by Bruce Catton
6.
McClellan to Buell, November 7, O. R., Series Two, Vol. I, p. 891.
7.
Buell to Lorenzo Thomas, December 23, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 511; Buell to McClellan, November 22, pp. 443–444.
8.
Buell to McClellan, December 29, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 521.
9.
Buell to Halleck, January 3, 1862, O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 528–529.
10.
See O. R., Vol. VII: Lincoln to Halleck, December 31, p. 524; Buell to Lincoln, p. 526; Halleck to Lincoln, January 1, p. 526.
11.
Same, Halleck to Buell, January 2, p. 527.
12.
Same, McClellan to Halleck, January 3, pp. 527–528; Buell to Halleck, January 3, pp. 528–529.
13.
Same, Lincoln to Buell, January 4, and Buell’s reply of same date, pp. 530–531; McClellan to Buell, January 6, p. 531.
14.
Same, Halleck to Lincoln, January 6, pp. 532–533; Lincoln’s gloomy endorsement (dated January 10) is p. 533.
15.
Same, Halleck to Grant, pp. 533–534.
16.
Same, Grant to Halleck, pp. 537–538. Grant’s troop return for January 10 is on p. 544.
17.
Same, pp. 535, 543, 547.
18.
Grant’s orders governing the expedition are in O. R., Vol. VII, p. 551. His message regarding Captain Kountz is pp. 551–552. The Kountz affair had a curious aftermath. Kountz sent to the War Department an extensive statement accusing Grant of drunkenness, both at Cairo and on flag-of-truce boats, and asserting that Grant and his aides went to a Negro ball where much champagne was served. Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott passed the charges on to Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, pointing out that Kountz drew up his list of charges while in prison and adding that “there seems to be some little personal feeling in this matter between the General and Q. M. Kountz.” Scott recommended that Kountz be released from custody and that “the examination of charges against General Grant be suspended for the present.” (See Vol. III, Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.) Apparently, the Kountz charges were not taken seriously by the War Department; the court-martial he demanded for Grant was never held.
19.
Emerson, “Grant’s Life in the West,” in the Midland Monthly for May, 1898.
20.
Halleck to McClellan, O. R., Vol. VIII, p. 503; Grant to J. C. Kelton, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 565; Emerson, as Note 19.
21.
C. F. Smith to Grant, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 561; Emerson, as Note 19.
22.
Thomas to Buell, January 23, O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 563–564.
23.
Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 234–235; Emerson, as Note 19.
24.
Brinton, p. 110; Garland, p. 185; Memoir of Julia Dent Grant.
25.
Galena Northwestern Gazette for December 16, 1861, printing a St. Louis dispatch to the Cincinnati Enquirer; Colonel Charles Whittlesey to Halleck, November 20, 1861, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 440.
26.
Halleck to McClellan, January 20, O. R., Vol. VIII, p. 509.
27.
Halleck’s orders are in O. R., Vol. VIII, pp. 406, 411, 431.
28.
John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant, Vol. II, p. 465; Brinton, p. 110.
29.
O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 518–519.
30.
In O. R., Vol. VIII: Halleck to T. Ewing, January 1, pp. 475–476; Halleck to McClellan, December 19, 1861, pp. 448–449. For Colonel C. R. Jennison’s proclamation, O. R., Series Two, Vol. I, pp. 231–232; editorial in the Missouri Republican for October 3, 1861.
31.
O. R., Vol. VII: Halleck to Grant, January 22, pp. 561–562; Foote to Halleck, January 28, p. 120; Grant to Halleck, January 28, p. 121; his letter of January 29 is also on p. 121. The rumor about Beauregard is in McClellan’s January 29 dispatches to Halleck and Buell, p. 571.
32.
The point is made by Conger, pp. 152–154.
33.
Halleck to McClellan, January 29 and 30, O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 571–572.
34.
O. R., Vol. VII: Halleck to Buell, January 30, p. 574; to Grant, pp. 121–122.
35.
