CHAP. XI. During the night of the 15th, the Confederate Feb., 1862. commanders met in council to decide what they should do. Buckner, the junior, very emphatically gave the others to understand that the situation of the garrison was desperate, and that it would require but an hour or two of assault on the next morning to capture his portion of the defenses. Such a contingency left them no practical alternative. Floyd and Pillow had exaggerated ideas of the personal danger they would be in from the Government if they permitted themselves to become prisoners, and made known their great solicitude to get away. An agreement was therefore reached, through which Floyd, the senior general, first turned over his command to Pillow; then Pillow, the second in command, in the same way relinquished his authority to Buckner, the junior general. This formality completed, Pillow hastily crossed the river and went to Clarksville with his staff, while Floyd, taking advantage of the arrival of a rebel steamer, boarded it, with his personal followers, during the night, and abandoned the fort and its garrison. As usual, the active correspondents of Western newspapers were with the expedition, and through their telegrams something of the varying fortunes of the Kentucky campaign and the Donelson siege had become known to the country, while President Lincoln at Washington gleaned still further details from the scattering official reports which came to the War Department through army channels. The new events again aroused his most intense solicitude, and prompted him to send the following suggestion by telegraph to Halleck: You have Fort Donelson safe, unless Grant shall be CHAP. XI. overwhelmed from outside; to prevent which latter will, I think, require all the vigilance, energy, and skill of yourself and Buell, acting in full coöperation. Columbus will not get at Grant, but the force from Bowling Green will. They hold the railroad from Bowling Green to within a few miles of Fort Donelson, with the bridge at Clarksville undisturbed. It is unsafe to rely that they will not dare to expose Nashville to Buell. A small part of their force can retire slowly towards Nashville, breaking up the railroad as they go, and keep Buell out of that city twenty days. Meantime Nashville will be abundantly defended by forces from all South and perhaps from here at Manassas. Could not a cavalry force from General Thomas on the Upper Cumberland dash across, almost unresisted, and cut the railroad at or near Knoxville, Tennessee? In the midst of a bombardment at Fort Donelson, why could not a gunboat run up and destroy the bridge at Clarksville? Our success or failure at Fort Donelson is vastly important, and I beg you to put your soul in the effort. I send a copy of this to Buell. Lincoln to Halleck, 1862. W. R. Vol. VII., p. 624. 1862. Before this telegram reached its destination, the siege of Donelson was terminated. On Sunday morning, the 16th of February, when the troops composing the Federal line of investment were preparing for a final assault, a note came from Buckner to Grant, proposing an armistice to arrange terms of capitulation. The language of Grant's reply served to crown the fame of his achievement: "Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon 1862. W. R. your works." His resolute phrase gained him a prouder title than was ever bestowed by knightly accolade. Thereafter, the army and the country, Grant to Buckner, Feb. 16, Vol. VII., p. 161. CHAP. XI. with a fanciful play upon the initials of his name, spoke of him as "Unconditional Surrender Grant." Buckner had no other balm for the sting of his defeat than to say that Grant's terms were "ungenerous and unchivalric," but that necessity compelled him to accept them. That day Grant was enabled to telegraph to Halleck: "We have taken Fort Donelson and from 12,000 to 15,000 prisoners, including Generals Buckner and Bushrod R. Johnalso about 20,000 stands of arms, forty-eight to Halleck, pieces of artillery, seventeen heavy guns, from 2000 to 4000 horses, and large quantities of. commissary stores." Grant Feb. 16, 1862 W. R. Vol. VII., p. 625. Halleck to McClellan, 1862. W. R. Vol. VII., p. 628. son; By this brilliant and important victory Grant's fame sprang suddenly into full and universal recognition. President Lincoln nominated him majorgeneral of volunteers, and the Senate at once confirmed the appointment. The whole military service felt the inspiriting event. Many of the colonels in Grant's army were made brigadier-generals; and promotion ran, like a quickening leaven, through the whole organization. Halleck also reminded the Government of his desire for larger power. "Make Buell, Grant, and Pope majorgenerals of volunteers," he telegraphed the day after the surrender, "and give me command in the West. I ask this in return for Forts Henry and Donelson." CHAPTER XII COMPENSATED ABOLISHMENT HE annual message of President Lincoln at CHAP. XII. the opening of Congress in December, 1861, treated many subjects of importance-foreign relations, the condition of the finances, a reorganization of the Supreme Court, questions of military administration, the building of a military railroad through Kentucky to East Tennessee, the newly organized Territories, a review of military progress towards the suppression of rebellion. It contained also a vigorous practical discussion of the relations between capital and labor, which pointed out with singular force that "the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government-the rights of the people." In addition to these topics, it treated another question of greater importance than all of them, but in so moderate a tone, and with such tentative suggestions, that it excited less immediate comment than any other. This was the question of slavery. It had not escaped Mr. Lincoln's notice that the relations of slavery to the war were producing rapidly increasing complications and molding public thought to new and radical changes of opinion. His revocation of Frémont's proclamation had 1861. CHAP. XII. momentarily checked the clamor of importunate agitators for military emancipation; but he saw clearly enough that a deep, though as yet undefined, public hope clung to the vague suggestion that slavery and rebellion might perish together. As a significant symptom of this undercurrent of feeling, there came to him in November a letter from George Bancroft, the veteran Democratic politician and national historian; a man eminent not only for his writings upon the science of government, but who as a member of President Polk's Cabinet had rendered signal and lasting service in national administration. Mr. Bancroft had lately presided at a meeting in New York called to collect contributions to aid the suffering loyalists of North Carolina. As it happened on all such occasions, the patriotism of the hour sprang forward to bold speech and radical argument. Even the moderate words of Mr. Bancroft on taking the chair reflected this reformatory spirit: "If slavery and the Union are incompatible, listen to the words that come to you from the tomb of Andrew Jackson: 'The Union must be preserved at all hazards.'. . If any one claims the compromises of the Constitution, let him begin by placing the Constitution in power by Nov. 8, 1861. respecting it and upholding it." In the letter transmitting these remarks and the resolutions of the meeting to Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Bancroft made a yet more emphatic suggestion. He wrote: "Your Administration has fallen upon times which will be remembered as long as human events find a record. I sincerely wish to you the glory of perfect success. Civil war is the instrument of Divine Providence to root out social slavery; posterity will not be satis "The New-York Times," |