A Flag of Truce.

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“HEAD-QUARTERS, FIRST DIVISION, WESTERN DEPARTMENT,

COLUMBUS, KY., Feb. 22, 1862.

"Presuming you will be willing to reciprocate the courtesy shown to the families of officers of the United States Army, after the battle of Belmont, in allowing them to visit those officers who were prisoners within my lines, I take the liberty of sending up, under a flag of truce, the families of several of our officers who were captured at Donelson. These are the families of General Buckner and Colonels Hawson and Medeira. They are accompanied by Colonel Russel and Messrs. Vance and Stockdale as escorts; also by Mr. Mass.

"Hoping you may find it convenient to send these ladies forward to their husbands, I have the honor to remain, respectfully, your obedient servant, L. POLK, Major-General, commanding.

"To Commanding Officer U. S. Forces, Cairo, Ill.”

This was answered as follows:

"UNITED STATES FLAG-STEAMER CINCINNATI,' MISSISSIPPI

RIVER, NEAR COLUMBUS, KY., Feb. 23, 1862.

“GENERAL, — Your letter of the 22d instant, received to-day by the hands of Captain Blake under a flag of truce, nearly within range of your guns and in the presence of our armed forces, at half-past twelve o'clock today, will be answered to-morrow by a flag of truce at the same point of the river at which this was received.

"Very respectfully, your obedient servants,

"ANDREW H. FOOTE,

"Flag-Officer, commanding Naval Forces, Western Waters; "GEORGE W. CULLUM,

"Chief of Staff and Engineers, Department of Missouri.

"Major-General L. Polk, commanding at Columbus, Ky."

On the same day came this second letter from General Polk : "HEAD-QUARTERS, FIRST DIVISION, WESTERN DEPARTMENT, COLUMBUS, KY, Feb. 23, 1862.

“To A. H. FOOTE, Flag-Officer, commanding Naval Forces, Western Waters; GEO. W. CULLUM, Brig.-General, Chief of Staff and Engineers: “GENTLEMEN,—I have received your note of this date, acknowledging mine of yesterday asking permission for the wives of certain Confederate States officers to visit their husbands who had been made prisoners of war at Fort Donelson.

R

"The application was based on the fact that I had on a former occasion granted a similar request made of me in behalf of the wives of Colonels Dougherty and McClerkin, captured at Belmont, and the assurance of the commanding general at Cairo that he would reciprocate the courtesy if events should make it desirable.

"I note that you say my letter was received under a flag of truce, 'nearly within range of your (my) guns, and in the presence of our (your) armed forces.'

แ

"As to the flag appearing in the presence of your armed forces, and nearly within range of my guns, it was purely accidental. The ladies, whose safe conduct the flag was intended to secure, arrived at this post from Nashville on the evening of the 21st instant. Preparations were made to send them up under a flag on the 22d, and my letter was written and intrusted to Captain Blake. The departure of the flag was prevented by the heavy fall of rain. They left this morning, the boat taking its departure from a point considerably below my batteries, from whence your position in the river (five miles above) was not visible. It appears that several guns were fired from the fort prior to the departure of the boat; but as my artillery officers are constantly practicing, the firing attracted no particular attention; and the presence of your armed forces in the river, it seems, was not known to the officer in charge of the flag until after his boat had passed around the point.

"This statement of facts, I am informed, has already been made to you by Captain Blake; and it is repeated here only because of the remark above quoted, which you have taken pains to underline.

"Allow me to assure myself that officers of your rank and reputation could not impute any improper motive in sending a flag of truce. I would be unwilling to believe such a suspicion could be entertained by any mind except one conscious of its capacity to venture upon such an abuse. I have the honor to be, gentlemen, your obedient servant,

"L. POLK,

"Major-General, commanding Confederate Forces."

The next day this dignified though sharp response was sent by a flag of truce from the National head-quarters:

“CAIRO, ILLINOIS, February 24, 1862.

“MAJOR-GENERAL L. POLK, commanding at Columbus, Ky. :

"GENERAL,-In answer to your request ‘to reciprocate the courtesy shown to the families and officers of the U. S. A., after the battle of Bel

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mont, in allowing them to visit those officers who were prisoners,' by asking permission to have passed through our lines the families of General Buckner and Colonels Hawson and Medeira,' captured at Fort Donelson, accompanied by certain gentlemen as escorts, we have to inform you that we will cheerfully comply with your request, subject to the approval of the President, but limited to the wives and children of those officers, and excluding their escorts; but to provide them with a protector, Colonel Thom, an aid-de-camp of Major-General Halleck, and one of the bearers of our flag of truce, has offered to take them in charge as far as St. Louis, where they will learn the destinations of the captured officers, which are unknown to us.

"The flag of truce will wait, if necessary, long enough to obtain your action on this proposition.

"Before concluding this note, we feel constrained to make some remarks upon your abuse yesterday of the sacred character of a flag of

truce.

