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The town of Dover from Robinson's Hill.
From a photograph taken in 1884.
this view was taken from the site of a house on McClernand's right, which was destroyed for camp purposes after the surrender.
The house is said to have been used by McClernand as headquarters.
It was near the Wynn's ferry road, which reaches the River perhaps a quarter of a mile to the right of the picture. |
when
General Johnston assumed command of the Western Department, the
War had ceased to be a New idea.
Battles had been fought.
Preparations for battles to come were far advanced.
Already it had been accepted that the
North was to attack and the
South to defend.
The
Mississippi River was a central object; if opened from
Cairo to
Fort Jackson (New Orleans), the
Confederacy would be broken into halves, and good strategy required it to be broken.
The question was whether the effort would be made directly or by turning its defended positions.
Of the national gun-boats afloat above
Cairo, some were formidably iron-clad.
Altogether the flotilla was strong enough to warrant the theory that a direct descent would be attempted; and to meet the movement the
Confederates threw up powerful batteries, notably at
Columbus,
Island number10,
Memphis, and
Vicksburg.
So fully were they possessed of that theory that they measurably neglected the possibilities of invasion by way of the
Cumberland and
Tennessee rivers.
Not until
General Johnston established his headquarters at
Nashville was serious attention given to the defense of those streams.
A report to his chief of engineers of November 21st, 1861, establishes that at that date a second battery on the
Cumberland at
Dover had been completed; that a work on the ridge had been laid out, and two guns mounted; and that the encampment was then surrounded by an abatis of felled timber.
Later,
Brigadier-General Lloyd Tilghman was sent to
Fort Donelson as commandant, and on January 25th he reports the batteries prepared, the entire field-works built with a trace of 2900 feet, and rifle-pits to guard the approaches were begun.
The same officer speaks further of reenforcements housed in four hundred log-cabins, and