The exchange between Halleck and Buell is in O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 574–576.
36.
Same, p. 575.
37.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Vol. XXII, pp. 427–428.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Between the Rivers
1.
Emerson, “Grant’s Life in the West,” Midland Monthly for May, 1898.
2.
Grant to Smith, Jan. 31, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 575.
3.
Same, pp. 577–579. Note that it took just two days to get this expedition moving—as good a record, for speed, as was made in all the war for a major expedition. Obviously, Grant had been anticipating Halleck’s orders.
4.
O. R., Vol. VII: Halleck to Buell, February 2, pp. 578–579; Buell to Thomas, February 2, p. 580; Buell to Halleck, February 3, p. 580; Grant to Halleck, February 3, p. 581.
5.
Same: Halleck to Buell, February 5, and Buell to Halleck, same date, p. 583; McClellan to Buell, February 5, and Buell to McClellan, also February 5, pp. 584–585; Halleck to McClellan, Feb. 6, p. 586; McClellan to Buell and Buell to McClellan, dispatches of Feb. 6, p. 587; Halleck to Buell, Feb. 7, p. 593.
6.
Rawlins, quoted in Emerson, as Note 1.
7.
Chicago Tribune, printing Cairo dispatch dated February 2 and Paducah dispatch dated February 4. One correspondent insisted that the leak occurred because Grant’s own staff had been kept in the dark. The officer who passed on press telegrams, he said, had the quaint habit of supressing those which were true and approving those which were false, on the theory that the enemy would best be deceived thereby. Seeing the item about the expedition into Tennessee—written by an alert reporter who had seen the waterfront preparations and had drawn his own conclusions—this officer assumed that the story was completely untrue and let it go. (Richardson, A Personal History of Ulysses S. Grant, pp. 214–215.)
8.
Colonel Charles Whittlesey, War Memoranda, pp. 28–29.
9.
Eliot Calendar, “What a Boy Saw on the Mississippi,” in Military Essays and Recollections, Vol. I, pp. 53–55.
10.
Chicago Tribune, Paducah dispatch dated February 4.
11.
Grant’s battle orders are in O. R., Vol. VII, p. 125.
12.
Correspondence of the Memphis Appeal, dated January 29, quoted in a Chicago Tribune dispatch from Louisville dated February 7; Tilghman’s report, in O. R., Vol. VII, p. 140; Captain Jesse Taylor, “The Defense of Fort Henry,” in B. & L., Vol. I, p. 370.
13.
See Lieutenant Col. E. C. Dawes, “The Army of the Tennessee,” in Vol. IV, Papers of the Ohio Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
14.
Chicago Tribune, Cairo dispatch dated February 9; H. Allen Gosnell, Guns on the Western Waters, pp. 49–50; McClernand’s report, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 129.
15.
Captain Jesse Taylor, as Note 12, pp. 370–371; Flag Officer Foote’s report, O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 122–123.
16.
Tilghman’s report, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 136; Captain Jesse Taylor, as Note 12, p. 372.
17.
Grant to Halleck, February 6, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 124.
18.
O. R., Vol. VII: Grant to Halleck, p. 125; Halleck to McClellan, p. 120.
19.
Grant’s letter to his sister, in Cramer, p. 78; Richardson, as in Note 7, p. 217.
20.
Albert Sidney Johnston to Judah P. Benjamin, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 131.
21.
Chicago Tribune dispatch from Cairo dated February 7; dispatch dated Fort Henry, February 9, via Cairo, February 11; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 241; Grant’s orders of February 9, O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 598–599. Grant’s memory seems to have betrayed him; Pillow did not actually reach Fort Donelson until February 9, two days after Grant made his trip. (O. R., Vol. VII, p. 877.)
22.
Commander Phelps’s report dated February 10, O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 153–156.
23.
