They left the main road, and soon came to the river, where they built fires and rested as well as possible. Here the repairs of an old wherry were completed, and they crossed the river, protected by artillery. There was a slight snow falling, and it was uncomfortably cold. The Nineteenth and Twenty-fourth, Hecker’s Illinois, crossed first. The men suffered intensely from cold, but declared that they had rather be shot than frozen, and pushed on. But no enemy appeared, and the tired soldiers soon surrounded the fires, some of which had been burning for several days. All the public buildings and several warehouses, filled with pork, beef, coffee, etc., were destroyed. A pile of grain thirty feet by twenty, was burning when the Federal troops arrived. Four engines and several cars were also burnt. The cars had been carrying away provision for a week, but still immense quantities were destroyed. Boxes of guns, large numbers of bowie-knives roughly fashioned of iron, every conceivable kind of shooting apparatus, and all sorts of hardware for cooking and other uses were found in immense quantities. Bowling Green is a town of considerable commercial importance, and possesses many large stores and warehouses. The majority of the inhabitants were loyal in their sentiments, though many influential citizens sympathized with the rebellion; but when the work of destruction commenced, no discrimination was allowed, and all were made sufferers. The unexpected arrival of General Mitchell’s army, and the terror of his artillery, drove the rebels from the town before their incendiary intentions were fully consummated, and much private property was saved which would else have been consumed by the flames. When General Buckner was exercising military sovereignty in southern Kentucky, one of his proclamations demanded that every man in Wright county should deliver to him at his headquarters, one gun, or twenty dollars in money, under the penalty of fifty dollars’ fine, or ninety days’ imprisonment. In response to this edict, a motley collection of old squirrel and shot-guns were added to the Confederate stores, and with other treasures were packed in buildings at Bowling Green. A hasty evacuation of that stronghold having become a “military necessity,” these buildings were fired by the retreating rebels, and among the ruins which met the curious gaze of General Mitchell’s men when they entered the town, were scattered piles of the iron parts of these guns, in several places a foot thick. CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON. FEBRUARY 13–16, 1862. Bravely as the army of the West had sustained the honor of the Union, the crowning glory of taking Fort Donelson remained to be accomplished. To attack a strongly-defended fort, formidable by nature and rendered almost impregnable by military art, was a work of extreme danger, nay, of impossibility to less resolute men. [Illustration: