from a longer, being an exterior, line. Their transports and supplies
could be landed and hauled out in security. Moreover, the back-water
extending up Indian Creek also, within the defensive lines, cut the
position in two, and made communication between the two parts
inconvenient.

Immediately upon the capture of Fort Henry, work was begun on this line
of infantry defence. The garrison, increased by the force from Fort
Henry, numbered about six thousand effective men, under the command of
Brigadier-General Bushrod R. Johnson. General Pillow, ordered by
General A.S. Johnston, arrived on February 9th from Clarksville with
2,000 men. He was immediately followed by General Clarke, who had been
stationed at Hopkinsville with 2,000 more; and Generals Floyd and
Buckner, who were at Russellville with 8,000 more, followed. General
Johnston began to set them all in motion by telegram from Bowling Green,
before he received news of the surrender of Fort Henry. General Floyd
was so averse to going to Donelson that he continued to remonstrate.
General Buckner, whose division had arrived, proposed on the night of
the 11th to take it back to General Floyd, his commanding officer at
Clarksville; but Pillow, who was senior to Buckner, ordered him to
remain, and repaired himself to Clarksville. Under the combined
influence of Pillow's persuasion and General Johnston's orders, Floyd
finally made up his mind to go, and arrived at Donelson with the last of
his command in the night of the 12th. Meanwhile, Major-General Polk had
sent 1,860 men from Columbus. On the night of February 12th, Donelson
was defended by about 20,000 men. The heavy guns in the water batteries
were manned mostly by details from light batteries and artillery drilled
a short time before the national force appeared, by two artillery
officers, under the supervision of Colonel Milton A. Haynes, Chief of
the Tennessee Corps of Artillery.

General Grant, in reporting to General Halleck, on February 6th, the
surrender of Fort Henry, added: "I shall take and destroy Fort Donelson
on the 8th, and return to Fort Henry." It was soon clear that he could
not haul wagons over the road, and he proposed to go without wagons and
double-team his artillery. The water continued rising. For two miles
inland from Fort Henry the road was for the greater part under water. On
the 8th he telegraphed: "I contemplated taking Fort Donelson to-day with
infantry and cavalry alone, but all my troo