ps may be kept busily
engaged in saving what we now have from the rapidly rising water." The
cavalry, however, fording the overflow, went to the front of Donelson on
the 7th, skirmished with the pickets, and felt the outposts.

General Halleck went earnestly to work gathering and forwarding troops
and supplies. Seasoned troops from Missouri, and regiments from the
depots in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio--so freshly formed that they had
hardly changed their civil garb for soldier's uniform before they were
hurried to the front to take their first military lessons in the school
of bivouac and battle--were alike gathered up. General Halleck
telegraphed Grant to use every effort to transform Fort Henry into a
work strong on its landward side, and by all means to destroy the
railroad bridge across the Cumberland at Clarksville, above Fort
Donelson. Grant was urging Commodore Foote to send boats up the
Cumberland to co-operate in an attack on Donelson.

On February 11th, Foote sailed from Cairo with his fleet. On the same
day Grant sent six regiments, which had arrived at Fort Henry on
transports, down the river on the boats from which they had not landed,
to follow the fleet up the Cumberland. He also on the same day moved the
greater part of his force out several miles from Fort Henry on to solid
ground. On the morning of the 12th, leaving General L. Wallace and 2,500
men at Fort Henry, he moved by two roads, diverging at Fort Henry, but
coming together again at Dover, with 15,000 men and eight field
batteries. The force was organized in two divisions; the first commanded
by General McClernand, the second by General C.F. Smith. McClernand had
three brigades. The first, commanded by Colonel R.J. Oglesby, comprised
the Eighth, Eighteenth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first
Illinois, the batteries of Schwartz and Dresser, and four companies of
cavalry. The second, commanded by Colonel W.H.L. Wallace, consisted of
the Eleventh, Twentieth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-eighth Illinois, Colonel
Dickey's Fourth Illinois Cavalry, and Taylor's and McAllister's
batteries. The third, commanded by Colonel W.R. Morrison, comprised the
Seventeenth and Forty-ninth Illinois. Smith's first brigade, commanded
by Colonel John McArthur, was composed of the Ninth, Twelfth, and
Forty-first Illinois. The second brigade was left at Fort Henry. The
third, Colonel John Cook, contained the Fifty-second Indiana, Seventh
and Fiftieth Illinois, Thirteent