level piece of ground, but ascend another ridge. It is not as high as
the ridge along which you have travelled to take a view of the works.
The slope of this outer ridge runs down to a meadow. The Rebels have cut
down the tall trees, and made a line of rifle-pits. The logs are piled
one above another, as the backwoodsman builds a log-fence. There is a
space five or six inches wide between the upper log and the one below
it. They have dug a trench behind, and the dirt is thrown outside.

The Rebel riflemen can lie in the trench, and fire through the space
between the logs upon the Union troops if they attempt to advance upon
the works. You look down this outer slope. It is twenty rods to the
bottom, and it is covered with fallen trees. You think it almost
impossible to climb over such a hedge and such obstructions. You see a
cleared field at the base of the hill, and a farm-house beyond the
field, on the Fort Henry road, which is General Grant's head-quarters.
The whole country is broken into hills, knolls, and ridges. It reminds
you of the waves you have seen on the ocean or on the lakes in a storm.

General Floyd, who was Secretary of War under Buchanan, and who stole
all the public property he could lay his hands on while in office,
commanded the Rebel forces. He arrived on the 13th. General Pillow and
Brigadier-General Johnson were placed in command of the troops on the
Rebel left wing west of the town. General Buckner commanded those in the
vicinity of the fort. General Floyd had the Third, Tenth, Eighteenth,
Twenty-sixth, Thirtieth, Thirty-second, Forty-first, Forty-second,
Forty-Eighth, Forty-ninth, Fiftieth, Fifty-first, and Fifty-third
regiments of Tennessee troops, the Second and Eighth Kentucky, the
First, Third, Fourth, Fourteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-sixth
Mississippi regiments, the Seventh Texas, Fifteenth and Twenty-seventh
Alabama, the Thirty-sixth, Fiftieth, Fifty-first, and Fifty-sixth
Virginia, also two battalions of Tennessee infantry, and a brigade of
cavalry. He had Murray's, Porter's, Graves's, Maney's, Jackson's, Guy's,
Ross's, and Green's batteries, in all about twenty-three thousand men,
with forty-eight pieces of field artillery, and seventeen heavy guns in
the fort and water-batteries.

General Grant knew but little of the ground, or the fortifications, or
of the Rebel forces, but he pushed boldly on.

On the morning of the 12th the troops left their bivouac, where they had
enjoyed thei