Alfred Roman, The military operations of General Beauregard in the war between the states, 1861 to 1865

[214] or up the Cumberland, against Fort Donelson; and General Pope, with at least thirty thousand men, in Missouri, stood confronting Major-General Polk. The entire Federal forces, under the chief command of General Halleck, with headquarters at St. Louis, amounted to about one hundred and thirty thousand men. To oppose such a host, General Johnston stated that he had, at Bowling Green, some fourteen thousand effectives of all arms; at Forts Henry and Donelson about five thousand five hundred more, under General Lloyd Tilghman; that General Floyd was covering Clarksville with eight thousand men, and that General Polk, in his district of West Tennessee and West Kentucky (but principally at and around Columbus), had some fifteen thousand men, not yet well organized and but poorly armed, including detached forces at Clarksville and Hopkinsville, under Generals Clark and Pillow. Thus the whole Confederate force in General Johnston's department numbered not more than forty-five thousand men of all arms and conditions.¹ Tens of thousands of men were anxious to go into the army to defend their homes, but the Confederate government had no arms for them.

This fearful disparity between the actual effectiveness of General Johnston's command and the fanciful figures which, by authority of the Secretary of War, Colonel Pryor had given him, struck General Beauregard with amazement. He recounted to General Johnston the statement made of the strength of the Western army, and imparted to him the hopes he had entertained that, by a proper arrangement of the river defences for minimum garrisons, and a rapid concentration by railroad of all our available forces, we might suddenly have taken the offensive against Buell, who, unprepared for such an onslaught, would undoubtedly have been overpowered. Thus Kentucky would have fallen under our control, and its people would have freely joined the Confederate standard.

No less painfully surprised than General Beauregard was General Johnston, when apprised of the ignorance of the War Department about matters within its peculiar province. He confirmed General Beauregard's previously expressed opinion, by declaring at once that he never would have remained on the defensive with such forces under him, and with Buell only a short