Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/108

 magnitude was upon the country. Call after call had been made for volunteers until hundreds of thousands of soldiers were in the field. No great victories had been won and many humiliating defeats had been encountered. The Army of the Potomac, 200,000 strong, from which so much was expected, was resting quietly in the immediate vicinity of Washington, under General McClellan, with no prospect of making a speedy movement against the enemy so audaciously blockading the Potomac River a few miles from the National Capital.

In the meantime an obscure Illinois General, U.S. Grant, had gathered an army of western troops in Kentucky and, with the coöperation of Commodore Foote, with a fleet of seven gun boats, proceeded against Forts Henry and Donelson, which commanded the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Fort Henry was soon captured, the Tennessee River opened and the fleet proceeded up the Cumberland River to aid in the reduction of Fort Donelson. This was a strong fort, mounting heavy guns, standing on a steep bluff rising at a height of one hundred feet above the river and defended at the base by formidable water batteries. It was garrisoned by an army of 18,000 well drilled Confederate soldiers under the command of Generals Pillow, Floyd and Buckner. Investing the fort and its army, Grant made his plans to capture, not only the strong position, but to cut off the retreat and compel the surrender of the entire Confederate Army. Desperate fighting ensued; Generals Pillow and Floyd, with a few regiments escaped in the night, but on the 16th of February, General Buckner surrendered the fort, his army of 15,000 men, sixty cannon, with the small arms and supplies to General Grant. The glorious news was flashed through the country. It reached Des Moines at 11 a.m., the following day, in a dispatch to the State Register. F. W. Palmer, the editor, hastened to the Capitol, where the Legislature was in session and handed the dispatch to the Speaker of the House. Rush Clark sprang to his feet