There is disagreement as to the number of guns captured. There were thirteen in the water-batteries and eight in the fort. Besides, there were eight artillery companies, whose field-pieces were disposed in nine positions along the line of intrenchments. Six of these companies were those of Maney, Porter, Graves, Green, Guy, Jackson. The other two are called Ross and Murray in the account in the Nashville Patriot, and called Parker and French on the pen-sketch of the works showing the position of the light batteries, found among the Confederate records. The number of pieces in these batteries is not given. Badeau gives the number of guns surrendered at sixty-five, and no reason is seen why that is not correct.
There is no means of determining with any precision the number of the garrison. General Grant, on the day of the surrender, reported the number of prisoners taken as twelve to fifteen thousand. Badeau says the number captured was 14,623; and that rations were issued at Cairo to that number of prisoners taken at Fort Donelson. According to a report or estimate made by Major Johnson, of the first Mississippi, and found among his papers in Mississippi in 1864, the number "engaged" was 15,246, and the number surrendered 11,738. General Floyd gives no estimate. General Pillow, in his brief to the Secretary of War of the Confederacy, defending himself from charges, gives thirteen thousand as about the number engaged in the defence; while General Buckner, in a report made after he was exchanged, says the aggregate of the army within the works was never greater than twelve thousand. An estimate published in the Nashville Patriot soon after the surrender makes the number engaged 13,829.
Major Brown's estimate was evidently the most deliberate and careful, yet it is not free from error. It is not accurate in the number of casualties. The regimental reports made after the surrender are not numerous, but they present some means of testing Major Brown's estimate. According to that estimate, the Eighth Kentucky lost 19 killed and 41 wounded; according to the official report of Colonel Simonton, commanding the brigade, the loss of the Eighth Kentucky was 27 killed and 72 wounded. According to Major Brown's estimate, two of the Virginia regiments lost none killed or wounded, and the aggregate of the loss of the four regiments was 13 killed and 113 wounded; according to the brigade reports, every regiment lost both killed and wounded, the aggregate being 41 killed and 166 wounded. Major Brown's estimate omits the Kentucky cavalry battalion of three companies. It names also only seven artillery companies, while the Nashville Patriot's account and the memorandum on the manuscript plan of the intrenchments name eight. This estimate is also incomplete. It gives only the number engaged belonging to regiments and companies, and thereby excludes brigade and division commanders, and their staff and enlisted men at their headquarters; it also excludes the "four hundred raw troops" (the reports give them no other designation) who arrived too late to be engaged, but in time to be surrendered; and the estimate being only of those engaged, excludes sick, special duty men, and all except the muskets and sabres present for duty in the works. Such an estimate of "effective" or "engaged" is no basis for a statement of the number surrendered. The morning report of Colonel Bailey's regiment, the Forty-ninth Tennessee, for January 14th, was 680 effectives out of an aggregate of 777. His last morning report before the surrender was 393 effectives out of an aggregate of 773. Major Brown's estimate gives this regiment 372 engaged. Colonel Bailey's morning report of those present with him on the way from Donelson to Cairo, which included none from hospitals, was, officers and men, 490.
