The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1868-03-12
General Grant at Fort Donaldson.

The New York World, having been
provoked thereto, has instituted a Eistor-
ical examination into some of the military
exploits of General Grant. 1t shows up
his doings at Fort DOnelson as follows,
backing up its report by extracts from the
most approved official and Radical au-
thorities
Perhaps the time has not yet come when
that achievement can be estimated with the
cool impartiality of history; but the
friends of General Grant, by inviting
public attention to it anew, will cause lis
merits to be discussed, and discussion, in
the present ripe state of information, will
contribute to a Just and enlightened iudg-
meEt. Occasions will arise for estimating
the other parts of General Grants militia
ry career: and as this is his first great
success in the order Of time, as well as
the most brilliant of them all in the opin-
ion of his admirers, it fitly enough intro
duces the general discussion.
What the public recollection fastens
upon In that really important achievement,
lie not any brilliant stroke of strategy, but
the spirited sentence in General Grants
reply TO the rebel General Buckner, which
is repeated by Senator Morgan, and was
held up as comprising the essence of all
true strategy, or rather as the all suflicing
substitute for strategy, by Secretary Stan
ton, 81 propose to nlOUe immediately upon
yOur lcorkS." As the penning of this
vigorous reply is the most memorable
thing done by Gen. Grant in the seige of
Fort Donelson, we are obliged to estimate
its merits, which, SO far as it has any,
must consist in its soldier like intrep;dlty
and vigor. This is a merit which depends
on circumstances rising with the difficult
ty and danger of carrying such a menace
into execution, and sinking to nothing if
there neither is, nor is supposed 10 be, any
difficulty to be confronted or considerable
obstacle TO be overcome. Now, in point
of fact, General Grant knew all that had
taken place in the rebel camp the preced~
ing night. Il circumstance stated by Mr.
Greeley in his american ConAicl'' CON
ciusively shows, not that this was not a
fit reply to be made (for it was eminently
! fit), but that it is no evidence of or atness
OF spirit or superior military vi.cr. N:r
Greeley shall state this d ssuchanting cir
cums'a ice in his own language: ''Dum5
the night, q negro had escaped from the rebel
l1'eS, and givea our leaders hen first cle,u'
in formation Of tie straits Of tie enemy, Gen
erat Grant icaS therefore not surprised at re-
ceiring, about daylight, the follouiag ove,'-
tire" General Grant knew that General
Floyd, the rebel commander, and General
Pillow, the next in command under him,
had given up all hope, and had made their
escape: that they had devolved the COM
mand Of the fort upon General Buckner
for the purpose of putting upon him the
modification of the inevitable surrender,
which was to be offered the next morning
that Floyd had taken away with him his
Virginia brigade in boats during the night
that Forrest had escaped with bis cavalry
that the rebel soldiere remaining were COM
pletely exhausted by prolonged exposure,
without sleep, with scanty clothing, in
biting winter weather; and that Buckncr
was no longer able to resist an assault.
With this knowledge, there was rfect
propyiety, indeed, in Gen.. Grants answe~,
but certainly no hcroims. Considering
that he knelC that there was no danger to
brave, nor even any resistance to encoun-
deserved celebrity. 1t is laurel which
must fade and wither from the moment
the fact recorded by Mr.. Greeley, in his
history of the war, becomes generally
known.
As nobody remembers anything of Gen
eral Grants strategy in the Fort Donelson
seige, and as all pretence of any was for
borne by bis eulogist at the time, and its
absence admitted by clear implication in
crying up immediate movement upon the
encmy's works as a substitute which put
strategy to the blush, there is no popular
illusion to correct on this head, like the ex-
travagant estimate of the reply to Buckner
Whatever military merit was displayed in
the operation before Fort Donelson was
due to General G. +. Smith, an able sol
dier who had been General Grants in
structori in the Military Academy, and
who, by some inexplicable jumble, was
acting as his subordinate. That General
Grants military superiors thought the
chief merit of that siege due to General
Smith Is au award of which we have con-
elusive proof in the fact that Gra Mt was
Immediately afterwards reduced to the
HOSAAASA "a OSdSi al A)lAlltl
To sustain this statement it suffices to
recite another passage from Mr.. Greeleys
American Conflict /: General Grants
victorious army, after brief rest at Fort
Doneison, recrossed, considerably.s strength
ened, to the Tennessee, just above Fort
Henry, where several gunboats and
large number of transports, passing down
the Cumberland into the Ohio, and thence
into the Tennessee, took up our soldiers by
regiments and started therl--on a new
movement up the Tennessee General
Charles +. Smith had been designated Gy
General Hal1eck to dtrect tbs mocenssat, but
rcas soon disabled By the sickness of ssshlch
he died not long after reaching Savannah,
| Tenn. land General Grant ,CaS thus restored
/; to CHEF command"