While the people rapturously shouted forth their joy at the signal success of our arms at Forts Henry and Donelson, they hardly comprehended the magnificent results of these victories. The strong positions of the rebels at Bowling Green and Columbus were flanked, and the enemy were compelled to evacuate them. The Gibraltar of the West, strengthened with so much labor and expense, could no longer be held, and its garrison was transferred to Island No. 10, down the river, leaving the Mississippi open to the northern line of Arkansas. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were also open, and the dreaded gunboats penetrated to the interior of the Confederacy. Nashville fell, and was speedily occupied by the national troops, while the rebel armies and the rebel legislature fled to safer localities.
At this period in Grant's eventful history, while he was beating down the rebel stronghold, General William T. Sherman stepped prominently upon the stage. He had rendered efficient service to Grant, as a subordinate of Halleck, in urging forward reënforcements, and after the victory warmly congratulated him. Grant replied in a feeling letter, in which he made use of this sentence, so characteristic of the man's motives: "I care nothing for promotion so long as our arms are successful, and no political appointments are made." They had been together one year at West Point, Sherman being graduated three years earlier than Grant; but in their mutual sympathy, appreciation, and kindness at this trying period of the war, really commenced the friendship of these two remarkable men. Before any brilliant lustre had been shed upon the name of either, they were united by a bond which no circumstances could weaken, and by an association so intimate and tender as to become the solace of each in the hour of adversity. It was certainly a poetical friendship, faithful and genuine, by which the nation, as well as the individuals themselves, have been benefited.
[CHAPTER XV.]
Wherein Captain Galligasken follows the illustrious Soldier through the Period of his temporary Disgrace and triumphant Vindication to the opening scenes at Shiloh.
The great strategic line of the rebels in the West had been broken; all its strong places had been taken or evacuated; and the network of railroads in Kentucky and Tennessee was in possession of the national troops. The new line of defence was along the railroad extending from Memphis on the Mississippi to Charleston on the Atlantic. As the rebels had fought for Nashville at Fort Donelson, and lost it, so they indicated their intention to fight for Memphis at Island No. 10.
It was of the utmost importance to the Confederacy that the new line of defence should be held, in order to control one of the principal means of communication with the Atlantic States, by which the army and the people were to be supplied with food. This line included several important railway junctions, from which roads extended down to New Orleans and Mobile. From Chattanooga a road passed through Eastern Tennessee, then in possession of the rebels, to Virginia, being the most direct route to Richmond; and another went to Atlanta, where lines diverged to the east, west, and south, by which all the southern and eastern cities of the Confederacy were reached.
The new defensive line was established, and strengthened with all the men and material which the resources of the Confederacy would admit. The ablest and most experienced generals in its service were sent to the command of the rebel armies there. The presence of both Albert Sidney Johnston and Beauregard attested the importance with which the rebel leaders regarded this line; for, driven from it, another move to the south would drive them down to within two hundred miles of the Gulf of Mexico. This line had now become the objective point of the Union generals in the West.
On the day following the surrender of Fort Donelson, General Grant issued his first order, taking command of the new military district of West Tennessee, whose limits, however, were not defined in his appointment by General Halleck. General Smith, whom Grant still regarded as his "right-hand man," and whom he had already strongly recommended for promotion to the rank of major general, was sent fifty miles up the Cumberland, to occupy Clarksville. The timid counsels of Halleck restrained and annoyed the commander of the new district. His superior was constantly prating about the risk of a general battle, and urging extreme caution.