Floyd offered to take Dick Welford on board the little steamer.
"No, thank you," the young Virginian answered curtly.
"You prefer to surrender?"
"I'm not going to surrender. I'm going to join Col. Forrest's cavalry and fight my way out."
With a wave of his arm Floyd hurried on board the steamer and fled to Nashville.
Dick had seen Forrest lead one of his matchless charges of cavalry in their fight that day. With a handful of men he had cut his way through a solid mass of struggling infantry and thrown them into confusion.
He had watched this grave, silent, unobtrusive man of humble birth and little education with the keenest interest. He felt instinctively that he was a man of genius. From to-day he knew that as a leader of cavalry he had few equals. He had pointed out to his superiors in their council of war a possible path of escape by a road partially overflowed along the river banks. It was judged impracticable.
In the darkness of the freezing night Dick rode behind his silent new commander along this road with perfect faith. Forrest threw his command into Nashville and saved the city from anarchy when the dreaded news of the fall of Donelson precipitated a panic.
The South had met her first crushing defeat—a defeat more disastrous than the North had suffered at Bull Ran. Grant had lost three thousand men but the Confederate garrisons had been practically wiped out with the loss of more than fifteen thousand muskets, every big gun and thirteen thousand prisoners of war.
When Grant met Buckner, the victor and vanquished quietly shook hands. They had been friends at West Point.