the Cumberland. Fort Henry was of small importance. Fort Donelson commanded the approach to Nashville.
There was not a moment\'s delay. Grant telegraphed Halleck that he would capture Fort Donelson two days later. Admiral Foote sent three light gunboats up the Tennessee to clear the river into Alabama, swept down stream with his heavier craft to the Ohio and turned into the Cumberland. Grant pressed directly across the strip of twelve miles with his army bearing on Fort Donelson.
The commander at Fort Donelson had at first but six thousand men including the garrison from Fort Henry which had just arrived. Had Grant been able to strike on the eighth of February, the day he had wired to Halleck he would capture the fort, its fall would have been sure. But high water delayed him, and Albert Sidney Johnston hastened to pour in re?nforcements. Every available soldier at his command was rushed to the rescue. He determined to fight for Nashville at Donelson. General Buckner\'s command of Kentuckians, General Pillow\'s Tennesseeans and General Floyd\'s brigade of Virginia troops were all poured into the fort before the thirteenth. This force, approximating twenty thousand men, properly commanded should hold Donelson indefinitely.
The fortification was magnificently placed on a bluff commanding the river for two miles. Its batteries consisted of eight thirty-two-pounders, three thirty-two-pound carronades, one ten-inch Columbiad and one thirty-two-pounder rifle. A line of entrenchments stretched for two miles around the fort enclosing it.
Into these trenches the newly arrived troops were thrown.
Dick Welford, with Floyd\'s Virginians, gripped his musket with eager enthusiasm for his first real battle. His separation from Jennie had been a bitter trial. In his eagerness to get to the front he had the misfortune to serve in the ill fated campaign in West Virginia, which preceded Bull Run. Beauregard and J. E. Johnston were in easy touch with Richmond. His unlucky brigade had been transferred to Albert Sidney Johnston\'s command.
The men had been in the trenches through the long miserable night expecting an attack at any moment.
Half waking, half dreaming, he lay on the cold ground wondering what Jennie was doing—and always with the nightmare of that foreign snake winding his way into her favor. Well, his chance would come in this battle. He would lead his men in a charge. He was a corporal now. He would come out of it with straps on his shoulders, he could see Jennie\'s eyes flash with tears of pride as she read the story of his heroism and his promotion.
"I\'ll show that reptile what a man can do!" he muttered.
The tired body relaxed and his big blond head sank on his arms.
A sudden crash of thunder and he sprang to his feet, his hand tight on his gun. There they were in the gray light of the chill February morning—the fleet of Federal gunboats under Foote, their big black funnels pouring clouds of smoke into the sky, darkening the dull red glow of the rising sun. He counted six of them—Carondalet, Pittsburgh, Louisville, St. Louis, Tyler and Conestoga.
A white breath of smoke flashed from the Carondalet\'s bow, and Dick watched the shell rise with a shriek and fall short of the fort.
The fleet moved closer and another shell screamed through the sky and again fell short. They moved again, found the range, and for four hours the earth trembled beneath the steady roar of their forty-six guns.
At eleven o\'clock Dick saw the long lines of men in blue deploy for an assault on the entrenchments. They moved with quick sure step, these men under Grant. He was sorry for them. They were marching to certain death.
On the blue waves rolled, pouring volley after volley into the heaps of earth behind which the Southerners lay.
They were close enough now and the quick command rang along the trenches.
"Fire!"
A storm of death swept the ranks in the open fields. They stood their ground stubbornly, those dogged western fighters. Dazed and cut to pieces, they rallied and pressed forward again only to be mowed down in heaps.
They gave it up at last and sullenly withdrew, leaving the dead piled high and the wounded slowly freezing to death where they lay.
The artillery kept the earth quivering with the steady roar of their guns and the Federal sharpshooters harassed the trenches without a moment\'s respite. It was impossible to move for food or water until nightfall.
At dawn next day Dick once more gripped his gun and peered over the embankment. The morning passed without attack. What could it mean? They saw at last—another fleet. Clouds of black smoke on the river told the story. Re?nforcements had arrived.
At half-past two o\'clock the fleet formed in line of battle—threw their big flags to the breeze and dashed squarely on the fort.
They swept now within point blank range of three hundred yards, pouring in a storm of shot.
But the Confederate batteries were too heavy and too well manned. Fifty-seven shells struck the flagship and more than a hundred took effect on the five boats leading the assault. The fleet was crushed and put out of commission. Every boat was disabled except one and that withdrew beyond the range of the batteries.
Dick watched the magnificent spectacle with thrilling pride. He could have enjoyed the show but for the bitter cold. It was twenty degrees below the freezing point, and while the battle raged between the fleet and fort it began to sleet and snow. When the crippled boats at last drifted down the yellow tide and out of range, he found to his amazement that a thick coat of ice had formed on the hand in which he held his musket. His clothes were frozen stiff on his body.
He leaped to his feet and beat his arms fiercely, and glanced over the embankment toward those ominous-looking piles of blue. The sleet was sheathing their bodies in crystal shrouds now. No flag of truce was allowed and the wounded lay freezing and dying where they fell. He could hear the stronger ones still crying for help. Their long piteous moans rang above the howl of the wind through the breaking boughs of the trees.
It was hideous. Why didn\'t they rescue those men? Why didn\'t they proclaim a truce to bury the dead and save the wounded? Grant must be a fiend! Far off on the river another black smudge was seen in the sky. More re?nforcements were coming.
The three Confederate generals suddenly waked with a shock to realize that their foe had landed a second army, cutting their communications with Nashville.
A council of war was hastily called on the night of the fourteenth. It was a discordant aggregation. Floyd, the former Secretary of War in Buchanan\'s administration, was the senior officer in command. He was regarded more as a politician than a soldier and his exploits in We............