The gunboats were advancing—the bombardment had fairly begun. The cheers went up in ten thousand voices. The death-dealing bolts of Fort Henry were falling thick and fast into Fort Donelson. But little did the besiegers know what protection and defence nature had laid against the ingenuity of art, which the insurgents had seized upon to accomplish their purpose! No one considered the importance of those great natural traverses and curtains of rock which had been thrown up by the primeval subterranean fires, nor what bomb-proofs and lunettes the waters of a thousand years had worn into the sides of those hills. The area of the place was so large that nearly the whole force could be removed from the water front, and thus leave the shells to explode against the bleak hill sides, or crush through the deserted huts of the enemy. Meantime an occasional shot from the batteries surrounding the outer lines of defence must have told upon the enemy on the other side. The enemy replied but feebly. The entire morning had been in anxious expectancy, neither party being willing to risk the chances of another trial of valor. The weather was keen and frosty, the roads slippery and clogged with stiff mud. Saturday, which was destined to witness the grand _denouement_ of the painful tragedies enacted about Donelson, was cold, damp and cheerless. The enemy, during the night, had transferred several of their batteries to portions of their works, within a few hundred feet of which the extreme right wing of the Federals was resting. Upon the first coming of dawn, these batteries suddenly opened on the Ninth, Eighteenth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth and Thirty-first regiments, comprising Oglesby’s brigade, which had the advance. Simultaneously with the opening of the batteries, a force of about twelve thousand infantry and a regiment of cavalry was hurled against the brigade with a vigor which, made against less steady and well-disciplined troops, must surely have resulted in their entire demolition. Sudden and unexpected as was this sally on the part of the enemy, it did not find the gallant Illinoisans unprepared to meet them. The attack was made in columns of regiments, which poured in upon the little band from no less than three different directions. Every regiment of the brigade found itself opposed to two, and in many cases to no less than four different regiments. Undismayed, however, by the greatly superior force of the enemy, and unsupported by adequate artillery, the brigade not only held their own, but upon two occasions actually drove the rebels fairly into their intrenchments, but only to be pressed back again into their former position. At last having expended every round of their ammunition, they were obliged to retire and give way to advancing regiments of Colonel W. H. L. Wallace’s brigade, the Eleventh, Twentieth, Seventeenth, Forty-fifth, Forty-eighth Illinois, and Forty-ninth Indiana regiments.