eir farther progress. On
the way two more steamers were seized, and three were set on fire by
the enemy as they approached Florence. Returning the same night, upon
information received that a Confederate camp was established at
Savannah, Tennessee, on the bank of the river, a party was landed,
which found the enemy gone, but seized or destroyed the camp equipage
and stores left behind. The expedition reached Cairo again on the
11th, bringing with it the Eastport and one other of the captured
steamers. The Eastport had been intended by the Confederates for a
gunboat, and was in process of conversion when captured. Lieutenant
Phelps reported her machinery in first-rate order and the boilers
dropped into the hold. Her hull had been sheathed with oak planking
and the bulkheads, forward, aft, and thwartships, were of oak and of
the best workmanship. Her beautiful model, speed, and manageable
qualities made her specially desirable for the Union fleet, and she
was taken into the service. Two years later she was sunk by torpedoes
in the Red River, and, though partially raised, it was found
impossible to bring her over the shoals that lay below her. She was
there blown up, her former captor and then commander, Lieutenant
Phelps, applying the match.

Lieutenant Phelps and his daring companions returned to Cairo just in
time to join Foote on his way to Fort Donelson. The attack upon this
position, which was much stronger than Fort Henry, was made against
the judgment of the flag-officer, who did not consider the fleet as
yet properly prepared. At the urgent request of Generals Halleck and
Grant, however, he steamed up the Cumberland River with three
ironclads and the wooden gunboats, the Carondelet having already, at
Grant's desire, moved round to Donelson.

Fort Donelson was on the left bank of the Cumberland, twelve miles
southeast of Fort Henry. The main work was on a bluff about a hundred
feet high, at a bend commanding the river below. On the slope of the
ridge, looking down stream, were two water batteries, with which alone
the fleet had to do. The lower and principal one mounted eight
32-pounders and a X-inch columbiad; in the upper there were two
32-pounder carronades and one gun of the size of a X-inch smooth-bore,
but rifled with the bore of a 32-pounder and said to throw a shot of
one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. Both batteries were excavated in
the hillside, and the lower had traverses between the guns to protect