My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field

by Charles Carleton Coffin

The provisions, troops, and artillery were landed at a farm, three miles below the fort. A road was cut through the woods, and communication opened with the army.

A division was organized under General Lewis Wallace. Colonel Cruft commanded the first brigade, composed of the Thirty-first and Forty-fourth Indiana, the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth Kentucky regiments.

The second brigade was composed of the Forty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Illinois regiments. It had no brigade commander, and was united to the third brigade, commanded by Colonel Thayer. The third brigade was composed of the First Nebraska, the Sixteenth, Fifty-eighth, and Sixty-eighth Ohio regiments. Several other regiments arrived while the fight was going on, but they were held in reserve, and had but little if any part in the action.

Wallace’s division was placed between General Smith’s and General McClernand’s, near General Grant’s head-quarters, on the road leading from Fort Henry to Dover. It took all day to get the troops into position and distribute food and ammunition, and there was no fighting except by the skirmishers and sharpshooters.

At three o’clock in the afternoon the gunboats steamed slowly up stream to attack the water-batteries. Commodore Foote repeated the instructions to the commanders and crews that he made before the attack at Fort Henry,—to fire slow, take deliberate aim, and keep cool.

The Pittsburg, St. Louis, Louisville, and Carondelet, iron-plated boats, had the advance, followed by the three wooden boats,—the Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga. A bend in the river exposed the sides of the gunboats to a raking fire from the batteries, while Commodore Foote could only use the bow guns in reply. The fort on the hill was so high above the boats that the muzzles of the guns could not be elevated far enough to hit it. Commodore Foote directed the boats to engage the water-batteries, and pay no attention to the guns of the fort till the batteries were silenced; then he would steam past them and pour broadsides into the fort.

As soon as the gunboats rounded the point of land a mile and a half below the fort, the Rebels opened fire, and the boats replied. There was excellent gunnery. The shots from the fort and batteries fell upon the bows of the boats, or raked their sides; while the shells from the boats fell plump into the batteries, cutting the embankments, or sinking deep in the side of the hill and bursting with tremendous explosions, throwing the earth upon the gunners in the trenches. Steadily onward moved the boats, pouring all their shells into the lower works. It was a continuous storm,—an unbroken roll of thunder. There were constant explosions in the Rebel trenches. The air was filled with pieces of iron from the exploding shells and lumps of frozen earth thrown up by the solid shot. The Rebels fled in confusion from the four-gun battery, running up the hill to the intrenchments above.

The fight had lasted an hour, and the boats were within five hundred feet of the batteries; fifteen minutes more and the Commodore would be abreast of them, and would rake them from bottom to top with his tremendous broadsides. But he had reached the bend of the river; the eight-gun battery could cut him through crosswise, while the guns on the top of the hill could pour plunging shots upon his decks. The Rebels saw their advantage, and worked their guns with all their might. The boats were so near that every Rebel shot reached its mark. A solid shot cut the rudder-chains of the Carondelet and she became unmanageable. The thirty-two-pound balls went through the oak sides of the boats as you can throw peas through wet paper. Another shot splintered the helm of the Pittsburg, and that boat also became unmanageable. A third shot crashed through the pilot-house of the St. Louis, killing the pilot instantly. The Commodore stood by his side, and was sprinkled with the blood of the brave, unfortunate man. The shot broke the wheel and knocked down a timber which wounded the Commodore in the foot. He sprang to the deck, limped to another steering apparatus, and endeavored with his own hands to keep the vessel head to the stream; but that apparatus also had been shot away. Sixty-one shots had struck the St. Louis; some had passed through from stem to stern. The Louisville had received thirty-five shots. Twenty-six had crashed into and through the Carondelet. One of her guns had burst, killing and wounding six of the crew. The Pittsburg had been struck twenty-one times. All but the Louisville, of the iron-plated boats, were unmanageable. At the very last moment—when the difficulties had been almost overcome—the Commodore was obliged to hoist the signal for retiring. Ten minutes more,—five hundred feet more,—and the Rebel trenches would have been swept from right to left, their entire length. When the boats began to drift down the stream they were running from the trenches, deserting their guns, to escape the fearful storm of grape and canister which they knew would soon sweep over them. Fifty-four were killed and wounded in this attack.

At night Commodore Foote sat in the cabin of the St. Louis and wrote a letter to a friend. His wound was painful, but he thought not of his own sufferings. He frequently asked how the wounded men were getting along, and directed the surgeons to do everything possible for their comfort. This is what he wrote to his friend:—

“While I hope ever to rely on Him who controls all things, and to say from my heart, ‘Not unto us, but unto thee, O Lord, belongs the glory,’ yet I feel bad at the result of our attack on Fort Donelson. To see brave officers and men, who say they will go where I lead them, fall by my side, it makes me sad to lead them to almost certain death.”