The negotiations were completed and before night the garrison of Donelson, all except three thousand who had escaped in the night with Floyd and Pillow and Forrest, laid down their arms. The answer to Bull Run was complete. Fifteen thousand men, sixty-five cannon, and seventeen thousand rifles and muskets were surrendered to General Grant. The bulldog in the silent westerner had triumphed. With only a last chance left to him he had turned defeat into complete victory, and had dealt a stunning blow to the Southern Confederacy, which was never able like the North to fill up its depleted ranks with fresh men.
Time alone could reveal to many the deadly nature of this blow, but Dick, who had foresight and imagination, understood it now at least in part. As he saw the hungry Southern boys sharing the food of their late enemies his mind traveled over the long Southern line. Thomas had beaten it in Eastern Kentucky, Grant had dealt it a far more crushing blow here in Western Kentucky, but Albert Sidney Johnston, the most formidable foe of all, yet remained in the center. He was a veteran general with a great reputation. Nay, more, it was said by the officers who knew him that he was a man of genius. Dick surmised that Johnston, after the stunning blow of Donelson, would be compelled to fall back from Tennessee, but he did not doubt that he would return again.
Dick soon saw that all his surmises were correct. The news of Donelson produced for a little while a sort of paralysis at Richmond, and when it reached Nashville, where the army of Johnston was gathering, it was at first unbelievable. It produced so much excitement and confusion that a small brigade sent to the relief of Donelson was not called back, and marched blindly into the little town of Dover, where it found itself surrounded by the whole triumphant Union army, and was compelled to surrender without a fight.
Panic swept through Nashville. Everybody knew that Johnston would be compelled to fall back from the Cumberland River, upon the banks of which the capital of Tennessee stood. Foote and his gunboats would come steaming up the stream into the very heart of the city. Rumor magnified the number and size of his boats. Again the Southern leaders felt that the rivers were always a hostile coil girdling them about, and lamented their own lack of a naval arm.
Floyd had drawn off in the night from Donelson his own special command of Virginians and when he arrived at Nashville with full news of the defeat at the fortress, and the agreement to surrender, the panic increased. Many had striven to believe that the reports were untrue, but now there could be no doubt.
And the panic gained a second impetus when the generals set fire to the suspension bridge over the river and the docks along its banks. The inhabitants saw the signal of doom in the sheets of flame that rolled up, and all those who had taken a leading part in the Southern cause prepared in haste to leave with Johnston’s army. The roads were choked with vehicles and fleeing people. The State Legislature, which was then in session, departed bodily with all the records and archives.
But Dick, after the first hours of triumph, felt relaxed and depressed. After all, the victory was over their own people, and five thousand of the farmer lads, North and South, had been killed or wounded. But this feeling did not last long, as on the very evening of victory he was summoned to action. Action, with him, always made the blood leap and hope rise. It was his own regimental chief, Arthur Winchester, who called him, and who told him to make ready for an instant departure from Donelson.
“You are to be a cavalryman for a while, Dick,” said Colonel Winchester. “So much has happened recently that we scarcely know how we stand. Above all, we do not know how the remaining Southern forces are disposed, and I have been chosen to lead a troop toward Nashville and see. You, Warner, Pennington, that very capable sergeant, Whitley, and others whom you know are to go with me. My force will number about three hundred and the horses are already waiting on the other side.”