T DONELSON.

The effect of the victory upon the country was electric. The public
joy was unbounded. General Grant had become in a day the hero of
the war. His fame was on every tongue. The initials of his name
were seized upon by the people for rallying-cries of patriotism,
and were woven into songs for the street and for the camp. He was
"Unconditional Surrender," he was "United States," he was "Uncle
Sam." Not himself only but his State was glorified. It was an
Illinois victory. No less than thirty regiments from that State
were in General Grant's command, and they had all won great credit.
This fact was especially pleasing to Mr. Lincoln. Indiana, Iowa,
Missouri, and Kentucky were all gallantly represented on the field,
but the prestige of the day belonged to Illinois. Many of her
public men, prominent in political life before and since the war,
were in command of regiments. The moral force of the victory was
increased by the fact that so large a proportion of these prominent
officers had been, like General Grant, connected with the Democratic
party,--thus adding demonstration to assurance that it was an
uprising of a people in defense of their government, and not merely
the work of a political party seeking to extirpate slavery. John
A. Logan, Richard J. Oglesby, William R. Morrison, and William Pitt
Kellogg were among the Illinois officers who shared in the renown
of the victory. General Lewis Wallace commanded a division made
up of Indiana and Kentucky troops, and was honorably prominent.
The total force under General Grant was nearly fifty regiments,
furnishing about twenty-eight thousand men for duty. They had
captured the strongest Confederate intrenchment in the West, manned
by nearly seventeen thousand men. The defeat was a great mortification
to Jefferson Davis. He communicated intelligence of the disaster
to the Confederate Congress in a curt message in which he described
the official reports of the battle as "incomplete and unsatisfactory,"
and stated that he had relieved Generals Floyd and Pillow from
command.

Two important results followed the victory. The strong fortifications
erected at Columbus, Kentucky, to control the passage of the
Mississippi, were abandoned by the Confederates; and Nashville,
the capital of Tennessee, was surrendered to the Union army without
resistance. The Confederate force at the latter point was under
command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, who, unabl