was much too slim a business for me, I decided to shift my quarters to where there was a somewhat better prospect of hard fighting to be done. It was by this time evident that the Federals intended making a determined attempt to capture Forts Henry and Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, and as I felt confident that our people would make a brave and desperate resistance, I resolved to go and take a hand in the approaching battle, in the hope that some thing to my advantage would result from it. If a desire to witness some hard fighting was my chief object in this movement, it was more than gratified, for the horrors of the siege of Donelson far surpassed anything I had yet witnessed, and by the time it was over, I certainly got enough of the excitement of battle to satisfy me for some time to come. Happily for ourselves, we cannot foresee the future, and in blissful ignorance of the agonizing scenes which I would soon be called upon to witness, I started for Fort Donelson with a comparatively light heart, bent only on so demonstrating my devotion to the cause as would compel the recognition of my superiors.
