als for arms to
the Governors of Georgia and Alabama, to General Bragg at Pensacola and
to the Government at Richmond. He asked for thirty thousand muskets and
got but one thousand. The guns were not in the South. They could not be
manufactured. Fully one-half his men had no arms at all. Whole brigades
remained without weapons for months. The entire force at his command
never numbered more than twenty-two thousand during this perilous fall.
And yet, by the masterly handling of his little army, its frequent and
rapid expeditions, he kept his powerful opponents in constant
expectations of an attack and produced the impression that he commanded
an enormous force.

In the meantime the sensational newspapers were loud in their demands.

The Richmond yellow Journal shouted:

"Let Johnston muster his forces, advance into Kentucky, capture
Louisville, push across the Ohio and carry the war into Africa."

Swift and terrible the blow fell.

And always the navy's smoke on the horizon. From the Ohio, the Tennessee
and Cumberland rivers could be navigated for hundreds of miles into
Tennessee and Alabama. But two forts guarded the rivers and protected
these States.

Early in February, 1862, the gunboats under Admiral Foote slowly steamed
up the Tennessee and attacked Fort Henry. The array they covered was
commanded by General Grant. The Federal fleet and army hurled twenty
thousand men and fifty-four cannon against the little fort of eleven
guns. With but forty men General Tilghman fought this host and held them
at bay for two hours and ten minutes, until the main body of his
garrison of twenty-five hundred troops had marched out and were safely
on their way to Fort Donelson, twelve miles across the country on the
banks of the Cumberland. Fort Henry was of small importance. Fort
Donelson commanded the approach to Nashville.

There was not a moment's delay. Grant telegraphed Halleck that he would
capture Fort Donelson two days later. Admiral Foote sent three light
gunboats up the Tennessee to clear the river into Alabama, swept down
stream with his heavier craft to the Ohio and turned into the
Cumberland. Grant pressed directly across the strip of twelve miles
with his army bearing on Fort Donelson.

The commander at Fort Donelson had at first but six thousand men
including the garrison from Fort Henry which had just arrived. Had Grant
been able to strike on the eighth of February, the day he had wired to
Halleck he would ca