greatly increasing the strength of the enemy's forces, already said to be from twenty to thirty thousand strong.

About three o'clock in the afternoon the enemy's fleet or gunboats, in full force, advanced upon the fort and opened fire They advanced in the shape of a crescent, and kept up a con stant fire for an hour and a half. Once the boats reached a point within a few hundred yards of the fort. The effects of our shot upon the iron-cased boats were now distinctly visible. Two or three well-directed shots from the heavy guns of the fort drove back the nearest boat; several shot struck another boat, tearing her iron case and splintering her timbers, and making them crack as if by a stroke of lightning, when she, too, fell back. A third boat received several severe shocks, making her metal ring and her timbers crack, when the whole line gave way and fell rapidly back from the fire of the fort, until they passed out of range.

The incidents of the two days had all been in our favor. We had repulsed the enemy in the battle of the trenches, broken the line of his gunboats, and discomfited him on the

water.

In the mean time, however, reinforcements were continually reaching the enemy; and it might have been evident from the first that the whole available force of the Federals on the western waters could and would be concentrated at Fort Donelson, if it was deemed necessary to reduce it. A consultation of the officers of divisions and brigades was called by General Floyd, to take place after dark. It was represented that it was an absolute impossibility to hold out for any length of time with our inadequate number and indefensible position; that there was no place within our intrenchments but could be reached by the enemy's artillery from their boats or their batteries; that it was but fair to infer that, while they kept up a sufficient fire npon our intrenchments to keep our men from sleep and prevent repose, their object was merely to give time to pass a column above us on the river, and to cut off our communications; and that but one course was left by which a rational hope could be entertained of saving the garrison, and that was to dislodge the enemy from his position on our left, and thus to pass our troops into the open country lying southward towards Nashville.

/

It was thus determined to remove from the trenches at an early hour the next morning, and attack the enemy in his position. There was, in fact, no other alternative. The enemy had been busy in throwing his forces of every arm around the Confederates, extending his line of investment entirely around their position, and completely enveloping them. Every road and possible avenue of departure was intercepted, with the certainty that our sources of supply by the river would soon be cut off by the enemy's batteries placed upon the river above us.

The sufferings of our army had already been terrible. The day of the opening of the battle (Thursday) was very cold, the mercury being only ten degrees above zero, and during the night, while our troops were watching on their arms in the trenches, it sleeted and snowed. The distance between the two armies was so slight that but few of the dead of either could be taken off, and many of the wounded who could neither walk nor crawl remained for more than two days where they fell. Some of our men lay wounded before our earth-works at night, calling for help and water, and our troops who went out to bring them in were discovered in the moonlight and fired upon by the enemy. Many of our wounded were not recovered until Sunday morning-some of them still alive, but blue with cold, and covered with frost and snow. It would have been merciful if each army had been permitted, under a flag of truce, to bring off its wounded at the close of each day; *but it was not so, and they lay in the frost and sleet between the two armies many to hear, but none to help them.

For nearly a week a large portion of our troops had been guarding their earth-works, and from the day of the battle they had been out in force night and day. Many of them in the rifle-pits froze their feet and hands. The severity of the cold was such that the clothes of many of the troops were so : stiff from frozen water, that could they have been taken off, they would have stood alone.

At the meeting of general officers called by Gen. Floyd on Friday night, it was unanimously determined to cut open a * route of exit, and thus to save our army. The plan of attack agreed upon and directed by Gen. Floyd was, that Gen. Pillow assisted by Gen. Bushrod Johnson, having also under his com: mand commanders of brigades, Col. Baldwin, commanding Mississippi and Tennessee troops, and Col. Wharton and Col. McCausland, commanding Virginians, should, with the main body of the forces defending our left wing, attack the right wing of the enemy occupying the heights reaching to the bank of the river; that Gen. Buckner, with the forces under his command, and defending the right of our line, should strike the enemy's encampment on the Winn's Ferry road; and that each command should leave in the trenches troops to hold them.

The attack on the left was delayed, as Gen. Pillow moved out of his position in the morning. He found the enemy prepared to receive him in advance of his encampment. For two hours this principal portion of the battle-field was hotly and stubbornly contested, and strewn with piles of dead. The Federal troops in this quarter fought with a steadiness and de termination rarely witnessed, and the exhibition of their courage on this field afforded a lesson to the South of a spirit that it had not expected in an enemy whose valor it had been accustomed to deride and sneer at since the battle of Manassas The Federals did not retreat, but fell back fighting us and con testing every inch of ground. Being forced to yield, they retired slowly towards the Winn's Ferry road, Buckner's poirt of attack.

