CHAPTER VII. GENERAL SMITH'S ATTACK AND THE SURRENDER. SMITH'S COLUMNS ORGANIZED.-LAUMAN THE FORLORN HOPE.-SMITH LEADS.-AD- WALLACE was already on his war-path, as we have just described, when General Smith organized his column of attack. Cook's brigade is posted on his left, and is designed to make a feint upon the work. Cavender's heavy guns are posted in rear to the right and left, having a cross-fire upon the intrenchments, and also playing upon the fort; but the attacking force the forlorn hope-is Lauman's brigade, formed in close column of regiments, and composed of the Second Iowa, the Fifty-second Indiana (temporarily attached), the Twentyfifth Indiana, Seventh Iowa, and Fourteenth Iowa. Cook's feigned attack is already begun; Cavender's guns are thundering away. It is nearly sunset, when Smith, hearing Wallace's guns far to the right, puts himself at the head of Lauman's brigade, and climbing the steep hill-side, bursts upon the ridge on which the enemy has constructed his outer works. Before advancing, and when the force was just in readiness to move, Smith had ridden along the line, and in few but emphatic words had told them the duty they were to perform. He said that he would lead them, and that the pits must be taken by the bayonet alone. Perhaps during the whole war, full as it is of brilliant actions, there is none more striking than this charge. At the given signal, the lines are put in motion, Smith rid ing in advance, with the color-bearer alongside of him; Lis commanding figure, gray hair, and haughty contempt of danger, acting upon his men like the white plume of Navarre at Ivry. Not far has he moved before his front line is swept by the enemy's artillery with murderous effect. His men waver for a moment, but their general, sublime in his valor, reminds them, in caustic words, that while he, as an old regular, is in the line of his professional duty, this is what they have volunteered to do. With oaths and urgency, his hat waving upon the point of his sword, by the splendor of his example he leads them on through this valley of death, up the slope, through the abatis, up to the intrenchment-and over. With a thousand shouts, they plant their standards on the captured works, and pour in volley after volley, before which the rebels fly in precipitate terror. Battery after battery is brought forward, Stone's arriving first, and then a direct and enfilading fire is poured upon the flanks and faces of the work. Four hundred of Smith's gallant column have fallen, but the charge is decisive. Grant's tactics and Smith's splendid valor have won the day. For thus the matter stands: Wallace has held his advanced ground, and is now informed of Smith's success. At all points the rebels are driven back, and at two, their advanced intrenchments are occupied or commanded. How different from the aspect of things in the morning, when Pillow had telegraphed to Nashville that he had won the day! And yet there was a logical connection between the morning and the evening. They formed but parts of a concerted whole, of a plan not intelligible to the division commanders, who had not been able, like General Grant, to appreciate the whole field, and to sum the varied issues of the battle. To most of the subordinate commanders, and certainly to the greater number of the men, up to the decisive moment, the enemy seemed to have a great and growing advantage; but to Grant it was not so. The very vigor of the enemy's attack was a surge which he was sure would soon find its refluence; and, by their massing of troops on our right and centre, Grant's counter movement, conducted by Smith, was rendered feasible, and the result sure. Thus when night fell, on the 15th, the victory was certain. Holding the advanced points thus secured, and re-enforcing them strongly, Grant only awaited the morning to storm the work. During that cold night, for the most part without food, and entirely without fire, our devoted men awaited the dawn with unabated ardor. Success had inspired enthusiasm; and the promise of complete victory in the morning compensated for their physical sufferings. They would have fought the next day with irresistible ardor. But if our men were now exultant, the tables were completely turned; the rebels were completely disheartened; the officers more so than the men, and the generals more so than their subordinates. It is a sorry chapter in the history of war. They no longer thought of fighting, but of escape or surrender. Again a council of war was called that night at General Floyd's headquarters, and in it was displayed a scene which no soldier likes to portray, even if his enemy be the dramatis persona-a scene in which imbecility, ignorance, and cowardice played the prominent parts. Amid much crimination and recrimination, one opinion seemed to have a large majority in its favor: the army must escape, or the place and its garrison be surrendered. Floyd, in great terror, lest after