[Illustration: THE FLAG-SHIP _ST. LOUIS_ VIEWED FROM ASTERN.]
[Illustration: _LOUISVILLE_--A FIGHTER AT THE FORT.]
[Illustration: THE ADVENTUROUS GUNBOAT _CONESTOGA_.]
Lying at anchor in the Ohio River this little wooden gunboat is having the finishing touches put to her equipment while her officers and men are impatiently waiting for the opportunity to bring her into action. A side-wheel river steamer originally, she was purchased at Cincinnati by Commander John Rodgers in the spring of 1861 and speedily converted into a gunboat. Her boilers and steam pipes were lowered into the hold and the oaken bulwarks five inches thick which we see were put on her and pierced for guns. She got her first taste of fighting when, at Lucas Bend, she engaged the land batteries and a Confederate gunboat, September 10, 1861. She was present at Fort Henry in the second division of the attacking fleet, and also at Fort Donelson.
A sister-ship of the _Conestoga_. She was present both at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.]
The Captured Commanders of Forts Henry and Donelson.--It requires as much moral courage to decide upon a surrender, even when odds are overwhelming, as it does physical bravery, in maintaining a useless fight to the death. Brigadier-General Tilghman, who commanded the Confederate Fort Henry on the Tennessee and General Simon Bolivar Buckner in command of the Confederate Fort Donelson--a much stronger position on the Cumberland only a few miles away--were men who possessed this kind of courage. Both had the misfortune to hold untenable positions. Each displayed generalship and sagacity and only gave up to the inevitable when holding out meant nothing but wasted slaughter and the sacrifice of men who had been called upon to exert every human effort. Fort Henry, on the banks of the Tennessee, was held by a few thousand men and strongly armed with twenty guns including one 10-inch Columbiad. But on the 6th of February it fairly lay in the possession of the Federals before a shot had actually been fired, for Grant with 17,000 men had gained the rear of the fortification after his move from Cairo on the 30th of the previous month. The actual reduction of the fort was left to the gunboat flotilla under Flag Officer Foote, whose heavy bombardment began early in the morning. General Tilghman had seen from the first that the position could not be held. He was trapped on all sides, but he would not give way without a display of resistance. Before the firing began, he had sent off most of the garrison and maintained the unequal combat with the gunboats for an hour and a quarter with less than a hundred men, of whom he lost twenty-one. Well did this handful serve the guns on the river bank. One shot struck the gunboat _Essex_, piercing her boilers, and wounding and scalding twenty-eight men. But at last, enveloped on all sides, his retreat cut off--the troops who had been ordered to depart in the morning, some three thousand in number, had reached Fort Donelson, twelve miles away--General Tilghman hauled down his flag, surrendering himself and eighty-four men as prisoners of war. Here we see him--a brave figure of a man--clad in the uniform of a Southern Colonel. There was never the slightest doubt of his courage or of his proper discretion in making this surrender. Only for a short time was he held a prisoner, when he was exchanged and welcomed back with all honor into the ranks of the Confederacy, and given an important command. He did not, however, live long to serve his cause, for shortly after rejoining the army he was killed at the battle of Baker's Creek, Mississippi, on the 16th of May, 1863.