Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[11] he assumed command of the District of Southeast Missouri, and on the 4th, made his headquarters at Cairo, at the mouth of the Ohio. The district included not only the region from which it takes its name, but the southern part of Illinois, and so much of western Kentucky and Tennessee as might fall into the possession of national forces; it comprised the junction of the four great rivers, Tennessee, Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi.

Grant's first act was the seizure of Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee. The governor of Kentucky was at this time insisting that the state should maintain a position of armed neutrality, and all Kentuckians who sympathized with the rebels, took the same ground. This neutrality had never been recognized by the United States authorities, but was first violated by General Polk, the rebel commander in that region. He seized Columbus and Hickman, on the Mississippi, and threatened Paducah, within three days after Grant assumed his new command. All these places were of military importance, and Paducah completely commands the navigation of both the Tennessee and the Ohio. Fremont had previously ordered a movement in Missouri, which Grant was to superintend, and had directed the construction of Fort Holt on the Kentucky shore; but on the 2d of September, Grant arrived at Cairo, and on the 5th, heard of the advance of Polk, which had occurred the day before. He at once notified his commanding officer, as well as the Kentucky legislature at Frank. fort, and later in the same day, having received additional information, he telegraphed to Fremont at St. Louis: ‘I am getting ready to go to Paducah. Will start at six and a half o'clock.’ Still later on