The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign

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Synopsis:
The four, as they skirted the Southern line, noticed no signs of further preparations by the Confederates. No men were throwing up earthworks or digging trenches. As well as they could surmise, the garrison, like the besieging army, was seeking shelter and rest, and from this fact the keen mind of Colonel Arthur Winchester divined that the defense was confused and headless. Colonel Winchester knew most of the leaders within Donelson. He knew that Pillow was not of a strong and decided nature. Nor was Floyd, who would rank first, of great military capacity. Buckner had talent and he had served gallantly in the Mexican War, but he could not prevail over the others. The fame of Forrest, the Tennessee mountaineer, was already spreading, but a cavalryman could do little for the defense of a fort besieged by twenty thousand well equipped men, led by a general of unexcelled resolution. All that Colonel Winchester surmised was true. Inside the fort confusion and doubt reigned. The fleeing garrison from Fort Henry had brought exaggerated reports of Grant's army. Very few of the thousands of young troops had ever been in battle before. They, too, suffered though in a less degree from cold and fatigue, but many were wounded. Pillow and Floyd, who had just arrived with his troops, talked of one thing and then another. Floyd, who might have sent word to his valiant and able chief, Johnston, did not take the trouble or forgot to inform him of his position. Buckner wanted to attack Grant the next morning with the full Southern strength, and a comrade of his on old battlefields, Colonel George Kenton, seconded him ably. The black-bearded Forrest strode back and forth, striking the tops of his riding boots with a small riding whip, and saying ungrammatically, but tersely and emphatically: "We mustn't stay here like hogs in a pen. We must git at 'em with all our men afore they can git at us." The illiterate mountaineer and stock driver had evolved exactly the same principle of war that Napoleon used.