ish history completed in 1636 by one
Michael O'Clery and his coadjutors. There is a chalybeate well near the
town, and 7-1/2 m. S., at Ballintra, a small stream forms a series of
limestone caverns known as the Pullins. Donegal received a charter from
James I., and returned two members to the Irish parliament. The name is
said to signify the "fortress of the foreigners," and to allude to a
settlement by the Northmen.

DONELSON, FORT, an entrenched camp at Dover, Tennessee, U.S.A., erected
by the Confederates in the Civil War to guard the lower Cumberland
river, and taken by the Federals on the 16th of February 1862. It
consisted of two continuous lines of entrenchments on the land side, and
water batteries commanding the river. After the capture (Feb. 6) of Fort
Henry on the lower Tennessee the Union army (three divisions) under
Brigadier-General U. S. Grant marched overland to invest Donelson, and
the gunboat flotilla (Commodore A. H. Foote) descended the Tennessee and
ascended the Cumberland to meet him. Albert Sidney Johnston, the
Confederate commander in Kentucky, had thrown a large garrison under
General Floyd into Donelson, and Grant was at first outnumbered; though
continually reinforced, the latter had at no time more than three men to
the Confederates' two. The troops of both sides were untrained but
eager.

On the 12th and 13th of February 1862 the Union divisions, skirmishing
heavily, took up their positions investing the fort, and on the 14th
Foote's gunboats attacked the water batteries. The latter received a
severe repulse, Foote himself being amongst the wounded, and soon
afterwards the Confederates determined to cut their way through Grant's
lines. On the 15th General Pillow attacked the Federal division of
McClernand and drove it off the Nashville road; having done this,
however, he halted, and even retired. Grant ordered General C. F.
Smith's division to assault a part of the lines which had been denuded
of its defenders in order to reinforce Pillow. Smith personally led his
young volunteers in the charge and carried all before him. The
Confederates returning from the sortie were quite unable to shake his
hold on the captured works, and, Grant having reinforced McClernand with
Lew Wallace's division, these two generals reoccupied the lost position
on the Nashville road. On the 16th, the two senior Confederate generals
Floyd and Pillow having escaped by steamer, the infantry left in the
fort unde