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MAP OP POET DONELSON, AS INVESTED BY GENERAL GRANT. Based on tlie official map by General J. B. McPherson.
in pallid white clouds, clung to the under-brush and tree-tops as if to screen the combatants from each other. Close to the ground the flame of musketry and cannon tinted everything a lurid red. Limbs dropped from the trees on the heads below, and the thickets were shorn as by an army of cra-dlers. The division was under peremptory orders to hold its position to the last extremity, and Colonel Wallace was equal to the emergency.
It was now 10 o’clock, and over on the right Oglesby was beginning to fare badly. The pressure on his front grew stronger. The “ rebel yell,” afterward a familiar battle-cry on many fields, told of ground being gained against him. To add to his doubts, officers were riding to him with a sickening story that their commands were getting out of ammunition, and asking where they could go for a supply. All he could say was to take what was in the boxes of the dead and wounded. At last he realized that the end was come. His right companies began to give way, and as they retreated, holding up their empty cartridge-boxes, the enemy were emboldened, and swept more fiercely around his flank, until finally they appeared in his rear.
lace wras engaged along his whole front, now prolonged by the addition to his command of Morrison’s regiments. The first charge against him was repulsed; whereupon he advanced to the top of the rising ground behind which he had sheltered his troops in the night. A fresh assault followed, but, aided by a battery across the valley to his left, he repulsed the enemy a second time. His men were steadfast, and clung to the brow of the hill as if it were theirs by holy right. An hour passed, and yet another hour, without cessation of the fire. Meantime the woods rang with a monstrous clangor of musketry, as if a million men were beating empty barrels with iron hammers.
Buckner flung a portion of his division on MeClernand’s left, and supported the attack with his artillery. The enfilading fell chiefly on W. H. L. Wallace. McClernand, watchful and full of resources, sent batteries to meet Buckner’s batteries. To that duty Taylor rushed with his Company B; and McAllister pushed his three 24-pounders into position and exhausted his ammunition in the duel. The roar never slackened. Men fell by the score, reddening the snow with their blood. The smoke,
MCALLISTER’S BATTERY IN ACTION.
and liad to take one off tlie limber to continue the fight. I then moved all my howitzers over to the west slope of the ridge and loaded under cover of it, and ran the pieces up by liand until I could get the exact elevation. The recoil would throw the guns back out of sight, and thus we continued the fight until the enemy’s battery was silenced.”
Captain Edward McAllister’s Illinois battery did good service on the 13th. In his report he says: “ I selected a point, and about noon opened on the four-gun battery through an opening in which I could see the foe. Our fire was promptly returned with such precision that they cut our right wheel on howitzer number three in two. I had no spare wheel,
garments. As yet, however, not a company had “fallen in.” Suddenly the pickets fired, and with the alarm on their lips rushed back upon their comrades. The woods on the instant became alive.
The regiments formed, officers mounted and took their places; words of command rose loud and eager. By the time Pillow’s advance opened fire on Oglesby’s right, the point first struck, the latter was fairly formed to receive it. A rapid exchange of volleys ensued. The distance intervening between the works on one side and the bivouac on the other was so short that the aetion began before Pillow could effect a deployment. His brigades came up in a kind of echelon, left in front, and passed “by regiments left into line,” one by one, however; the regiments quickly took their places, and advanced without halting. Oglesby’s Illinoisans were now fully awake. They held their ground, returning in full measure the fire that they received. The Confederate Forrest rode around as if to get in their rtar,* and it was then give and take, infantry against infantry. The semi-echelon movement of the Confederates enabled them, after an interval, to strike W. H. L. Wallace’s brigade, on Oglesby’s left. Soon Wal-
* Colonel John McArthur, originally of General C. P. Smith’s division, hut then operating with McClernand, was there, and though at first discomfited, his men heat the cavalry off, and afterward shared the full shock of the tempest with Oglesby’s troops.— L. W.
42
eral Buckner was to be relieved by troops in the forts, and with his command to support Pillow by assailing the right of the enemy’s center. If he succeeded, he was to take post outside the in-trenehments on the Wynn’s Ferry road to cover the retreat. He was then to act as rear-guard. Thus early, leaders in Donelson were aware of the mistake into which they were plunged. Their resolution was wise and heroic. Let us see how they executed it.
Preparations for the attack occupied the night. The troops for the most part were taken out of the rifle-pits and massed over on the left to the number of ten thousand or more. The ground was covered with ice and snow; yet the greatest silence was observed. It seems incomprehensible that columns mixed of all arms, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, could have engaged in simultaneous movement, and not have been heard by some listener outside. One would think the jolting and rumble of the heavy gun-carriages would have told the story. But the character of the night must be remembered. The pickets of the Federáis were struggling for life against the blast, and probably did not keep good watch.
Oglesby’s brigade held McClernand’s extreme right. Here and there the musicians were beginning to make the woods ring with reveille, and the numbed soldiers of the line were rising from ■their icy beds and shaking the snow from their frozen