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Scene at the Fort.

203 was quietly handed over by Commodore Foote to General Grant.

"A few minutes before the surrender," says the Southern historian, Pollard, "the scene in and around the fort exhibited a spectacle of fierce grandeur. Many of the cabins were in flames. Added to this were the curling and dense wreaths of smoke from the guns; the constant whizzing of fragments of crashing and bursting shells; the deafening roar of artillery; the black sides of five or six gun-boats, belching fire at every port-hole; the volumes of smoke settled in dense masses around the surrounding back-waters; and up and over that fog on the heights, the army of General Grant deploying around our small army, attempting to cut off its retreat. In the midst of the storm of shot and shell, the small force outside of the fort had succeeded in gaining the upper road, the gun-boats having failed to notice their movements until they were out of reach. To give them further time, the gallant Tilghman, exhausted and begrimed with powder and smoke, stood erect at the middle battery, and pointed gun after gun. It was clear, however, that the fort could not hold out much longer. A white flag was raised by the order of General Tilghman, who remarked, 'It is vain to fight longer. Our gunners are disabled-our guns dismounted. We can't hold out five minutes longer.' As soon as the token of submission was hoisted, the gun-boats came alongside the fort and took possession of it, their crews giving three cheers for the Union."

It is related that, on meeting Foote, the rebel general remarked, "I am glad to surrender to so gallant an officer." Foote replied, "You do perfectly right, sir, in surrendering; but you should have blown my boat out of the water before I would have surrendered to you." This is the newspaper account; but Foote's own account of the interview, as related to a friend, is different from this. "The facts are these," he

*

* Mr. E. H. Leffingwell.

said: "General Tilghman came on board my boat, evidently in deep distress, wringing his hands and exclaiming, 'I am in despair; my reputation is gone forever.' I replied, 'General, there is no reason that you should feel thus. More than two thirds of your battery is disabled, while I have lost less than one third of mine. To continue the action would only involve a needless sacrifice of life, and, under the circumstances, you have done right in surrendering. Moreover, I shall always be ready to testify that you have defended your post like a brave man.' I then added, 'Come, general, you have lost your dinner, and the steward has just told me that mine is ready;' and, taking him by the arm, we walked together into the cabin. This is all that passed between us." Admiral Foote rarely, if ever, forgot that he was a gentleman, and especially with those whom the fate of war had made prisoners.

We subjoin the modest report of the commander of the victorious fleet, giving the authentic details of the battle, and which may serve to correct errors in the foregoing brief account, that has been drawn mostly from other sources:

"CAIRO, ILL., February 7, 1862.

"SIR, I have the honor to report that on the 6th instant, at half-past twelve o'clock P.M., I made an attack on Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, with the iron-clad gun-boats Cincinnati, Commander Stembel; the Essex, Commander Porter; the Carondelet, Commander Walke; and St. Louis, Lieutenant-Commanding Paulding; also taking with me the three old gun-boats Conestoga, Lieutenant-Commanding Phelps; the Taylor, Lieutenant-Commanding Gwin, and the Lexington, Lieutenant-Commanding Shirk, as a second division, in charge of Lieutenant-Commanding Phelps, which took position astern and inshore of the armored boats, doing good execution there in the action, while the armored boats were placed in the first order of steaming, approaching the fort in a parallel line.

"The fire was opened at seventeen hundred yards' distance from the flag-ship, which was followed by the other gun-boats, and responded to by the fort. As we approached the fort under slow steaming till we reached within six hundred yards of the rebel batteries, the fire, both

Report of the Battle.

205

from the gun-boats and forts, increased in rapidity and accuracy of aim. At twenty minutes before the rebel flag was struck, the Essex, unfortunately, received a shot in her boiler, which resulted in the wounding, by scalding, of twenty-nine officers and men, including Commander Porter, as will be seen in the inclosed list of casualties. The Essex then necessarily dropped out of line astern, entirely disabled, and unable to continue the fight, in which she had so gallantly participated until the sad catastrophe. The firing continued with unabated rapidity and effect upon the three gun-boats as they continued still to approach the fort with their destructive fire, until the rebel flag was hauled down, after a severe and closely contested action of one hour and fifteen minutes.

"A boat, containing the adjutant-general and a captain of engineers, came alongside after the flag was lowered, and reported that General Lloyd Tilghman, the commander of the fort, wished to communicate with the flag-officer, when I dispatched Commander Stembel and Lieutenant-Commanding Phelps, with orders to hoist the American flag where the Secession ensign had been flying, and to inform General Tilghman that I would see him on board the flag-ship. He came on board soon after the Union had been substituted by Commander Stembel for the rebel flag on the fort, and possession taken.⚫

"I received the general, his staff, and some sixty or seventy men as prisoners; and a hospital ship containing sixty invalids, together with the fort and its effects, mounting twenty guns, mostly of heavy calibre, with barracks and tents capable of accommodating fifteen thousand men, and sundry articles, which, as I turned the fort and its effects over to General Grant, commanding the army, on his arrival in an hour after we had made the capture, he will be enabled to give the government a more correct statement of than I am enabled to communicate from the short time I had possession of the fort.* The plan of the attack, so far as the army reaching the rear of the fort to make a demonstration simultaneously with the Navy, was frustrated by the excessively muddy roads and high stage of water preventing the arrival of our troops until some time after I had taken possession of the fort.

"On securing the prisoners and making necessary preliminary arrangements, I dispatched Lieutenant-Commanding Phelps, with his division, up the Tennessee River, as I had previously directed, and, as will be seen in the inclosed orders to him, to remove the rails, and so far render the

*It was estimated that more than a million dollars' worth of property was captured at Fort Henry.

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MENTS OF THE GUN-BOATS.-PREACHING AT CAIRO.

THERE were far greater battles during the war, both on land and water, than that sharp fight on the narrow river which resulted in the fall of the earth-work of Fort Henry-there was the siege and taking of the almost impregnable Vicksburg, and there was the splendid crowning naval victory of Admiral Farragut at New Orleans-but there were few battles of more vital importance to the Union arms than this earliest success of the Western flotilla. It was a moment of great gloom and uncertainty in the country's affairs; and this was almost the first marked success-success of such a kind as had a sure prophecy of the future in it—or, as a Confederate officer, Colonel Gilmer, said in his report, "it was for the enemy a great success, as it emboldened him to make the attack on Fort Donelson." It was the triumph of a new agency in war-of a power the development of which was of incalculable value, not only to the Northern cause, but to the cause of all peoples who were called upon to fight for their freedom. The people who had iron and coal at their command were hereafter to be deemed unconquerable—they could not be subjected or destroyed. Above all, Fort Henry was the key of the rebel position in the West. Its subdual, with that of Fort Donelson, unlocked to our armies the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, leading General Halleck (who, though bigoted in favor of the Army, was an earnest patriot) to express himself in his bulletin of the victory in these words: "The flag of the Union is re-established on the soil of Kentucky. It will never be re

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