On this road, where Gen. Buckner's command was expected to flank the enemy, it had been forced to retire from his battery, and as the enemy continued to fall back, Gen. Buckner's troops became united with the forces of Gen. Pillow in engaging the enemy, who had again been reinforced. The entire command of the enemy had been forced to our right wing, and in front of Gen. Buckner's position in the intrenchment. The advantage was instantly appreciated. The enemy drove back the Confederates, advanced on the trenches on the extreme right of Gen. Buckner's command, getting possession, after a stubborn conflict of two hours, of the most important and commanding position of the battle-field, being in the rear of our river batteries, and, advancing with fresh forces towards our left, drove back our troops from the ground that had been won in the severe and terrible conflict of the early part of the day The field had been won by the enemy after nine hours of conflict. Night found him in possession of all the ground that had been won by our troops in the morning and occupying the most commanding portion of our intrenched work, to drive him from which the most desperate assaults of our troops had been unsuccessful. The enemy had been landing reinforce ments throughout the day. His numbers had been augmented to eighty-two regiments. We had only about 13,000 troops all told. Of these we had lost in three different battles a large proportion. The command had been in the trenches night and day, exposed to the snow, sleet, mud, and ice-water, without shelter, without adequate covering, and without sleep. To renew the combat with any hope of successful result was obviously vain.

A council of general officers was called at night. It was suggested that a desperate onset upon the right of the enemy's forces on the ground might result in the extrication of a considerable proportion of the command. A majority of the council rejected this proposition. Gen. Buckner remarked, that it would cost the command three-fourths its present numbers to cut its way out, and it was wrong to sacrifice three-fourths to save one-fourth; that no officer had a right to cause such a sacrifice. The alternative of the proposition was a surrender of the position and command. Gen. Floyd and Gen. Pillow each, declared that they would not surrender themselves pris

The former claimed that he had a right individually to determine that he would not survive a surrender. He said that he would turn over the command to Gen. Buckner, if he (Gen. Floyd) could be allowed to withdraw his own particular brigade. To this Gen. Buckner consented. Thereupon, the command was turned over to Gen. Pillow, he passing it instantly to Gen. Buckner, declaring that "he would neither surrender the command nor himself." Col. Forrest, at the head of an efficient regiment of cavalry, was directed to accompany Gens. Floyd and Pillow in what was supposed to be an effort to pass through the enemy's lines. Under these circumstances, Gen. Buckner accepted the command. He sent a flag of truce to the enemy for an armistice of six hours, to negotiate for terms of capitulation.* Before the flag and communication

were delivered, Gens. Pillow and Floyd had retired from the garrison, and by daylight were pursuing their retreat towards Nashville, the largest portion of the command of the latter toiling in their flight along the banks of the Tennessee, but without a pursuing enemy to harass them.

The surrender of Donelson was rendered memorable by the hardest fighting that had yet occurred in the war, and by one of the most terrible and sickening battle-fields that had yet marked its devastations, or had ever appealed to the horrorstricken senses of humanity. The conflict had run through four days and four nights; in which a Confederate force not exceeding 13,000, a large portion of whom were illy armed, had 'contended with an army at least three times its number. The loss of the Federals was immense, and the proofs of an undeniable courage were left in the numbers of their dead on the field. In his official report of the battle, Gen. Floyd conjectures that the enemy's loss in killed and wounded reached a number beyond 5,000. The same authority gives our loss at 1,500. Both statements are only conjectural.

The scene of action had been mostly in the woods, although there were two open places of an acre or two where the fight had raged furiously, and the ground was covered with dead. All the way up to our intrenchments the same scene of death was presented. There were two miles of dead strewn thickly, mingled with fire-arms, artillery, dead horses, and the paraphernalia of the battle-field. Federals and Confederates were promiscuously mingled, sometimes grappling in the fierce death throe, sometimes facing each other as they gave and received the fatal shot and thrust, sometimes "huddled in grotesque shapes, and again heaped in piles, which lay six or seven feet deep. Many of the bodies were fearfully mangled. The artillery horses had not hesitated to tread on the wounded, dying,