ly so about the Green river country.

CHAPTER VI.

In the latter part of January, 1862, it became evident that General
Johnson, with the inferior force at his disposal, could not hold his
line in Kentucky. Crittenden, upon the right flank, had sustained a
serious disaster at Mill Springs, near Somerset, and had been forced
back across the Cumberland, which he had crossed to attack Thomas. In
this battle General Zollicoffer was killed--his death was in itself an
irreparable loss. Crittenden retreated first upon Monticello and
subsequently to Gainesville in Tennessee. He lost his artillery and
trains, and his troops could be relied on to oppose no effective
resistance--for the time--to the farther advance of the enemy. The
superiority of the latter in numbers had been not more marked than their
superiority in arms and equipment. The fatigue and privation endured by
Crittenden's men upon their retreat had contributed greatly to impair
their efficiency. The expeditions against Forts Henry and Donelson were
vigorously pressed, and scarcely had full confirmation arrived of the
defeat of Crittenden, when we got the first rumors of the fall of Fort
Henry. General Johnson had never been able to collect at all the points
of defense in Kentucky, exclusive of Columbus, more than twenty-four
thousand men. In this force were included sixty-days' men and all the
minor garrisons. He had at Bowlinggreen in January and the first of
February about ten thousand.

Buell had organized, during the period that the two armies lay inactive
and confronting each other, fifty or sixty thousand men, and they were,
at the time when General Johnson commenced his retreat, concentrated,
mobilized, and ready to fall upon him. Therefore, even before it became
evident that Donelson must fall, before the capture of Nashville was
imminent, by an enemy moving from either flank, and before his line of
retreat was endangered, but just so soon as Buell put his army in motion
General Johnson evacuated Bowlinggreen. Then began the campaign, in
which more than in any other of the war, was displayed the profoundest
strategy, the most heroic decision, the highest order of generalship.

General Johnson had long foreseen the storm of difficulties which now
assailed him. His resources were scanty and the emergency was terrible,
but he did not despair of fighting through it to victory. Upon one flank
of his line, he had sustained a crushing defeat, the forces