Named Entity Results, Fort Donelson (Tennessee, United States)

Fort Donelson and its Generals. The grand struggle at Fort Donelson, as we have already said, was one every way creditable to our arms. There never was, perhaps, a more obstinately contested fight. The enemy gained one of the dearest of victories, with the odds of 80,000 to 12,000 in his favor. Yet his prisoners but little exceed the list of his killed and wounded. This fact is plainly being confessed by the enemy himself. All concede now last the surrender was a military and phyFort Donelson, as we have already said, was one every way creditable to our arms. There never was, perhaps, a more obstinately contested fight. The enemy gained one of the dearest of victories, with the odds of 80,000 to 12,000 in his favor. Yet his prisoners but little exceed the list of his killed and wounded. This fact is plainly being confessed by the enemy himself. All concede now last the surrender was a military and physical necessity, and that it attaches no blame to the brave and accomplished. General Buckner, who entered the war on the Southern side at perhaps a greater personal sacrifice than any other officer of his rank in the army. The loss to our cause of so capable an officer as he, is generally deplored. But his remaining to surrender the small army in the fort and share their fate, in the face of the peculiar perils of his own case, entitle him alike to the admiration and sympathy of his country

Why was it? There are so many things in the course of the war that need explanation, that Congress will have a great deal to do if it undertakes to investigate them. The disasters of Hatteras, Fort Henry, Roanoke Island, and Fort Donelson, are all fit subjects for rigid scrutiny. And we have just had Fernandina and Newbern added. Here we have nothing but disaster, and the public mind has settled down to the conviction that, with proper forecaste and precaution every one of these sad and mortifying reverses could have been averted. They present a catalogue of blunders and defaulte that would, under experienced military Governments, be fatal to all by whom they were committed.-- Feris improperly and fatally located and engineered; men isolated on indefensible positions, and in one case an alleged impregnable series of fortifications abandend to the enemy. Capt. Dupont, the Federal commander, considered the fortifications below Fernandina very powerful — sufficient to have def