s cavalry occupied it. General Nelson's division
of Buell's army arrived by boats the night of the 24th, and at once
landed in the city.

Nashville would have been a rich prize and easily taken if troops
from either Donelson or Bowling Green had been pushed forward
without delay when Fort Donelson fell.

General A. S. Johnston abandoned the city as early as the 16th,
and concentrated his forces at Murfreesboro, thirty or more miles
distant, leaving only Floyd with a demoralized brigade and Colonel
N. B. Forrest's small cavalry command to remove or destroy the guns
and stores, of which there was an immense quantity.

Floyd was ordered by Johnston not to fight in the city.(25)
Pandemonium reigned everywhere in Nashville for a week before it
was taken. The mob, in which all classes participated, had possession
of it. The proper officers abandoned their stores of ordnance,
quartermaster and commissary supplies, and such as were portable
were, as far as possible, carried off by anybody who might desire
them. No kind of property was safe, private houses and property
were seized and appropriated. No other such disgraceful scene has
been enacted in modern times.(26)

Johnston had a right to expect the arrival of the Union Army as
early as the 18th, and had wise counsel prevailed, Nashville might
have been taken on that or an earlier day.

A diversity of views led to delays in the movement of Buell's army.
Buell early expressed himself favorably to moving directly on
Nashville _via_ Bowling Green or by embarking his divisions at
Louisville on steamboats and thence by water up the Cumberland.(27)

Halleck pronounced the movement from Bowling Green on Nashville as
not good strategy, and this opinion he telegraphed both Buell and
McClellan. Success at Fort Donelson did not change Halleck's views,
and Grant was condemned for advancing Smith's division to Clarksville.
After Buell reached Nashville he became panic-stricken, and, though
he had 15,000 men, possessed of an idea he was about to be overwhelmed.
He assumed, therefore, to order Smith's command of Grant's army to
move by boat from Clarksville to his relief.(28)

The first time I saw Grant was on the wharf at Nashville, February
26, 1862. He was fresh from his recent achievements, and we looked
upon him with interest. He was then only a visitor at Nashville.
His quiet, modest demeanor, characteristic of him under all
circumstances, led persons to speak of him