"Upon approaching the batteries of Columbus with armed forces, and when within supposed range of your artillery, you fired three heavy guns; and, to add to this hostile demonstration, one of your gun-boats rounded Belmont Point apparently to give battle; but immediately, upon discovering our strength and position, retired. Soon after there appeared an armed steamer, with Captain Blake bearing your flag of truce, accompanied by many officers and citizens, upon the frivolous pretext above stated, evidently with the intention of discovering our force and intentions. Under these circumstances, by the usages of war, the dispatchbearer and those with him were subject to be made prisoners and the steamer captured; and we felt it our duty to inform you that a repetition of such an unwarrantable abuse of a flag of truce will not again be tolerated.

"Your letter though dated the 22d, evidently was not dispatched till after the firing of your first gun, near eleven o'clock, more than an hour before your flag of truce was seen about two miles from your batteries, and certainly dispatched after the gun was discharged.

"Regretting that we have to animadvert on this flagrant departure from the established usages of flags of truce,

"We are, very respectfully, your obedient servants,

"ANDREW H. FOOTE, Flag-Officer, etc.;

"GEORGE W. CULLUM, Chief of Staff, etc."

In a letter to his wife, dated the 23d, Commodore Foote

thus speaks of this "flag of truce" affair, which perhaps has already taken up too much space:

"We had been to Columbus, and had got the two mortars in position to open upon Belmont, when a flag of truce came out with several ladies, as you will see by General Polk's letter, and we hoped it was to surrender; but, instead, it was a mere artifice to discover our strength. We shall write a letter to the Right Rev. General to-morrow, charging him with violating all military rules of propriety by his remarkable act. We were glad it was done, however, as we ran within sight of his heavy batteries, and attained the object of our reconnoissance-still, we shall give the bishop a rub."

He says in this same letter:

"I am still on crutches, but my foot is rapidly improving. I have no objection to the wound either in the foot or in the arm, as they are honorable wounds; but the last was a hard fight. I stood one side of a gun when five out of six men were knocked down, and I only escaped serious wounds. I was touching the pilot with my clothes when he was killed.”

The following dispatches tell the story of the speedy breaking up of the enemy's strong position at Columbus, which, together with Nashville and Bowling Green, was really conquered at forts Henry and Donelson:

"CAIRO, March 1, 1862. 'SIR,-Lieutenant-Commanding Phelps, sent with a flag of truce today to Columbus, has this moment returned, and reports that Columbus is being evacuated. He saw the rebels burning their winter-quarters, and removing their heavy guns on the bluffs; but the guns in the water-batteries remain intact. He also saw a large force of cavalry drawn up ostentatiously on the bluffs, but no infantry were to be seen as heretofore; and the encampment seen in our armed reconnoissance a few days ago has been removed. Large fires were visible in the town of Columbus and upon the river banks below, indicating the destruction of the town, military stores, and equipments.

"I shall consult General Cullum, and we shall probably proceed to Columbus with the force we have already soon after daylight. General Polk informs us that he will send a flag of truce at meridian to-morrow to the point where the flags of truce met to-day, in reference to which

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we shall be governed according to circumstances. But as General Cullum has not been fully consulted, I can give no particular information of our movements to-morrow. I have the honor to be, etc.,

"A. H. FOOTE, Flag-Officer.

"The Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy."

"U. S. FLAG-STEAMER CINCINNATI,' COLUMBUS, March 4, 1862.

"SIR, I have the honor to forward a copy of the telegram sent to the Department to-day announcing the fall of Columbus.

"The fleet not being in a condition to proceed down to Island No. Ten and to New Madrid, where the rebels are represented as fortifying, I leave for Cairo immediately to make the necessary preparation for going down the river with a suitable force of gun-boats and mortar-boats in a proper condition for effective service. I am fully impressed with the importance of proceeding to New Madrid as soon as possible, where General Pope has arrived with ten thousand men; but such is the condition of my command that I shall decline moving, as I informed Generals Sherman and Cullum, unless I am ordered to do so by the Secretary of the Navy, as I must be the judge of the condition of the fleet, and when it is prepared for the service required.

'It is due to Commander Pennock, the fleet captain, and to Mr. Sanford, the ordnance officer of the flotilla, to say to the Department that these efficient officers earnestly entreated me to permit them to go on this expedition, as well as up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers; but their services in preparing the gun and mortar boats at Cairo being absolutely necessary, I reluctantly denied their application from a sense of duty to the government; yet their services should be regarded as equally important to the object of the expedition as if they had participated in the different actions. A. H. FOOTE.

"The Hon. Gideon Welles."

In his report of the evacuation, March 4, he says:

"My armed reconnoissance, on the 2d instant, caused a hasty evacuation, the rebels leaving quite a number of guns and carriages, ammunition, and a large quantity of shot and shell, a considerable number of anchors, and the remnant of a chain lately stretched across the river, with a large number of torpedoes. Most of the huts, tents, and quarters are destroyed.