Had Grant
been able to strike on the eighth of February, the day he had wired to
Halleck he would capture the fort, its fall would have been sure. But
high water delayed him, and Albert Sidney Johnston hastened to pour in
reenforcements. Every available soldier at his command was rushed to the
rescue. He determined to fight for Nashville at Donelson. General
Buckner's command of Kentuckians, General Pillow's Tennesseeans and
General Floyd's brigade of Virginia troops were all poured into the fort
before the thirteenth. This force, approximating twenty thousand men,
properly commanded should hold Donelson indefinitely.
The fortification was magnificently placed on a bluff commanding
the river for two miles. Its batteries consisted of eight
thirty-two-pounders, three thirty-two-pound carronades, one ten-inch
Columbiad and one thirty-two-pounder rifle. A line of entrenchments
stretched for two miles around the fort enclosing it.
Into these trenches the newly arrived troops were thrown.
Dick Welford, with Floyd's Virginians, gripped his musket with eager
enthusiasm for his first real battle. His separation from Jennie had
been a bitter trial. In his eagerness to get to the front he had the
misfortune to serve in the ill fated campaign in West Virginia, which
preceded Bull Run.
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