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adjacent to his line of operations. Still his force was very inadequate in numbers and appointment; while to every application for more men, the War Department replied that none could be spared him. The Federal plan was to advance their armies along the watercourses, simultaneously with their gunboats-light draught constructions prepared expressly for such service; and, penetrating to any possible point, there form depots with water communication to their base. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were plainly their highways. The only defenses of these streams were Forts Henry and Donelson-weak works inefficiently garrisoned; for the half million appropriated by Congress for their defense at the eleventh hour could not have been used in time, even had the money been forthcoming from the treasury. With scarcely a check to their progress, the Federals reduced and passed Fort Henry on the 4th of February, pressing on to Donelson, into and supporting which work, General Johnsto
e was visited upon Mr. Mallory's head. Public censure always makes the meat it feeds on; and the secretary soon became the target for shafts of pitiable malice, or of unreflecting ridicule. When the enemy's gunboats-built at secure points and fitted out without stint of cost, labor or material-ascended to Nashville, a howl was raised that the Navy Department should have had the water defenses ready. True, Congress had appropriated half a million for the defenses of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers; but the censorious public forgot that the money had been voted too late. Even then it was quite notorious, that in the red-tape system of requisition and delay that hedged the Treasury — an appropriation and the money it named were totally diverse things. When New Orleans fell, curses loud and deep went up against the Navy Department. Doubtless there was some want of energy in pushing the iron-clads there; but again in this case the money was voted very late; and even Confederat