Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

[212] sent to their support on the right. They, too, displayed great courage in the face of a galling fire. The Confederates were concentrated in defense of the position with two supporting field batteries, and soon began to show strength in front of Oglesby's brigade. Schwartz's battery was first advanced to meet this new danger, and then Taylor was directed to throw forward two sections of his battery to that position. The fight for a little while was severe and stubborn, when the Nationals were repulsed. Similar movements on the left by a portion of Colonel Lauman's brigade were equally unsuccessful, and in both cases the National loss was heavy. The troops, somewhat discouraged, fell back to the position they occupied in the morning, and anxiously awaited the arrival of the gun-boats and expected re-enforcements.

That night the National troops were terribly smitten by an unexpected enemy. The spring-like morning, during which many of them, in expectation of a battle, had laid aside their overcoats and blankets, was succeeded by clouds and chilliness in the afternoon, heavy rain in the evening, and sleet and snow and severe frost at midnight, the mercury having rapidly fallen at that hour to only ten degrees above zero. The besiegers were bivouacked without tents, and dared not light a fire, because it immediately became a mark for the guns of the besieged. Their food was scant, and some were without any; and in that keen wintry air, the ground like iron, and mailed in ice, with insufficient clothing, no shelter, and half starved, the weary, worn, and intensely-suffering troops sadly and anxiously awaited the dawn and the expected re-enforcements. The Confederates, who lay upon their arms all night in the trenches, were equal sufferers.

Conscious of the peril of his situation, Grant had sent a courier to General Wallace at Fort Henry, to bring over the garrison there immediately. The order reached that officer at about midnight. At dawn

Feb. 14, 1862.

he marched for Fort Donelson, with the Eleventh Indiana, the Eighth Missouri, and his battery in charge of Company A, Chicago Artillery. A crust of sleet and snow covered the ground, and the air was full of drifting frost. With cheering, and singing of songs, and sounding of bugles these troops pressed on, and at noon the general reported at Grant's Headquarters, and dined with him on crackers and coffee.

In the mean time the gunboats and transports had arrived, and with them the re-enforcements that were to form the Third Division. The advent of the latter was most timely. They were landed with their artillery three miles below the fort, and, rapidly clearing the woods before them, were standing around Grant's Headquarters soon after Wallace's arrival there. He was at once placed in command of them,¹ and posted between McClernand and Smith, thereby (with two of Smith's regiments, under McArthur, posted on McClernand's extreme right) completing the absolute investment of the fort and its outworks. He was ordered by Grant to hold that position, and to prevent