Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[490] Several of the batteries near the water had been abandoned, while only a few out of the twenty guns which commanded the river were still served; and if Foote had been able to avail himself of this momentary silence to reascend the river, he could have reached a place whence, by enfilading the positions of the enemy, he would have rendered them untenable. But at this critical moment his two best gun-boats were disabled by two successful shots, which shattered the rudder of one and one of the wheels of the other, and both were soon carried far away from the scene of action by the force of the current. The other two, not being able to sustain the contest alone, were drawn off by Foote. The Federal navy was taught to appreciate the difficulties it would encounter on the large rivers wherever the enemy should be skilful enough to take advantage with his fire of the nature of the ground.

The fruitless attacks of the 13th and 14th by land and sea had shown that if the enemy knew how to defend the positions he occupied, it would be necessary to resort to regular operations. As soon as Grant saw the gun-boats disabled by the fire of the Confederate batteries, he determined to lay siege to the place, thinking that the very slowness of the operation would render success more certain by giving time for the arrival of the numerous reinforcements which had been promised him.

In the mean time, notwithstanding the double check experienced by the Federals, there was nothing but trouble and confusion in the Confederate camp, especially in the councils of their leaders. They had suffered less from cold than their adversaries, inasmuch as the troops who were not doing guard-duty in the works were quartered in well-sheltered barracks. But the Federal artillery kept up, day and night, a regular fire of shells, which, without doing them much damage, worried them extremely. The fugitive garrison of Fort Henry, far from gathering courage on finding itself near the fresh troops assembled at Fort Donelson, had, on the contrary, shaken the confidence of the latter by exaggerating the number of the Federal forces. In short, the soldiers, with that instinct which governs them everywhere, had soon felt that they were not properly handled, and