From Fort Henry to Corinth. M. F. Force
Kentucky, seized Hickman and Columbus on the Mississippi, and threatened Paducah on the Ohio. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, appointed brigadier-general of volunteers on August 7, 1861, to date from May 17th, assumed command on September 1st, by order of General Fremont, of the District of Southeast Missouri. This district included not only the southeastern part of Missouri, but also Southern Illinois, and so much of Western Kentucky and Tennessee as might fall into possession of the national forces. General Grant arrived at Cairo on September 2d, established his headquarters there on the 4th, and next day heard of the action of General Polk. He immediately notified General Fremont, and also the Legislature of Kentucky, then in session at Frankfort, of the fact. Getting further information in the day, he telegraphed to General Fremont he would go to Paducah unless orders to the contrary should be received. He started in the night with two regiments and a battery, and arrived at Paducah at half-past six next morning. General L. Tilghman being in the city with his staff and a single company of recruits, hurried away by rail, and Grant occupied the city without opposition. The Legislature passed a resolution "that Kentucky expects the Confederate or Tennessee troops to be withdrawn from her soil unconditionally." Polk remained, and Kentucky as a State was ranged in support of the government.
General Grant, leaving a sufficient garrison, returned at noon to Cairo to find there permission from Fremont to take Paducah if he felt strong enough, and also a reprimand for communicating directly with a legislature. General C.F. Smith was put in command of Paducah next day by Fremont, with orders to report directly to Fremont. A few weeks later, Smith occupied and garrisoned Smithland at the mouth of the Cumberland. Grant suggested the feasibility of capturing Columbus, and on September 10th asked permission to make the attempt. No notice was taken of the request. His command was, however, continually reinforced by new regiments, and he found occupation in organizing and disciplining them. General Polk meanwhile was busy fortifying Columbus, where the river-bank rises to a high bluff, until the bluff was faced and crowned with massive earthworks, armed with one hundred and forty-two pieces of artillery, mostly thirty-two and sixty-four pounders. At the same time heavy defensive works commanding the river were erected below at Island No. Ten and New Madrid, and still farther below, but above Memphis, at Fort Pillow.
On November 1st, General Fremont being on his expedition to Springfield, his adjutant in charge of headquarters at St. Louis directed General Grant to make demonstrations on both sides of the Mississippi at Norfolk, Charleston, and Blandville, points a few miles north of Columbus and Belmont. Next day he advised Grant that Jeff. Thompson was at Indian Ford of the St. François River, twenty-five miles below Greenville, with about three thousand men, and that Colonel Carlin had started from Pilot Knob in pursuit, and directing Grant to send a force to assist Carlin in driving Thompson into Arkansas. On the night of the 3d, Grant despatched Colonel Oglesby with 3,000 men from Commerce to carry out this order. On the 5th, Grant was further advised by telegraph that General Polk, who commanded at Columbus, was sending reinforcements to Price, and that it was of vital importance that this movement should be arrested. General Grant at once sent an additional regiment to Oglesby, with directions to him to turn his course to the river in the direction of New Madrid; requested General C. F. Smith to make a demonstration from Paducah toward Columbus; and also sent parties from Bird's Point and Fort Holt to move down both sides of the river, so as to attract attention from Columbus.
On the evening of the 6th, General Grant started down the river on transports with five regiments of infantry, the Twenty-second, Twenty-seventh, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first Illinois, and the Seventh Iowa, Taylor's Chicago battery, and two companies of cavalry. The Twenty-seventh, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first Illinois were made into a brigade commanded by General John A. McClernand; the Twenty-second Illinois and the Seventh Iowa into a brigade under Colonel H. Dougherty, of the Twenty-second Illinois. The entire force numbered 3,114 men. General Grant, in his report, states the number at 2,850. As five companies were kept at the landing when the force disembarked, the number given by General Grant represents the number taken into action. Two gunboats, under the command of Captain Walke of the navy, convoyed the expedition. A feint was made of landing nine miles below Cairo, on the Kentucky side, and the expedition lay there till daybreak. Badeau says that General Grant received intelligence, at two o'clock in the morning of the 7th, that General Polk was crossing troops from Columbus to Belmont, with a view of cutting off Oglesby, and that he thereupon determined to convert what had been intended as a mere demonstration against Belmont into a real attack.
