Buckner, with his division, was about to march from that place to join the garrison in Donelson, and Floyd, with another division, would soon be on the way to the same point.

Floyd had been the United States Secretary of War before secession, and the Union men hated him.

It was said that the great partisan leader, Forrest, with his cavalry, was also at the fort.
Much of this news was brought in by farmers, Union sympathizers, and Dick and his comrades, as they sat before the fires at the close of the short winter day, understood the situation almost as well as the generals.
"Donelson is ninety per cent and Henry only ten per cent," said Warner.
"So long as the Johnnies hold Donelson on the Cumberland, they can build another fort anywhere they please along the Tennessee, and stop our fleet.

This general of ours has a good notion of the value of time and a swift blow, and, although I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I predict that he will attack Donelson at once by both land and water." "How can he attack it by water ?" asked Pennington.

"The distance between them is not great, but our ships can't steam overland from the Tennessee to the Cumberland." "No, but they can steam back up the Tennessee into the Ohio, thence to the mouth of the Cumberland, and down the Cumberland to Donelson.