strong partisan must do this, in a greater or less degree, and if I miscalculated, or was ignorant of the real power of the North, and of the resources which the Federal government was able to command, I had plenty of companions in my error, for there were thousands who possessed far more perfect means of information than myself, who were quite as eager to enter upon a war without calculating the cost or estimating the consequences.
The fact was, however, that I did not think of calculating with regard to the probable result of the contest. I had the most exalted opinion of the invincibility of our Southern soldiers, and of the skill of our generals, and I was unable to think of them otherwise than as about to enter upon a career of victory.
Up to the time of which I am now writing, nearly every thing had contributed to the encouragement of my original notions. In both of the great battles in which I had participated the Confederates had been brilliantly successful; and while the permanent results had scarcely been equal to my hopes and expectations, my opinion with regard to Southern invincibility had scarcely received a serious check. My nature and temperament are such, that just as when, amid the excitement of a battle, each combatant in the opposing army becomes for the moment a personal enemy, so in the hour of defeat I am compelled to feel a humiliation as keen as if it was my own alone. Such a humiliation I was very shortly to endure; but, in hurrying towards Fort Donelson, I little knew that I was about to become the spectator of a defeat so crushing and disastrous as for a time to annihilate in my bosom all hope, and which gave a death-blow to the impetuous but untutored enthusiasm with which I had started out.
I had tasted the sweets of victory, and had felt all the exultation which fills the breast of the soldier after a hard-fought battle in seeing the enemy flee before him, and now I was called upon to taste the bitterness of defeat, and of defeat attended with unspeakable horrors. The capture of Fort Donelson was the beginning of the end, although I hardly so understood it at the time: but soon it was followed by other disasters scarcely less crushing, and the enthusiasm of despair, rather than of hope, was the inspiration not only of myself, but of the whole Southern people during the last three years of the contest.
