e second division. The first, under the
command of Colonel Cook, was composed of the Seventh Illinois, Twelfth
Iowa, Thirteenth Missouri, and Fifty-second Indiana.

Colonel Lauman commanded the second brigade, composed of the Second,
Seventh, Fourteenth, and Twenty-eighth Iowa regiments, the Fifty-second
Indiana, and Colonel Birges's regiment of sharpshooters.

The third brigade, commanded by Colonel Morgan L. Smith, was composed of
the Eighth Missouri and Eleventh Indiana.

Major Cavender's regiment of Missouri artillery was attached to this
division, composed of three full batteries,--Captain Richardson's,
Captain Stone's, and Captain Walker's.

The Fourth Illinois cavalry and three or four companies of cavalry were
distributed among the brigades.

Colonel Birges's sharpshooters were picked men, who had killed many
bears, deer, and wolves in the Western woods. They could take unerring
aim, and bring down a squirrel from the top of the highest trees. They
wore gray uniforms of felt, with close-fitting skull-caps, and
buffalo-skin knapsacks, and a powder-horn. They were swift runners. Each
man carried a whistle. They had signal-calls for advancing, or
retreating, or moving to the right or the left. They glided through the
forests like fleet-footed deer, or crept as stealthily as an Indian
along the ravines and through the thickets. They were tough, hearty,
daring, courageous men. They thought it no great hardship to march all
day, and lie down beside a log at night without supper. They wanted no
better fun than to creep through the underbrush and pick off the Rebels,
whirling in an instant upon their backs after firing a shot, to reload
their rifles. Although attached to Lauman's brigade, they were expected
in battle to go where they could do the most service.

As you go up the Cumberland River, and approach the town of Dover, you
see a high hill on the west bank. It is crowned with an embankment of
earth, which runs all round the top with many angles. At the foot of the
hill are two other embankments, fifteen or twenty feet above the water.
There are seventeen heavy guns in these works. Two of them throw long
bolts of iron, weighing one hundred and twenty-eight pounds, but most of
the guns are thirty-two-pounders.

If you go into the batteries and into the fort, and run your eye along
the guns, you will see that all of them can be aimed at a gunboat in the
river. They all point straight down stream, and a concen