Cairo dispatch dated February 9, in the Chicago Tribune; Cullum to Grant, February 7, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 594; Grant’s General Field Orders No. 7 and No. 8, both of February 10, p. 601; Halleck to Cullum, February 14, p. 614.
24.
Letter of Cullum to Smith, dated February 1, in the C. F. Smith Papers; Brinton, p. 131. Brinton says McPherson told him: “I have been ordered here and instructed to obtain special information. All sorts of reports are prevalent at St. Louis as to Gen. Grant’s habits. It is said he is drinking terribly and in every way is inefficient.” It is perhaps worth noting that in a short time McPherson became one of Grant’s most faithful supporters.
25.
Chicago Tribune dispatch dated Fort Henry, February 7; Brinton, p. 112.
26.
The messages between Halleck, Grant, Foote and Cullum can be found in O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 595, 600, 601, 603–604.
27.
Foote to Halleck, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 604; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 298.
28.
Grant to Halleck, February 12, O. R., Vol. VI, p. 612.
29.
Grant to Halleck, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 609.
30.
Lew Wallace, “The Capture of Fort Donelson,” in B. & L., Vol. I, p. 410 (hereafter cited as Wallace); Brinton, pp. 115–116.
31.
For a sympathetic examination of Johnston’s dilemma, see Col. William Preston Johnston, “Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh,” B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 546–548. See also Stanley Horn, The Army of Tennessee, pp. 83–87, and T. Harry Williams, Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray, pp. 116–119. Beauregard’s memorandum on the course to be followed after the fall of Fort Henry, dated February 7, is in O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 861–862.
32.
Henry Walke, “The Western Flotilla at Fort Donelson, Island Number Ten, Fort Pillow and Memphis,” B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 430–431. Hereafter cited as Walke.
33.
O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 205, 212–213; Wallace, pp. 408–409.
34.
McClernand’s report, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 174; Oglesby’s report, p. 185.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Unconditional Surrender
1.
Major David Reed, Campaigns and Battles of the 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, p. 18 ff. For regimental reports on the night and the activities at dawn, see O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 188, 190, 194, 201, 215.
2.
Colonel John W. Emerson, “Grant’s Life in the West,” in the Midland Monthly for June, 1898.
3.
Brinton, pp. 144–145; Grant to Halleck, February 14, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 613; Grant to Cullum, pp. 613–614.
4.
Grant to Halleck, February 14, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 613.
5.
Wallace, pp. 413–414; Walke, B. & L., Vol. I, pp. 433–36; Foote’s report, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 166.
6.
For a discussion of Grant’s dispositions, see Conger, p. 169. In his report to Halleck, dated February 16, Grant says: “I concluded to make the investment of Fort Donelson as perfect as possible, and partially fortify and await repairs to the gunboats.” (O. R., Vol. VII, p. 159.) See also Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 303–305.
7.
Colonel Charles Whittlesey, War Memoranda, pp. 30–31.
8.
Whittlesey, as Note 7, p. 31; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 304; M. F. Force, From Fort Henry to Corinth, p. 48. (Hereafter cited as Force.)
9.
McPherson’s report, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 163; Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 305.
10.
Wallace, pp. 415–418.
11.
Force, p. 50; Wallace, pp. 419–421; Whittlesey, War Memoranda, pp. 34–35.
12.
Chicago Tribune for September 23, 1865, reprinting a September 18 article in the Galena Northwestern Gazette.
13.
Wallace, pp. 421–422.
14.
Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 307; Galena Northwestern Gazette, as Note 12; Grant in O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 159–160.
15.
Grant to Foote, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 618.
16.
This paragraph is based on a manuscript draft signed by Thomas J. Newsham, in the C. F. Smith Papers. The reference to Grant’s ride along the lines with McClernand is from the previously quoted article in the Galena Northwestern Gazette. For an account very similar to Newsham’s, see John G. Greenwalt, War Papers No. 87, District of Columbia Commandery of the Loyal Legion.
