[20]
I am waiting for
General Smith's report on the road from
Smithland to
Fort Henry.
As soon as that is received will give orders.
In the meantime have every thing ready.
On the 1st of February permission to make the movement arrived from
Halleck, and on the 2d
Grant began the campaign with seventeen thousand men, less than one-third the force
Halleck had in mind for the operations he thought might be carried on along this general line.
On the 6th of February
Fort Henry was taken, and on the 8th
Grant telegraphed
Halleck that he should immediately take
Fort Donelson and return to
Fort Henry.
On the 16th he had accomplished the work, and the campaign for which
Halleck wanted ‘not less than sixty thousand effective men,’ thirty thousand of which he hoped to have ‘by the middle or last of February,’ had been made a success by
Grant with a force of seventeen thousand men and four gun-boats.
General Sherman closes the chapter in which he treats of the movements on
Forts Henry and
Donelson as follows:
‘From the time I had left Kentucky General Buell had really made no substantial progress; though strongly reenforced, beyond even what I had asked for, General Albert Sidney Johnston had remained at Bowling Green until his line was broken at Henry and Donelson, when he let go Bowling Green and fell back hastily to Nashville, and on Buell's approach he did not even tarry there, but continued his retreat southward.’
Three chapters previous to the one containing this unkind allusion to
General Buell,
General Sherman, writing of his selection as
Superintendent of the
Louisiana Military College, says: ‘For this honorable position I was indebted to
Major D. C. Buell and
General G. Mason Graham, to whom I have made full and due acknowledgment.’
While the
General of the army should have felt himself, by virtue of his position and opportunities for obtaining exact
