Movement on Fort Donelson. 221 line of intrenchments, redoubts, and rifle-pits stretched far around over the neighboring hills and valleys. The waterline of batteries, for commanding the river approaches, with their guns trained down stream, formed the most powerful means of defense, and consisted of three tiers of batteries, the lower one near the water, the second fifty feet above, and the third fifty feet above that, the lower or principal battery being armed with eight 32-pounders and one 10-inch columbiad; another bore a heavy rifled cannon that carried a 128-pound bolt, flanked by two 32-pound carronades.* These were to be tested by the gun-boats in a combat of brief but terrible severity. On the morning of the 12th of February General Grant set his army in motion upon the three roads leading from Fort Henry to Dover; and in the afternoon, without meeting with resistance, the different bodies came in sight of the fort, drove in its pickets, and took up their several positions, to be ready for the next day's assault. The forces within and without the fort were probably nearly equal. On the same day Foote was moving up the Cumberland with his gun-boats, convoying transports filled with troops that were to constitute Wallace's Third Division. One boat, however, the Carondelet, Captain Walke, had been sent forward two days in advance of the other vessels; and on the morning of the 13th, in connection with a movement by a portion of the land force, this vessel made a gallant diversion in favor of the Army, and had the honor of opening the siege. Although in the rapid current she could use only her bow guns, she fired one hundred and thirty-eight shots, until a 128-pound shot entered one of her ports and injured her machinery, compelling her to withdraw. She renewed firing in the afternoon, but *Lossing's "Civil War in America," vol. ii., p. 209. against such heavy batteries, single-handed, and at a comparatively long range, could effect little. The fighting on the part of the Army during that day was severe and indecisive. There was, indeed, no general attack made, as Grant, feeling the need of all his power, was awaiting the presence of the gun-boats and of Wallace's Third Division; but an assault was ordered by McClernand upon one of the principal redoubts, which developed into a battle of considerable magnitude, with varying fortune, though ending in the repulse of the National forces. That night, in cold and sleet, without tents and without provisions, the weary and dispirited troops lay upon the frozen ground, anxiously looking for the coming light to renew the combat, and for the hoped-for arrival of the flotilla and the transports. These having come up, and also a reserved force from Fort Henry, Grant proceeded, as well as he was able, to complete the investment of the place, and prepare for the decisive battle. At about three o'clock on the afternoon of the 14th, the flotil la, consisting of the armored vessels St. Louis, Carondelet, Pittsburg, and Louisville, forming the first line, accompanied by the wooden gun-boats Conestoga, Taylor, and Lexington-the flag-ship St. Louis taking the leadmade a direct attack upon the water batteries (Foote giving orders not to regard the batteries on the bluff), and steaming straight up, in the usual bold manner of this commander, to be |