17.
Brinton, pp. 120–121; Newsham, in the C. F. Smith Papers.
18.
There is a good discussion of the Confederate command situation in Stanley Horn, pp. 93–96. The dreary explanations by Floyd and Pillow are in O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 269–275, 283–284, 287–289, et seq. Forrest’s report is pp. 383–387.
19.
Whittlesey, as Note 7, pp. 36–37; letter of Private William H. Tebbetts of the 45th Illinois, in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society for June, 1940, p. 232; A. H. Markland, interviewed in the Washington Star for August 1, 1885, quoted in the New York Times of August 4, 1885.
20.
Emerson, “Grant’s Life in the West,” in the Midland Monthly for June, 1898.
21.
Whittlesey, as Note 7, p. 37.
22.
Newsham, in the C. F. Smith Papers; Brinton, p. 129; Richardson, p. 225.
23.
For the odd sequence of events at Confederate headquarters, see Wallace, pp. 425–426; Robert Selph Henry, First with the Most: Forrest, pp. 58–61.
24.
Whittlesey, as Note 7, pp. 37–38; unidentified clipping, apparently from the Chicago Tribune, bearing a Fort Donelson dispatch dated February 18, in the Lloyd Lewis Papers; Wallace, p. 428.
25.
New York Tribune dispatch reprinted in an undated clipping from the Chicago Tribune, in the Lloyd Lewis Papers; Arndt M. Stickles, Simon Bolivar Buckner, p. 173.
26.
Grant to Halleck, Feb. 16, O. R., Vol. VII, p. 625.
CHAPTER NINE
Aftermath of Victory
1.
Newspaper clippings give details about the public response to news of Fort Donelson in Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington; stories cited here are from the Chicago Tribune, Cincinnati Commercial, New York Herald and St. Louis Republican, all of Feb. 18, 1862.
2.
Whittlesey’s “War Memoranda,” pp. 38–39 (hereafter cited as Whittlesey); Brinton, p. 142; O. R., Vol. X, Part Two, p. 62.
3.
O. R., Vol. VII, p. 626; Whittlesey, p. 39.
4.
Brinton, pp. 125–126, 133.
5.
O. R., Vol. VII, p. 629.
6.
Same, p. 629; Vol. VIII, p. 555.
7.
O. R., Vol. VII, pp. 422–423.
8.
Same, pp. 423–424, 648.
9.
On November 27, 1861, Grant wrote to his father: “I am somewhat troubled lest I lose my command here, though I believe my administration has given general satisfaction not only to those over me but to all concerned. This is the most important command within the Department however, and will probably be given to the senior officer next to General Halleck himself.” Three weeks later, however, Grant wrote to his sister Mary: “I do not now see that the probabilities are so strong that I will likely be removed. A full disposition seems to have been made of al
l my seniors.” (Cramer, pp. 71, 75.) For Halleck’s letter of February 8 about Hitchcock, see O. R., Vol. VII, p. 594.
10.
O. R., Vol. III, p. 208: Stanton to Halleck, February 8, Halleck to Sherman, February 9. For Halleck’s proposed Western Division and its three Departments, see his February 8 dispatch to McClellan in O. R., Vol. VII, p. 595. Long afterward, Grant wrote that the fall of Fort Donelson opened the Southwest to Federal conquest: “If one general who would have taken the responsibility had been in command of all the troops west of the Alleghanies, he could have marched to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis and Vicksburg with the troops we then had.” (Grant’s Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 317.)
11.
In his diary, Hitchcock wrote that he declined the appointment partly because of his delicate health and partly because he felt that it would be unfair for him to take a field command which he had not earned: “As soon as Donelson surrendered to Grant I felt it a positive duty to decline the commission & did so.” (Ethan Allen Hitchcock Diaries; original in the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; copies in possession of Harvey Snitiker.) There is a good brief sketch of Hitchcock’s career in the Dictionary of American Biography.
