War Stories for my Grandchildren. Foster John Watson
St. Louis at the Barracks: —
"We have been anticipating marching orders for several days, but have at last received them. Orders came out from General Halleck this evening that 'The Twenty-fifth Indiana would prepare to march to Cairo.' The exact date of our departure is not definitely known, but it may be early to-morrow. It is quite cold, but we can stand it as well as any of this army. We are very willing to leave the Barracks and get into the field, and especially as we are going down the river and most likely will be sent to Paducah or Smithland. Barracks life doesn't agree with me near so well as active work."
III
THE BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON
Greatly to our relief the Twenty-fifth Indiana was surely out of Missouri, with the prospect of active campaigning in Kentucky or Tennessee. Although we had orders to take a steamer for Cairo on January 30, we did not get away from St. Louis till February 2. On the steamer I wrote my wife in a tone which indicated that I was taking a more serious view of our future than I had in Missouri: —
"It may be that when we get to Cairo we shall find orders sending us up to Smithland, but wherever we go you will have abundant rumors of army movements and great battles fought. I trust you will not be unnecessarily alarmed or solicitous. I will write you as often as I can, keeping you as well posted as possible, but I expect I shall only be able to write you at considerable intervals… We will both pray our Heavenly Father to be my guard and protector, and return me safely to my home and dear family again. Let us have faith, and hope for the best."
On the 6th of February I write again from Cairo: "We are quartered here in the barracks, in the muddiest place imaginable. No one who has not been in Cairo knows what mud is. How long we shall remain here is altogether uncertain."
My next letter was written the 9th on a steamer going up the Tennessee River: —
"We seem fated to make or commence all our marches on the Sabbath. How often do I long for the enjoyment of one of our home Sabbaths. We were ordered to go aboard the steamboat at nine o'clock Saturday morning, so we had the men up before day to cook two days' rations and were packed up all ready to leave. But we did not go until noon to-day and we should be at Fort Henry to-morrow forenoon. We have six hundred barrels of powder on board, which makes traveling a little dangerous, but shall be at Paducah in an hour or two, where it will be unloaded. Our orders are to 'join General Grant,' so I suppose we will be with the army as it goes forward into Tennessee and South to victory.
"I am just in the locality I have been wanting to be all during the war, and I have only to do my duty like a soldier and a man. You must not be unduly solicitous about my welfare, or pay much attention to the rumors by telegraph, as they are at first always uncertain and generally erroneous. If our regiment is in an engagement, I will see that a carrier is sent to the first place to get the news home. So that if you do not hear you can be satisfied that all is right. You will remember me in your thoughts and prayers always, and have faith that all will be well."
This was the last letter I was able to write home until after the battle of Fort Donelson. On the 10th our regiment reached Fort Henry on the Tennessee River which had been captured by General Grant only four days before our arrival. On the 12th we marched over to the vicinity of Fort Donelson with the rest of General Grant's army, eleven miles from Fort Henry, and situated on the west side of the Cumberland River. We were a part of the division commanded by General Charles F. Smith, and which occupied the extreme left of General Grant's army. That army, when it went into camp on the evening of February 12, covered the entire front of the Confederate forces. From our encampment the rebel line of rifle-pits and fortifications could be seen, we occupying one series of ridges and the enemy those confronting ours.
The fighting began on the morning of the 13th, our picket lines being pressed toward the enemy's front, mainly to develop their position. In view of the eagerness of my own account in my letters, I quote the part of the official report of Colonel Veatch, which relates to the operations of the Twenty-fifth Indiana on the 13th: —
"At 10 o'clock A.M. we moved forward in line of battle to the top of the hill which was between us and the enemy's breastworks. Here I received orders to fix bayonets and charge the rebels, and, if possible, drive them from their works. The timber was so thick that we could only see here and there a part of the rebel works, but could form no idea of their range or extent… At the foot of the hill the enemy poured on us a terrible fire of musketry, grape and canister, and a few shells. The rebel breastworks were now in plain view on the top of the hill. The heavy timber on the hillside had been felled, proving a dense mass of brush and logs. Through and over these obstacles our men advanced against the enemy's fire with perfect coolness and steadiness, never halting for a moment until they received your order. After a halt of a few minutes they then advanced within a short distance of the enemy's breastworks where the fire from a six-pound field-piece and twelve-pound howitzer on our right was so destructive that it became necessary to halt and direct the men to lie down to save us from very heavy loss.
"After remaining under a very heavy fire for two hours and fifteen minutes, with no opportunity to return the fire to advantage, the enemy being almost entirely hid, and seeing no movement indicating a further advance from any part of the line, I asked permission to withdraw my regiment. In retiring, owing to the nature of the ground and our exposed position, the men were thrown into slight confusion, but they rallied promptly at the foot of the hill, and remained in that position until night, when we moved back, as directed, to the ground we occupied in the morning. We lost in this action fourteen killed and sixty-one wounded."
On the 14th the battle was continued almost entirely by our naval forces, the army taking no part except the pickets and sharp-shooters. It was General Grant's hope that the gunboats would be able to silence the Confederate water batteries and pass up the Cumberland, and thus cut off reinforcements to the enemy, but in this they failed and were forced to retire.
In view of this situation it was the intention of Grant to establish a siege of the fortifications and await reinforcements. But on the morning of the 15th our right wing under General McClernand was attacked in force, the enemy coming out of their intrenchments with the apparent intention of cutting their way through our line and abandoning the fort. McClernand being hard-pressed, General Lew Wallace's division went to his assistance, and the battle raged in that direction with great intensity all the forenoon. We lay upon our arms in line of battle, ready and impatient to take part in the contest, listening to the roar of battle in the distance. General Smith, our division commander, about three o'clock in the afternoon received orders to advance upon the enemy in our front, and immediately our attacking force was formed by Lauman's brigade, in column of regiments, consisting of the Twenty-fifth Indiana, and three Iowa regiments, General Smith himself leading the attack.
It was a martial sight, this column of regiments advancing down into the ravine and ascending the hill on which were located the enemy's fortifications, struggling through the abatis of fallen timber, with the bullets whistling thick among our ranks. But it was an event of only a few minutes; our column, never halting, was soon in front of the intrenchments, when the enemy broke and fled, and the day was won. Colonel Veatch says in his report that the skirmishers of the Twenty-fifth Indiana were among the first, if not the very first, to enter the fortifications.
General Grant, in his account of this charge, says: "The outer line of rifle-pits was passed, and the night of the 15th General Smith, with much of his division, bivouacked within the line of the enemy. There was now no doubt but that the Confederates must surrender or be captured the next day." It was an inspiring sight for us, as we ascended the hill, the general on his white horse, hat in hand, waving us forward into the enemy's lines. He was the hero of the battle. On the 19th General Halleck telegraphed to Washington: "Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson, when the battle was against us, turned the tide and carried the enemy's outworks." General Sherman, in his "Memoirs," has this to say of the capture of Fort Donelson: "He [General Charles F. Smith] was a very handsome and soldierly man, of great experience, and at Donelson had acted with so much personal bravery that to him may be attributed the success of the assault."
Although this charge of our brigade, the last fighting of the battle, was the decisive event which brought about the surrender, it was attended with little bloodshed. The charge was so rapid and the