lines.

Smith, ready at all points, had only to slip his own division
from the leash. Buckner, who was to have covered the Confederate
escape, was also ready with the guns of Fort Donelson and the
rifles of defenses that "looked too thick for a rabbit to get
through." Smith, knowing his unseasoned men would need the
example of a commander they could actually see, rode out in front
of his center as if at a formal review. "I was nearly scared to
death," said one of his followers, "but I saw the old man's white
moustache over his shoulder, and so I went on." As the line
neared the Confederate abatis a sudden gust of fire seemed to
strike it numb. In an instant Smith had his cap on the point of
his sword. Then, rising in his stirrups to his full gigantic
height, he shouted in stentorian tones: "No flinching now, my
lads! Here--this way in! Come on!" In, through, and out the other
side they went, Smith riding ahead, holding his sword and cap
aloft, and seeming to bear a charmed life amid that hail of
bullets. Up the slope he rode, the Confederates retiring before
him, till, unscathed, he reached the deadly crest, where the
Union colors waved defiance and the Union troops stood fast.

Floyd, being under special indictment at Washington for
misconduct as Secretary of War, was so anxious to escape that he
turned over the command to Pillow, who declined it in favor of
Buckner. That night Floyd and Pillow made off with all the river
steamers; Forrest's cavalry floundered past McClernand's exposed
flank, which rested on a shallow backwater; and Buckner was left
with over twelve thousand men to make what terms he could. Next
morning, the sixteenth, he wrote to Grant proposing the