The Confederacy was then establishing a line of defense from Columbus, Ky., on the Mississippi River, to Bowling Green, and on to Cumberland Gap, in Eastern Tennessee; and in the early autumn of 1861 there was much activity along this rather widely spaced line. There had been a slight clash at Columbus, Ky., and the battle of Fishing Creek, on the other end of the line, the most serious consequence of which was the death of the brilliant and promising General Zollicoffer. The first Bull Run, back in July, had fanned away the last hope of compromise, and both North and South were athrob with the roll of mustering drums. [Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER III HENRY AND DONELSON Our company left Corinth in September and went through North Alabama and Middle Tennessee, and I joined Forrest and arrived in the vicinity of Nashville in November. After scouting and guarding some convoys down the Cumberland River, we were ordered to support the defenses of Forts Henry and Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively, just ten miles apart, where the two rivers parallel each other in their northward courses across Tennessee. I was now to realize, in my first actual experience, the fullness of the horrors that wait upon the tinsel glory of that long-worshiped art of human destruction which men call “war.” General Forrest had secured, early in the war, several hundred old-style cap-and-ball navy pistols, most valuable weapons for cavalry. On December 28, 1861, at Sacramento, Ky., we had our first fight with a troop of Union cavalry, about equal in number of men to ours. After a sharp engagement, we succeeded in putting the enemy to flight. The Union troopers lost Captain Bacon, killed, and several men killed and wounded, and we lost two men, killed, and several wounded. After this skirmish, we retired within the lines at Fort Donelson. On February 6, 1862, General Grant, assisted by the gunboat fleet under Commodore Foote, vigorously attacked and captured Fort Henry, defended by Gen. Lloyd Tilghman. With the opening of the bombardment, General Grant hurriedly threw his army across the road leading from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson to cut off the possible retreat of Tilghman’s command of about three thousand men; but Tilghman, foreseeing the almost certainty of defeat, had kept only enough men to man and handle the guns of the fort and marched his troops in double-quick on toward Donelson, just escaping the Union line by a few hundred yards.