I directed his attention to a barrel of bacon and several boxes of bread which had been opened for the prisoners, and from which they were helping themselves. He turned away in disgust, saying,—
"Officers are to be treated according to their rank,—like gentlemen,—and I'll be d—d if I don't pitch in and give somebody a licking!"
Some of the officers on board conducted themselves with perfect decorum. One young physician gave his services to our wounded.
Although Commodore Foote had been wounded in the gunboat attack upon the fort, he intended to push up the river to Nashville, and intercept General Albert Sidney Johnston, who he knew must be falling back from Bowling Green, but he was stopped by a despatch from General Halleck to General Grant. "Don't let Foote go up the river."
The gunboats could have reached Nashville in eight hours. Floyd and Pillow, who made their escape from Donelson at sunrise, reached the city before noon, while the congregations were in the churches. Had Commodore Foote followed he would have been in the city by three o'clock, holding the bridges, patrolling the rivers, and cutting off Johnston's retreat. Buell had between thirty and forty thousand men, Johnston less than twenty. On the heel of the demoralization incident to the rout at Mill Springs, Fort Henry, and the loss at Donelson, the entire Rebel army in the West could have been destroyed, but for the dictation of General Halleck, sitting in the planter's house five hundred miles distant.
"Had I been permitted to carry out my intention we should have put an end to the rebellion in the West," said Commodore Foote.
General Halleck had endeavored to enforce his order No. 3, excluding negroes from his lines, but before daybreak on Sunday morning at Donelson a negro entered the lines, having made his way out from Dover, past the Rebel pickets. He reported that the Rebels were fleeing. Some of the officers suggested that he was sent out to lure Grant into a trap, and proposed to tie him up and give him a whipping.
"You may hang me, shoot me, do anything to me, if it a'n't as I tell you," was his earnest reply.
One hour later came the Rebel flag of truce from Buckner, asking for the appointment of Commissioners; but the information already obtained enabled Grant to reply: "I propose to move immediately upon your works."
The negro was a slave, who entered the Union lines in search of freedom,—that which his soul most longed for. General Grant did not exclude him. Like a sensible man, he took no action in the matter, gave no directions as to what should be done with him. The slave being at liberty to decide for himself, took passage on a transport for Cairo. The steamer stopped at a landing for wood, when the slave was recognized by some of the citizens, who said that he belonged to a Union man, and demanded that he should be put off the boat. The captain of the steamer was inclined to accede to their demands; but the officers on board, knowing what service he had rendered, informed the captain that he need not be under any apprehensions of arrest by civil process, as martial law was in force. They kept the negro under their protection, and gave him his liberty, thus setting at defiance General Halleck and his pro-slavery order.