James D. Porter, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, Tennessee
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

General Polk had under his command, in November, twenty-one regiments of infantry, eight field batteries, one battery of siege guns, two battalions, and six unattached companies of cavalry, all divided into three divisions, commanded, respectively, by General Pillow, General Cheatham and Col. John S. Bowen. The latter was at Camp Beauregard, fifteen miles distant. The Thirteenth Arkansas, Col. J. C. Tappan, Beltzhoover's Louisiana battery of six guns, and two troops of cavalry belonging to the Mississippi battalion commanded by Col. J. H. Miller, were stationed at Belmont, Mo., on the Mississippi river, opposite Columbus.

On the morning of the 7th of November, 1861, General Grant, with two brigades of infantry, consisting of five regiments and two troops of cavalry, in all 3,114 men, under cover of two gunboats, debarked from transports on the Missouri shore, above Belmont, at a point just out of range of Polk's batteries, and moved in line of battle In the direction of the camp of Colonel Tappan. General Polk, advised of the landing of the forces under Grant, ordered Brigadier-General Pillow to cross the river with the Twelfth Tennessee, Col. R. M. Russell; the Thirteenth Tennessee, Col. John V. Wright; the Twenty-first Tennessee, Col. Ed. Pickett, Jr., and the Twenty-second Tennessee, Col. T. J. Freeman. Very soon the Second Tennessee, Col. J. Knox Walker, and the Fifteenth Tennessee, Lieut.-Col. R. C. Tyler commanding, joined General Pillow, and with Tappan's regiment and Beltzhoover's battery, and the two companies of cavalry commanded by Capt. A. J. Bowles and Lieut. L. Jones, made General Pillow's strength slightly in excess of the Federal troops. Making his dispositions to receive Grant's attack, skirmishers were hotly engaged immediately afterward and were soon forced back on the main line.

General Grant's first battle was on; it was fierce and well fought, and according to General Pillow's official report, continued for four hours. In General Grant's