This text is part of:
[54]
men.
Grant was the last on the transport, riding his horse aboard on a plank pushed out for him. In his plain dress, he looked like a private.
“There's a Yankee, if you want a shot,” said Polk to his men; but they, busy firing at the crowded boats, thought one shabby soldier too poor a mark.
Belmont was a defeat, but one of those which are successes, just as there are victories which are failures.
It accomplished its object.
Polk did not send the troops into Missouri, as he intended: he kept them at hand against further surprises.
Secession's frontier at this time was a slight curve from Columbus eastward and up to Bowling Green, then down to Cumberland Gap.
It thus lapped over a little from Tennessee into Kentucky.
Its weak point was the hole made in it by two rivers, the Tennessee and Cumberland, crossing it twelve miles apart.
Two forts barred these precious highways — Henry and Donelson.
If these
Boston. Small, Maynard and Company. 1901.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.