rprise. The men soon ceased to have personal animosity,
and, in the nights between the great battles, when the armies yet
lay face to face, the hostile pickets would often exchange gossip and
tobacco. Even in a conflict waged so long and with such desperation the
essential kindliness of human nature would assert itself.

The four, as they skirted the Southern line, noticed no signs of further
preparations by the Confederates. No men were throwing up earthworks or
digging trenches. As well as they could surmise, the garrison, like the
besieging army, was seeking shelter and rest, and from this fact the
keen mind of Colonel Arthur Winchester divined that the defense was
confused and headless.

Colonel Winchester knew most of the leaders within Donelson. He knew
that Pillow was not of a strong and decided nature. Nor was Floyd, who
would rank first, of great military capacity. Buckner had talent and he
had served gallantly in the Mexican War, but he could not prevail over
the others. The fame of Forrest, the Tennessee mountaineer, was already
spreading, but a cavalryman could do little for the defense of a fort
besieged by twenty thousand well equipped men, led by a general of
unexcelled resolution.

All that Colonel Winchester surmised was true. Inside the fort confusion
and doubt reigned. The fleeing garrison from Fort Henry had brought
exaggerated reports of Grant's army. Very few of the thousands of young
troops had ever been in battle before. They, too, suffered though in
a less degree from cold and fatigue, but many were wounded. Pillow and
Floyd, who had just arrived with his troops, talked of one thing and
then another. Floyd, who might have sent word to his valiant and able
chief, Johnston, did not take the trouble or forgot to inform him of his
position. Buckner wanted to attack Grant the next morning with the full
Southern strength, and a comrade of his on old battlefields, Colonel
George Kenton, seconded him ably. The black-bearded Forrest strode back
and forth, striking the tops of his riding boots with a small riding
whip, and saying ungrammatically, but tersely and emphatically:

"We mustn't stay here like hogs in a pen. We must git at 'em with all
our men afore they can git at us."

The illiterate mountaineer and stock driver had evolved exactly the same
principle of war that Napoleon used.

But Colonel Winchester and his comrades could only guess at what was
going on in Donelson, and a guess always r