The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each equipped
with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed. The
field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate infantry, protected by
their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.
Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars.
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