of their weird life. The cavalry swept the country to see what the enemy were about.

Such was Grant's cavalcade, moving forward in the light of the next morning, February 12th.

In the afternoon, the white tents of the enemy on the hills in the intrenchments came in sight. After surveying the field of impending battle, again the soldiers slept on the ground, a chilly wind fanning the fires of their camp. But the following day was bright and mild. While yet the rosy beams which herald the sun glowed in the east, the sudden scream of a rebel shell was heard over the heads of Colonel Oglesby's brigade. "Hurrah! hurrah!" is the response. Every brave fellow is at his gun, or standing ready to hear the order to answer the foe. There stood sombre Donelson, frowning defiance on the advancing host of the Republic, with flying banners wheeling around the citadel of treason and anarchy.

Soon McClernand's division defile away to the west and south of the fortifications, and Smith's to the north and west. Could you have looked from the battlements of Donelson, you would have beheld the Union army forming a great crescent, with its tips nearly to the river's bank above and below the fort; thus holding the massive defence in the curve. The centre of the curve was not complete. The transports on the waters were to furnish the troops for this important point. The boats were not

on time." But the hostile armies were too near not to fight. Sanguinary skirmishing, and occasionally a deadly

contest for some position outside of the ramparts, became the order of the day-the prelude of the awful tragedy at hand.

Among the rifle pits and earthworks west of the town, was a redoubt, or walled defence, protecting rebel batteries. General McClernand decided to take it. The men from the prairies, whose field of action had been the furrowed plain and golden harvest land, went up without wavering to the volcanic centre. They reached the impassable abatis. Taylor's splendid battery dashed forward to the rescue, but the rifle bullets of the enemy dropped his gunners. Colonel Birges' hunters were sent for, and soon stole in ambush near the lines of fire. Away sped the balls. Soon the rebel guns were silenced. A head, apparently, rose above the breastworks; toward it whistled a bullet, piercing only a hat. A shout of laughter from the followed. enemy Why don't you come out of your old fort?" shouted a concealed sharpshooter.

"Why

don't you come in?" was the reply. "Oh, you are cowards!" exclaimed another Union soldier.

are you going to take the fort?

came back.

"When

At three o'clock P. M. on the 14th, Commodore Foote brought up the already scarred leviathans of naval warfare, and opened the assault upon the fort. In another moment, fire, smoke, falling shot and bursting shells covered the fleet, and the lofty walls and grounds of Fort Donelson. It was a terrible scene.

While Commodore Foote's flagship, the St. Louis,

was under a tempest of the massive iron hail, he said to the pilot, kindly: "Be calm and firm. Everything de pends upon coolness now." The next moment, a sixty. four pound shot came hissing along the decks; a stunning sound-a crash-and the pilot lay a mangled corpse at the Commodore's feet. The ball had crushed its way through the iron plating, and a fragment pierced the Admiral's ankle. Still, his courage and faith made him quite forgetful of the painful injury. Through the steering apparatus of this vessel and the Louisville, other heavy balls have been hurled, leaving them both at the mercy of the current; and they were compelled to drift from the scene of action. In one hour and a quarter it was all over, and Fort Donelson was wild with the hurrah of fancied victory.

It was now General Grant's turn to try on the land side, and see what he could do. He determined to invest the fort, watch and wait, till the disabled gunboats were ready to join in the onset again. But the rebels, after a council of war by the generals, unexpectedly decided his plan of operations. On the 15th, early in the morning, a large body of their troops was hurled suddenly upon the extreme right of General Grant's encircling army. It seemed an auspicious moment for the cause of treason. The prince of Government thieves, Floyd, was as sure of the Union army as he was of the public property, when in the Cabinet of a President who was willing to be the tool of such traitors. Generals Pillow and Johnson were to hurl half of the rebel army upon McClernard; General