There is no report of trustworthy accuracy, giving either the aggregate or the effective strength. Ten thousand five hundred prisoners were put into the charge of Colonel Whittlesey, of the Twentieth Ohio; of which number he sent north, guarded by his own regiment, about six thousand three hundred; another, but much smaller body, was put into the hands of Colonel Sweeney. Besides these, were the wounded and sick in hospital, in camp, and some left on the field. Colonel Whittlesey, at the time, estimated the entire number taken charge of, including sick and wounded, at 13,000. General Floyd said that the boats which carried across and up the river his four Virginia regiments, took at the same time about as many other troops; and he says he took up the river with him 986, officers and men, of the four Virginia regiments. Pillow reported, on March 14th, that several thousand infantry had got out in one way or other, many of whom were at that time with him at Decatur, Ala., and the rest under orders to rendezvous there. They continued slipping out after the surrender. General B.R. Johnson, on the Tuesday after the surrender, not having reported or been enrolled as a prisoner, walked with a fellow-officer out of the intrenchments at mid-day, and, not being challenged, continued beyond the National camps and escaped. The accounts of the escape by boat with Floyd, on horse with Forrest, and by parties slipping out by day and by night through the forest and undergrowth and the devious ravines, fairly show that 5,000 must have escaped. There was scarcely a regiment or battery, if, indeed, there was a single regiment or battery, from which some did not escape. Eleven hundred and thirty-four wounded were sent up the river by boat the evening before the surrender, and General Pillow estimated the killed at over four hundred and fifty. This accounts for an aggregate of over nineteen thousand five hundred, sufficiently near the estimate of nineteen thousand six hundred—the number in the place during the siege, and the additional four hundred, who arrived only in time to be surrendered.
General Floyd surmised the killed and wounded to be fifteen hundred. Pillow estimated them at two thousand. The National loss was, in McClernand's division, 1,445 killed and wounded, and 74 missing; in C.F. Smith's division, 306 killed, 1,045 wounded, and 167 missing; and in Lewis Wallace's division, 39 killed, 248 wounded, and 5 missing—making an aggregate of 3,329 killed, wounded, and missing. General Grant sat down before the place Wednesday the 12th, at noon, with 15,000 men, and with that number closed in upon the works and made vigorous assaults next day. Reinforcements began to arrive at the landing Thursday evening, and when the place surrendered his army had grown by reinforcements to twenty-seven thousand. Grant had no artillery but the eight field-batteries which he brought over from Fort Henry to Donelson. These were not fixed in position and protected by earthworks, but were moved from place to place and used as batteries in the field.
The defensive line from Columbus to Bowling Green, broken by the capture of Fort Henry, was now shattered. General A.S. Johnston evacuated Bowling Green on February 14th, and on the 17th and 18th moved with the main body of his troops from Nashville to Murfreesboro. The rear-guard left Nashville on the night of the 23d, and the advance of Buell's army appeared next morning on the opposite bank of the river. Columbus was evacuated shortly after. The National authority was re-established over the whole of Kentucky, the State of Tennessee was opened to the advance of both army and fleet, and the Mississippi was cleared down to Island Number Ten.
General Halleck telegraphed on February 17th, the day after the surrender, to General McClellan: "Make Buell, Grant, and Pope major-generals of volunteers, and give me command in the West. I ask this in return for Donelson and Henry." Next day, the 18th, he telegraphed to General Hunter, commanding the Department of Kansas, thanking him for his aid in sending troops; and to Grant, ordering him not to let the gunboats go up higher than Clarksville, whence they must return to Cairo immediately upon the destruction of the bridge and railroad. On the 19th he telegraphed to Washington: "Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson, when the battle was against us, turned the tide and carried the enemy's outworks. Make him a major-general. You cannot get a better one. Honor him for this victory, and the whole country will applaud." On the 20th he telegraphed to McClellan, "I must have command of the armies in the West. Hesitation and delay are losing us the golden opportunity." Upon the receipt in Washington of the news of the surrender of Fort Donelson, the President at once appointed Grant major-general, and the Senate immediately confirmed the appointment. Buell and Pope shortly after received the same promotion. Later, in March, C.F. Smith, McClernand, and Lewis Wallace were confirmed to the same rank. On March 11th, General Halleck was assigned to the command of the Department of the Mississippi, embracing all the troops west of a line drawn north and south indefinitely through Knoxville, Tenn., and east of the western boundary of Arkansas and Missouri. On February 15th, Grant had been assigned to the command of the Military District of Tennessee, the limits of which were not defined, and General W.T. Sherman succeeded to the command of the District of Cairo.
CHAPTER IV.
NEW MADRID AND ISLAND NUMBER TEN.