Belmont was the lofty name of a settlement of three houses squatted upon the low river-flat opposite Columbus, and under easy range of its guns. A regiment and a battery were encamped in a cleared field of seven hundred acres on the river-bank, and the camp was surrounded on its landward side by an abattis of felled timber. At six o'clock in the morning the fleet moved down, and the troops debarked at half-past eight on the Missouri shore, three miles above Columbus, and protected from view by an intervening wooded point. About the same time General Polk sent General Pillow across the river to Belmont with four regiments, making the force there five regiments and a battery. Pillow estimated the number of men at about twenty-five hundred.
General Grant marched his command through the timber and some cleared fields, and formed in two lines facing the river—McClernand in front, Dougherty in rear. A depression parallel to the river, making a connected series of ponds or sloughs, had to be crossed in the advance in line. These depressions were for the most part dry, but the Twenty-seventh Illinois, the right of the front line, in passing around a portion that was yet filled with water, made such distance to the right that Colonel Dougherty's brigade moved forward, filled the interval, and the attack was made in a single line.
The opposing skirmishers encountered in the timber. Pillow's line of battle was in the open, facing the timber. The engagement was in the simplest form: two forces equal in number encountered in parallel lines. Most of the men on both sides were for the first time under fire, and had yet had but scanty opportunity to become inured to or acquainted with military discipline. The engagement was hotly contested—the opposing lines, while for some time alternately advancing and receding, were steady and unbroken. At length Pillow gave way. When his line was once really broken it could not rally in the face of pursuit. The national line pressing on, pushed Pillow back through the camp and over the upper or secondary bank to the first or lower bottom in disorder. The Second Tennessee, just arrived across the river, took position under the secondary bank, for a while checked the pursuit, giving time for the routed troops to make their way through the timber up the river, and finally followed them in a more orderly retreat.
The national troops, having now undisturbed possession of the captured camp, gave way to their exultation. General McClernand called for three cheers, that were given with a will. The regiments broke ranks, and the battery fired upon the massive works and heavy siege-guns crowning the heights across the river. A plunging fire of great shells from the fortifications, and the sight of boats loaded with troops leaving the opposite shore, were impressive warnings that the invaders could not safely tarry. General Grant directed the camp to be set on fire, and the command to be assembled and to return. General Polk became convinced that Columbus was not in danger of present attack, and determined to reinforce Pillow promptly and effectively. The Eleventh Louisiana and Fifteenth Tennessee arrived first, and attack was made upon both flanks of the hastily formed retreating column, encumbered as it was with spoils. The Seventh Iowa and Twenty-second Illinois, the regiments mainly attacked, replied with vigor, though thrown into some confusion. Pillow halted his men to re-form, and drew them off to await the arrival of reinforcements on the way, under General Polk in person.
The command embarked. The battery took on board two guns and a wagon captured and brought off in place of two caissons and a wagon left behind, and also brought off twenty horses and one mule captured. When all who were in sight were on board, General Grant, supposing the five companies who had been left to guard the landing were still on post, rode out to look for one of the parties that had been sent to bring in the wounded, and which had not returned. Instead of the guard, which had gone on board without orders, supposing its duty was done, he saw approaching a hostile line of battle. He rode back, his horse slid down the river-bank on its haunches, and trotted on board a transport over a plank thrust out for him. General Polk had come over with General Cheatham, bringing two more regiments and a battalion. The entire force formed in line, approached the river-bank, and opened fire. The gunboats, as well as the