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[52]
On the 16th, the day of the surrender, General Halleck's chief of staff cautioned Grant ‘not to be too rash,’ and Halleck's first dispatch after the fall of Fort Donelson was in these words: ‘Don't let gunboats go higher up than Clarksville.
Even then, they must limit their operations to the destruction of the bridge and railroad, and return immediately to Cairo, leaving one at Fort Donelson.
Mortar-boats to be sent back to Cairo as soon as possible.’
Halleck's whole share in the design or execution of this campaign, was confined to forwarding reenforcements , a duty which he performed with vigor and alacrity.1
The rebels, in official reports, again and again declared, that it was the assault on their right, ordered at the crisis of the battle, when both sides were so nearly exhausted, which turned the scale, and prevented them from cutting their way through the
1 It has been alleged that General Halleck planned the Donelson campaign, and is entitled to the credit of its conception; but it is only just to say that I never heard that General Halleck himself put forth any such claim.
New York Appleton 1885.
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