nted with hardships, reared to rough life ... but it
is by no means certain that they will not be quite as effective in the
field. The troops here are a splendid set of men, all of them
young.... There is more bone and muscle here, but less culture ... I
have heard far less profanity here than on the Potomac, among officers
and men." He believed there were fewer profane words used and less
whiskey drunk than among the troops in the East. There was not as much
attention paid to neatness and camp hygiene.

It was at Cairo that Carleton made the personal acquaintance, which he
retained until their death, of General Ulysses S. Grant and Commodore
Foote. The latter had already made a superb reputation as a naval
officer in Africa and China. Before Foote was able to equip and start
his fleet, or Grant could move his army southward, on what proved to
be their resistless march, Carleton made journeys into Kentucky, wrote
letters from Cincinnati and Chicago, and arrived back in time to join
General Grant's column. He went down the river, seeing the victorious
battle and siege operations. First from Cairo, and then from Fort
Donelson, he penned brilliant and accurate accounts of the capture of
Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, which opened the Southern Confederacy to
the advance of the Union army. While Grant beat the rebels, Carleton
beat his fellow correspondents, even though he had first to spend
many hours among the wounded. The newspaper men from New York had
poked not a little fun at the "Boston man," chaffing him because they
thought the New England newspapers "slow" and "out of date in
methods." They fully expected that Carleton's despatches would be far
behind theirs in point of time as well as in general value. Their
boasting was sadly premature. Carleton beat them all, and their
humiliation was great.

The matter was in this wise. He had hoped by taking the first boat
from Fort Donelson to Cairo to find time to write out an account of
the siege and surrender of the great fortresses; but during his travel
of one hundred and eighty miles on the river, the steamer had in its
cabin and staterooms two hundred maimed soldiers and officers with
their wounds undressed. Instead of occupation with ink-bottle, pen,
and paper, Carleton found himself giving water to the wounded, and
holding the light for surgeons and nurses. Then, knowing that no other
correspondent had the exact and copious information possessed by
himself, he took