Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

These operations alarmed and perplexed the Confederates, and so puzzled the newspaper correspondents with the armies, that the wildest speculations about the intentions of Halleck and Buell, and the most ridiculous criticisms of their doings, filled the public journals. These speculations were made more unsatisfactory and absurd by the movements of General Thomas, immediately after the Battle of Mill Spring, who, it was then believed by the uninformed, was to be the immediate liberator of East Tennessee. He had crossed the Cumberland River in force, after the battle of Mill Spring, at the head of navigation at Waitsboro, and had pushed a column on toward Cumberland Gap. Predictions of glorious events in the great valley between the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains were freely offered and believed; but the hopes created by these were speedily blasted. The movement was only a feint to deceive the Confederates, and was successful. To save East Tennessee from the grasp of Thomas, Johnston sent a large body of troops by railway from Bowling Green by way of Nashville and Chattanooga to Knoxville, and when the Confederate force was thus weakened in front of Buell, Thomas was recalled. The latter turned back, marched westward, and joined Nelson at Glassgow, in Barren County, on Hardee's right flank. In the mean time, Mitchel, with his reserves that formed Buell's center, had moved toward the Green River in the direction of Bowling Green. These developments satisfied Johnston that Buell was concentrating his forces to attack his front, so he called in his outlying posts as far as prudence would allow, and prepared

The combined movements of the army and navy against Forts Henry and Donelson, arranged by Generals Grant and C. F. Smith,¹ and Commodore Foote, and approved by General Halleck, were now commenced. The chief object was to break the line of the Confederates, which, as we have observed, had been established with care and skill across the country from the Great River to the mountains; also to gain possession of their strongholds, and to flank those at Columbus and Bowling Green, in the movement for clearing the Mississippi River and valley of all warlike obstructions. Fort Henry, lying on a low bottom land on the eastern or righ tbank of the Tennessee River, in Stewart County, Tennessee, was to be the first object of attack. It lay at a bend of that stream, and its guns commanded a reach of the river below it toward Panther Island, for about two miles, in a direct line. The fort was an irregular field-work, with five bastions, the embrasures revetted with sand-bags. It was armed with seventeen heavy guns, twelve of which commanded the river. Both above and below the fort was a