Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan, a Confederate Soldier. Thomas D. Duncan
at Fort Henry gave descriptions of their terror and havoc which did not tend to allay the fears of the uninitiated. We were told that our cannon balls would fall harmless from their steel armor, and that the gunners of these boats were so protected that they could take deliberate aim and deliver their shots into our port holes. In fact, these tales were so enlarged upon that many of our men were paralyzed with fear, and became so timid that they did not want to fight when the gunboat was a factor. I shall always believe that this sentiment played a large part in the surrender of Fort Donelson, although when the actual test came at Donelson the Confederate shore batteries outfought the gunboats and gave them a very decisive drubbing; but the one fatal defect in the mechanism of the old-style batteries, which provided no way of depressing the guns to a sufficient angle to bring them in line with a near and lower target, placed our gunners at a great disadvantage here.
I am giving rather liberal space to my comment on this battle, because it was the greatest battle of the war up to that time and because of the supreme confidence of the people, the army and the commanders, in the impregnability of this fort and their consequent disappointment when it fell.
The Confederates successfully repulsed the combined attack of General Grant and Commodore Foote on the first day.
On February 15 another attack was made; and General Forrest, with all the cavalry, and General Pillow, with the infantry and artillery, repelled the land attack, and pushed back the Union Army on the right until this wing was doubled on its center; and if the movement had been given support from the other parts of the Confederate lines, there might have been a different story to tell of Fort Donelson. But it may be that all the “ifs” that have changed the fate of the world belong to the God of battles, who alone knows where to set them in the little affairs of men that they may serve the ultimate good of all his people.
In this engagement Gen. N. B. Forrest displayed, for the first time, that tremendous energy and marvelous generalship which were so prominently and successfully employed in all his future career.
This fight was the most appalling sight I had ever witnessed. I was a mere boy engaged in a struggle wherein men were seeking to destroy each other, and yet I dare say that the common soldiers of those two militant hosts had no real and clear conception of the cause of their deadly antagonism.
May the politician and the agitator ponder well this terrible fact and beware of the keen word that may open the veins of a nation!
The sky of my memory must forever hold the shriek of those shells; nor can I forget the muffled crash of grapeshot and minnie balls as they literally tore the ranks of the combatants.
At one point in our advance we were ordered to charge a battery of field guns. In this charge I lost control of my horse, and he carried me beyond the battery into the infantry support of the enemy. I made a circuit, and on my return a Federal soldier fired at me when I was not more than twenty paces from him. I was mounted on a spirited animal, and it was running and jumping so unevenly that I happily made a very evasive target, and the soldier missed his aim, just grazing my right shoulder, taking the width of the ball out of my coat and cutting a crease in the flesh. The shot was fired as I was approaching the man; and as I passed within a few feet of him, I shot at him twice with my six-shooter, but could not tell whether or not my shots struck him. I was a good marksman, and under ordinary circumstances I would have been sure of my aim; but it behooves me to tell you that I was far more bent on getting out of this dangerous situation than on killing an enemy.
I had many narrow escapes that day, but this was my closest “call” as a soldier of the C. S. A.
On our part of the field our forces had been successful, but the remainder of our lines had been defeated, and the fort had been so battered that those in command—Generals Floyd, Buckner, and Pillow—decided to surrender on the following morning.
General Forrest was advised of the plan, and he informed the commanders that he did not become a soldier to surrender and that he was going out that night and take as many of his men as would follow him. The backwater was from two to six feet deep, but this had no terror for our leader. We secured the service of a native to guide us, and by going in close to the Union line we found shallow water and no obstruction, and so we escaped to safety. The ground was covered with snow and the water was very cold.
Forrest led his troops to safety on this occasion under conditions which would have broken the will of any ordinary man, as he was to do many times in the years that followed.
CHAPTER IV
CORINTH AGAIN THE CENTER
Through Tennessee, North Alabama, and North Mississippi I returned to Corinth, which place had become the headquarters of General Johnston.
The capture of Henry and Donelson constituted a severe blow to the Confederacy. A vast, rich territory and a splendid army had been lost, and the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers opened to the Union forces.
To hold the line of the Southwestern defense, already pushed back to the very margin of the great Mississippi Valley, and to protect the railroad of communication and transportation between the East and the West (the Memphis and Charleston), General Johnston began mobilization at Corinth, with the purpose not only to defend, but to counter attack as soon as possible. It developed early in March that the Union forces were seeking an outlet up the Tennessee to some point from which the new Confederate line could be attacked.
With a few companies I was sent to Eastport, then the head of navigation on the Tennessee River, to scout and watch for the expected landing of the Union army. Soon came the gunboats Lexington and Tyler, invested with a silent terror, wrought by superstitious fear, more awful than their guns. It was only with a closer knowledge that this unwarranted fear vanished. Later in the war we captured one of these monsters at this point with loaded battery, and still later Forrest captured three gunboats and ran a whole flotilla of this class off the river with Morton’s and Rice’s field batteries.
At this time there lived at Eastport a man named Hill who had been a steamboat pilot, and he had a son just about my age; so by arrangement I dressed in one of the suits of his son and went with Mr. Hill to the landing. As we were the only persons present, three officers came ashore and asked Hill many questions about the Southern soldiers. They did not notice me on account of my age and unsophisticated dress; but I was using my eyes for all they were worth, and afterwards, with Mr. Hill’s assistance, I was able to give a fairly good description of the floating terrors. They were old wooden transports armored with railroad irons and with small iron above the water line and pilot house.
After this episode, the force at Iuka sent a battery of field pieces to Chickasaw Bluff, just above Eastport, from which position they had a clear view down the river to the first bend, about four miles.
The commander made up a detail from our company to keep watch at Eastport for the next appearance of the gunboats. On the river bank was an old elevator topped with a tower by which grain and produce could be loaded and unloaded into steamboats. We used this old building as a watch tower at night, and during the day we were stationed on the high bluff, two of us watching together. One night my companion and I had been discussing the probability of being able to discern the approach of a gunboat, as they concealed all lights and muffled the exhaust of their engines. In the darkness and the silence our conversation turned to idle fancies. To the soldier actually engaged in war death seems ever near, and, with the mind so attuned,