"I regarded the position of the army as desperate, and that the attempt to extricate it by another battle, in the suffering and exhausted condition of the troops, was almost hopeless. The troops had been worn down with watching, with labor, with fighting. Many of them were frosted by the cold, all of them were suffering and exhausted by their incessant labors. There had been no regular issue of rations for several days, and scarcely any means of cooking. The ammunition was nearly expended. We were completely invested by a force fully four times the strength of our own."
The decision to surrender having been made, it remained to determine by whom it should be made. Generals Floyd and Pillow declared they would not surrender and become prisoners; the duty was therefore allotted to General Buckner. Floyd said, "General Buckner, if I place you in command, will you allow me to draw out my brigade?" General Buckner replied, "Yes, provided you do so before the enemy act upon my communication." Floyd said, "General Pillow, I turn over the command.". General Pillow, regarding this as a mere technical form by which the command was to be conveyed to Buckner, then said, "I pass it." Buckner assumed the command, sent for a bugler to sound the parley, for pen, ink, and paper, and opened the negotiations for surrender.
There were but two roads by which it was possible for the garrison to retire. If they went by the upper road, they would certainly have to cut through the main body of the enemy; if by the lower road, they would have to wade through water three feet deep. This, the medical director stated, would be death to more than one half the command, on account of the severity of the weather and their physical prostration.
To cut through the enemy, if effected, would, it was supposed, involve the loss of three fourths of the command, a sacrifice which, it was conceded, would not be justifiable.
The enemy had, in the conflict of the preceding day, gained possession of our rifle-pits on the right flank, and General Buckner, an experienced soldier, held that the fort would immediately fall when the enemy attacked in the morning. General Pillow dissented from this conclusion, believing that the fort could be defended until boats could be obtained to convey the garrison across the river, and also advocated an attempt to cut through the investing lines of the enemy. Being overruled on both points, he announced his determination to leave the post by any means available, so as to escape a surrender, and he advised Colonel N. B. Forrest, who was present, to go out with his cavalry regiment, and any others he could take with him through the overflow. General Floyd's brigade consisted of two Virginia regiments and one Mississippi regiment; these, as before mentioned, it was agreed that General Floyd might withdraw before the surrender. Two of the field-officers, Colonel Russell and Major Brown, of the Mississippi regiment, the twentieth, had been officers of the First Mississippi Riflemen in the war with Mexico; and the twentieth, their present regiment, was reputed to be well instructed and under good discipline. This regiment was left to be surrendered with the rest of the garrison, under peculiar circumstances, of which Major Brown, then commanding, gives the following narrative:
"About twelve o'clock of the night previous to the surrender, I received an order to report in person at headquarters. On arriving I met Colonel N. B. Forrest, who remarked: 'I have been looking for you; they are going to surrender this place, and I wanted you with your command to go out with me, but they have other orders for you.' On entering the room. Generals Floyd and Pillow also informed me of the proposed proceedings. General Floyd ordered me to take possession of the steamboat-landing with my command; that he had reserved the right to remove his brigade; that, after having guarded the landing, my command should be taken aboard the boat; the Virginia regiments, first crossing to the other side of the river, could make their way to Clarksville.
"I proceeded at once with my command to the landing; there was no steamboat there, but I placed my regiment in a semicircular line so as to cover the landing-place. About daylight the steamer came down, landed, and was soon loaded with the two Virginia regiments, they passing through my ranks. At the same time the General and staff, or persons claiming to belong to the staff, passed aboard. The boat, being a small one, was considerably crowded. While the staging of the boat was being drawn aboard. General Floyd hallooed to me, from the 'hurricane-roof,' that he would cross the river with the troops aboard and return for my regiment. But, about the time of the departure of the boat, General S. B. Buckner came and asserted that he had turned over the garrison and all the property at sunrise; that, if the boat was not away immediately, he would be charged by the enemy with violating the terms of the surrender. I mention this incident as furnishing, I suppose, the reason why my regiment was left on the bank of the river.
"Sorrowfully I gave the necessary orders to stack arms and surrender. . . .
"Both morally and materially the disaster was a severe blow to us. Many, wise after the event, have shown their skill in telling what all knew afterward, but nobody told before."
[Footnote 7: "The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston," by his son.]