Our tour of Civil War battlegrounds where my husband’s great-grandfather and uncle fought under General Grant’s army continued from Belmont, Kentucky to Ft. Donelson, Tennessee. The Confederate fort was built to defend the Cumberland River against Union attacks. Twelve miles away in a low area that often flooded, Fort Henry defended the Tennessee River.
Fort Donelson
In February of 1862, with Fort Henry partially flooded and the river rising, Union gunboats made short work of capturing the site. Grant then sent his army to surround Fort Donelson on land and ordered his gunboats to approach from the Cumberland River. This time, the fort’s higher elevation and the river configuration benefitted the Southern forces. Some of the iron-clad and timber-clad gunboats were sunk or destroyed and the rest retreated to a safe distance.
The next day, Confederate forces attacked the land positions and fought hard to push the Union back far enough to provide an escape route. But at the end of the day, General Pillow ordered Confederate troops to return to the fort, a move that allowed the Union to retake lost ground.
Of the three Confederate generals, only General Buckner was a trained soldier. Generals Floyd and Pillow were politicians who gained their positions through influence. During a late night meeting, these three concluded there was nothing to do but surrender. Pillow promptly turned his command over to Buckner and skedaddled. Floyd followed close behind, leaving Buckner to request terms of surrender from General Grant, a man he knew from their years at West Point.
Surrender
Grant’s terms left no room for negotiation: “…unconditional and immediate surrender…”
Calling them “ungenerous and unchivalrous terms,” a disappointed Buckner met Grant at the Dover Hotel in nearby Pittsburgh Landing to
negotiate the surrender. Over the next few days, more than 13,500 Confederate soldiers were ferried north to POW camps like Camp Butler outside Springfield, IL. Years later, after the war, Buckner visited Grant and thanked him for his generous treatment of the captive soldiers, even to the point of allowing them to keep their guns.
General Grant and the Lesson I Learned
General Grant was dogged in his pursuit of victory. It was, after all, his job to win the war. But over and over, the letters from Wayne’s great-uncle, as well as other sources on Grant recount his respect for soldiers on both sides of the conflict. He refused to indulge in vindictive punishment for the enemy, but treated them with as much dignity as possible.
That made a huge impression on me, months after the vicious presidential election and the vile insults on both sides that continued long afterward. General Grant exemplified what Winston Churchill spoke of nearly a century later. “In victory: magnanimity.”
An attitude we should all cultivate.
“Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but instead bless others because to this you were called.” 1 Peter 3:9
Next time: Stories of General Grant and a funny story from Great-uncle’s letters