his treason and embezzlements while United States secretary of war, he should come into our hands and meet with summary retribution, in the clutches of a furious soldiery, declared that he would not fall into our power; that he would sooner die than surrender. He seems to have had little concern for the army, but partly perhaps from qualms of conscience, and partly that he wanted a large escort, he proposed to cut his way out with his own brigade of Virginia troops-a nice illustration of the State-rights' principle, which even the Confederates did not appreciate. Pillow, par nobile fratrum, second in command, emulated the virtues of his chief. Vain, foolish, ignorant, during the Mexican War, this was his Confederate coup d'essai, and he did not disappoint his old acquaintances. He displayed a similar want of military savoir and principle. It is true, as might be expected, that there is some casuistry in his report, to show that he wanted to fight longer; and it is equally true, that after he had written his report, lest the world should not believe him, he did a thing unheard of before, he got the affidavits of his aids, and other officers, that what he had said was true-sharp practice, which he brought with him from his lawyer's desk. It is also true, that when the noble pair had completed their arrangements for flight, Pillow told Floyd, not without some chuckling, that there were no two men in the Confederacy the Federals would rather get into their hands; whereas, in reality, there were no two more anxious to keep out of them. All this is very sickening; it savors of low comedy of the lowest type. We now turn to Buckner, the third in rank, and the only one of the three having any pretensions to soldiership. He at least was a soldier; and because of this, he was to be made the scapegoat, and to suffer, in part at least, a vicarious confinement at Fort Warren. His West Point antecedents compelled him to remain and surrender the now thoroughly demoralized forces; and if he could not avert, at least to share their fate. In the entire record of the war there is no meaner page than this. Floyd made over the command to Pillow; who, like a player at cards, "promptly passed it" to Buckner; and then these two men, who had before disgraced the name of American, now disgraced the name of soldier, by deserting their post and their soldiers, and sneaking away under cover of night. In order to join and aid Floyd, as Buckner thought, Colonel Forrest was ordered to cut his way out with the cavalry; but Floyd, embarking such portion of the Virginia brigade as he could hastily collect, upon two small steamers, at the Dover landing, under cover of a guard to check the frantic attempts of others to get on board, and amid the execrations and hisses of thousands collected on the wharf, pushed off and fled to Nashville! Pillow escaped on a handflat, and Forrest, with one thousand cavalry, waded over to the south of the fort. We wonder greatly that a man of the soldierly character of Albert Sidney Johnston should have stooped to whitewash them, by declaring that, although "the command was irregularly transferred," it was "not apparently to avoid any just responsibility, or from any personal or moral intrepidity." That not must have given him some trouble to write. Buckner's course was soon taken; indeed his troops were in such confusion that no other was left him. At the earliest dawn he sent a bugler to sound a parley, and with him an officer bearing a white flag. Dimly discerned in the twilight, and challenged by the picket, the officer announced himself as the bearer of a letter from Buckner to General Grant. The letter was at once taken to the headquarters. A white flag displayed upon the fort at the same time, informed the army that a capitulation was proposed. Buckner's letter* asked for the appointment of commissioners to settle upon terms of capitulation, to which end he requested an armistice till noon. Grant read the letter, and without a moment's hesitation penned a reply which has become historic.† "No terms," he wrote, "other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." * HEADQUARTERS, FORT DONELSON, February 16, 1862. SIR-In consideration of all the circumstances governing the present situation of affairs at this station, I propose to the commanding officer of the Federal forces the appointment of commissioners to agree upon terms of capitulation of the forces and fort under my command, and in that view suggest an armistice until twelve o'clock to-day. I am sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD, TO GENERAL S. B. BUCKNER, Confederate Army: Yours of this date, proposing an armistice and appointment of commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No terms other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immedi ately upon your works. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, U. S. GRANT, Brigadier-General U. S. A., commanding. |