A Gun-Boat Fleet: Wallace and Buckner

The divisions of McClernand and Smith left Fort Henry on the morning of the 12th of February (1862), and marched for Fort Donelson, leaving Wallace with a brigade to hold the vanquished forts on the Tennessee. They invested Fort Donelson the same evening; and after some picket-firing the next morning, General Grant resolved to wait for the arrival of the flotilla (bearing troops that would complete Wallace's division) before making a general attack. On the same morning Ex-Secretary Floyd arrived from Virginia, with troops, and superseded General Pillow, who was in command of Fort Donelson. Floyd and Pillow were materially assisted by General S. B. Buckner, a better soldier than either of them, but he was subordinate to both of the inefficient commanders. All that day (February 13th) there was skirmishing, and toward evening an unexpected enemy appeared in the form of severe frost. The morning had dawned in uncommon splendor, and the air was as balmy as that of late spring; but toward evening a violent rain-storm arose, the temperature fell, and before morning the ground became frozen almost as hard as iron and everything was mailed in ice. The National troops were bivouacked without tents, and they dared not light fires for fear of exposing themselves to the guns of the fort. They were without sufficient food and clothing, and their sufferings were so dreadful that they anxiously awaited the dawn and expected reinforcements.

General Grant perceived the peril of his situation, and had sent to General Wallace to bring his troops over from the Tennessee. The latter moved at day-break on the 14th, the ground encrusted with frozen sleet and the air filled with drifting frost. These troops were in high spirits. With cheering and singing of songs they pressed forward, and at noon their commander dined with General Grant on crackers and coffee. Meantime the armored flotilla, with the transports, had arrived, and Wallace's division was perfected. It was immediately posted between the divisions of McClernand and Smith, and so the thorough investment of the fort was completed. At three o'clock that afternoon, the Carondelet, Captain Walke, began the assault on Fort Donelson, and was soon joined by the St. Louis, Pittsburg, and Louisville. Unarmored vessels formed a second line; and the flotilla boldly attacked the water-batteries, but without much effect. The mortar-boats had not arrived; and never were war-vessels exposed to a more tremendous pounding than were the four armored gun-boats in this fight by missiles from the shore batteries. They received, in the aggregate, one hundred and forty wounds, and fifty-four men were killed or wounded. Foote was compelled to withdraw, when he hastened to Cairo to have damages repaired, and to bring up a competent naval force to assist in carrying on the siege. Grant resolved to await Foote's return and for expected reinforcements.

The night of the 14th was an anxious one for both parties. The Confederates, perceiving their peril, held a council of war. Floyd's opinion was that the fort was untenable with less than fifty thousand men to defend it; and that the garrison might be saved only by a sortie the next morning to route or destroy the investing army, or to cut through it and escape to the open country in the direction of Nashville. This desperate measure was attempted at five o'clock on the morning of the 15th, by about ten thousand men, led by Pillow and Buckner, the former striking McClernad on the right of the Nationals, and the latter prepared to attack Wallace in the centre. Pillow had boasted that he would "roll the enemy in full retreat over upon Buckner, when the latter, attacking them on the flank and rear, would cut up the Federals and put them completely to rout." The attack was quick and furious; but the troops that first received the shock of battle (Oglesby's brigade), maintained their ground gallantly until their ammunition began to fail. Relief was sent, but the pressure was so great that the whole line gave way excepting the extreme left held by Colonel John A. Logan's Illinois regiment, which stood as firm as a wall and prevented a panic. The good service of the light batteries of Taylor, McAllister and Dresser, made the Confederate line recoil again and again. But fresh troops continually strengthened it, until at length the whole of McClernand's division were in great peril. Then he called upon Wallace for help, and it was given so effectually, that after a hard and skillful struggle on the part of the Nationals, with the Confederate forces of Buckner and Pillow combined, the latter were compelled to fall back to their trenches. "I speak advisedly," wrote Colonel Hillyer (Grant's aide-de-camp) to Wallace, the next day, "God bless you! You did save the day on the right."

In the meantime General Smith had been smiting the Confederate right such telling blows, that when darkness fell upon the scene, the Nationals were victorious and the vanquished Confederates were imprisoned within their trenches, unable to escape.