As General Grant formally proposed, on January 28th, to General Halleck to take Fort Henry, captured it on the 6th of February, moved on Fort Donelson the next day, and took it on the 16th of February, it will be seen from the above letter, that General Halleck, at the time Grant had accomplished this work and opened both rivers, did not expect to have men enough by thirty or forty thousand to begin the vague movement he had in his mind. But if General Sherman had searched the records with the least care he would have found that even these identical ideas of Halleck, about a move on a line perpendicular to one joining Bowling Green and Columbus were suggested by General Buell. For the records show that as early as November of the preceding year, Buell had proposed to General McClellan to move around the right flank of the rebels at Bowling Green, and advance on Nashville, while supplies and troops from Halleck should move up the Cumberland, guarded by the fleet. General McClellan urged cooperation on Halleck, who delayed answering dispatches for some time. Finally, on January 3d, at the request of President Lincoln, General Buell wrote General Halleck, setting forth most of the ideas that Halleck afterward submitted as his own to McClellan, and which are given above in the letter dated January 20th. The records give a connected history of the discussion at this time between the authorities at Washington, and Generals Buell and Halleck.
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Cincinnati: Wilstach, Baldwin & Co. 1875.
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