376

GEN. PILLOW "RETIRED."

eral Buckner accepted the command, and sent a flag of truce to the enemy for an armistice of six hours, to negotiate for terms of capitulation. Before this flag and communication were delivered, I retired from the garrison."

CHAPTER XII. ·

RESULTS OF THE VICTORIES-BATTLE OF SHILO -OPERATIONS OF GEN. MITCHELL.

Clarksville and Nashville Occupied-Dread of the Gun-Boats-Rebels Concentrate at Corinth-Federal Expedition-Concentrated at Columbia and Pittsburg Landing-The Respective Forces - Was there a Surprise?-The Battle of Sunday-The Gun-Boats - Monday's Battle-The Retreat-Losses Operations of Gen. Mitchell.

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The fall of Fort Donelson was followed, the same evening, by an advance of the gun-boat St. Louis, up the Cumberland toward Clarksville, situated on the river, about thirty miles above. On the way, they destroyed the Tennessee Iron Works, in which John Bell was a large proprietor, and which had been engaged in manufacturing iron for the Confederates. The St. Louis was followed, on the 19th, by Com. Foote, with the gun-boats Canestoga and Cairo, with which, on the afternoon of the same day, he reached and occupied Clarksville, without opposition.

The rebels abandoned the town, and the works erected for its defence, burned the expensive railroad bridge over the Cumberland, at this point, and fell back, panic-stricken, upon Nashville, in the vicinity of which it was believed they would make a stand. Clarksville was occupied by a sufficient force, and preparations were made for a further advance.

The sudden and unexpected reduction of the rebel barriers -Forts Henry and Donelson,-on which they had relied to completely blockade the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, produced in their armies, and among their people, violent terror. Nothing was now in the way of an advance into the

378

NASHVILLE EVACUATED.

heart of Tennessee and Northern Alabama, of those monsters of terror, the iron gun-boats, or of the advance of the Federal forces. The rebel army, now under the command of Gen. A. Sidney Johnson, retreating, by forced marches, from Bowling Green, passed through Nashville on the same day that the anxious and frightened people received intelligence of the fall of Donelson, and Gens. Buell and Mitchell were following closely in their rear.

Gen. Johnson retired to Murfreesboro, leaving the renegade Floyd to direct the future operations in Nashville. As soon as he received information that the Federal gun-boats had passed Clarksville, he directed his engineers to destroy the two beautiful bridges that spanned the Cumberland, one a railroad bridge, of wood, with an immense draw of two hundred and eighty feet, and two stationary spans, each two hundred feet. This bridge was finished in 1859, at a cost of $240,000. The other, a wire suspension bridge, of more than seven hundred feet span, and one hundred and ten feet above the water. It was begun in 1850, and cost about $100,000.

On Monday, the 24th, Floyd and his Staff left for Murfreesboro, and on the same evening Gens. Buell and Mitchell arrived at Edgefield, a village on the opposite side of the river from Nashville. There they were met by a committee of the prominent citizens, including the Mayor, the result of which was the formal surrender of the city..

Troops were rapidly concentrated at Nashville, which was made the base for further offensive operations. Little further resistance was made by the insurgents, to the occupation of Tennessee by the Federal forces. The gun-boats swept away all opposition from the borders of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, and the forces of Generals Grant, and Buell, and Mitchell, were crowding the enemy upon the line of the Memphis and Charleston rail road, and it soon became manifest that they intended to make a stand at Corinth, which place

380

ADVANCE TOWARDS PITTSBURGH.

they were said to be strongly fortifying, and supplying largely with stores. Gen. Beauregard, then in command, had selected Corinth as the most feasible point at which to defend Memphis, from which it is distant ninety-three miles. Here, it was represented, he posted some forty heavy guns, a great number of field batteries, and constructed extensive redoubts, abatis, rifle-pits, and other defensive works.

As early as the 6th of March, the expedition commanded by Gen. Grant, began to leave Fort Henry, Paducah and Cairo, for Savannah, Tenn., and vicinity. There were five divisions under the respective commands of Generals Sherman, Hurlburt, McClernand, Lew. Wallace, and Paducah Smith. The men were embarked on fifty-seven transports; two gunboats, the Tyler and Lexington, accompanying the expedition. The flotilla was the largest and most imposing of any ever seen on the inland waters of this continent.

Within a few days after the departure of the advance of this army, the entire division had concentrated at Savannah and Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee river, and prepared for active movements. The bridge crossing the Mobile and Ohio rail road at Purdy, Tenn., was destroyed, and the track for some distance torn up by Federal troops, on the 13th of March. This was intended to cut off communication with Jackson, Tenn., which is the point of rail road communicatior with the Northern division for Columbus, &c. Here a division of the enemy under Cheatham, were supposed to be concentrating.

About the 25th of March, Gen. Lew. Wallace, with fifteen thousand men, proceeded to Florence, Ala., and destroyed the communication on the Memphis and Charleston road, at Tuscumbia, on the opposite side of the river. Thus the enemy, who were supposed to be at Decatur and eastward, composing the retreating party from Nashville-were cut off from communication with Beauregard at Corinth.