At Buckner's Side at Fort Donelson

Following the publication of General Lew Wallace's article about Fort Donelson in Century Magazine, Morton M. Casseday, the son of deceased Confederate officer Alexander Casseday who had served as assistant inspector general on General Simon B. Buckner's staff, shared the following private letters from his father giving his perspective of that historic engagement.

    Morton wrote as an introduction, "Among the earlier war papers of the Century Magazine was one from General [Lew] Wallace, describing the battle of Fort Donelson. It was then that it occurred to me that the contemporary letters of my father, Major Alex Casseday, who was an officer of General S.B. Buckner’s staff [assistant inspector general], could at least furnish an interesting account of the policy and conduct of one of the Confederate leaders in that memorable contest. Major Casseday was familiar with the proceedings of the councils of the general officers at Donelson and led the 14th Mississippi when that regiment and others opened a road through the Federal lines by means of which the Confederate troops might have fallen back upon Johnston’s army at Nashville. After the capture of the fort and before his death at Camp Chase, Major Casseday wrote to his family letters describing life in the prison at Columbus, Ohio." 

    Morton's article featuring his father's letters first saw publication in the April 13, 1887, edition of the Winchester Daily Democrat published in Winchester, Kentucky. 

 

The water battery at Fort Donelson overlooks the scenic Cumberland River. 

Fort Donelson, Dover, Tennessee

February 16, 1862

          After a severe battle of four days in which, as even our captors unanimously agree, we sustained the name the Confederate arms have won most nobly, we are prisoners of war. Our men have been fighting by day and watching in the trenches by night for four days and are perfectly worn out, overcome by the resources of the enemy. The battle was the most hotly contested of the war and the sight of the dead and dying was horrible. Many, very many gallant fellows were killed. We were under the heaviest fire of the battle and it seems miraculous that any of us escaped.

          We are treated with entire respect; our side arms are not taken. We could have escaped with other officers but General Buckner and his staff were unwilling to leave the troops who had stood by him so nobly.

Ohio River


Steamboat Argonaut above Uniontown, Kentucky [on Ohio River] 

February 22, 1862

          On last Sunday, I wrote to you, informing you of our unfortunate captivity. I pledge you my word that we did all that was possible for 12,000 men to do against 35,000. We fought them for four consecutive days and were everywhere successful, but our men were completely fagged out by fighting all day and watching and working all night. You cannot conceive how weary we were. Even on the second day I was so weary as to fall asleep in the field while shells and balls were killing those around me every few minutes. I saw the general and Charley (Colonel Johnson) sleeping several times under the same circumstances and expect every man of our army did the same thing. But such sleep brings colds but no refreshment.

          On the day before the surrender, we left our trenches, drove the right of the enemy back, took their right batteries, and were through their lines a mile and a half from our entrenchment, having actually accomplished our retreat. But an order came to retire to our entrenchments (order sent by General Pillow) as they were about to be attacked and we were reluctantly returned to the trap whence escape would afterward be impossible.

          The loss of the enemy greatly exceeds ours though I suppose it will not be so reported. I saw it and I know it. There was but one opinion among the Federals as to the desperation with which we fought and although we were sacrificed, we do hope that all those who feel a personal interest in us will be satisfied that we did our duty nobly. The Federals fought much better than I expected, especially the Iowa and Illinois troops who suffered fearfully.

The whole thing was horrible enough. I saw sights of blood that I would not suppose I could bear. I led the first charge of the attacks, attempting to take their battery with the 14th Mississippi whose officers, except the major, were not present. It was in this charge that the loss was bloodiest, the ground being strewn on all sides with the dead. A more bloody field has not been and will not be seen during the war, I hope. I do not write this as a description of the battle but only as of interest to you. You will be glad to know that our misfortune was not attributable to lack of earnest and courageous effort.

Our captivity is a humiliation hard enough to bear but so far as General Buckner and his staff are concerned, we have met with kindness on the part of most of the U.S. officers. General Buckner’s refusal to leave his troops as the other generals did when the boat was at our wharf has won him much esteem on both sides. Only one of his staff accepted the proffered chance to escape and we are all here, a very happy family considering the circumstances. No guard has been placed over us although there is one on the boat and we are allowed every freedom consistent with our safekeeping. I understand we are all to be placed together at Indianapolis.

 

Camp Chase, Ohio in 1862

Camp Chase, Ohio

March 9, 1862

          The last of your writing that I have seen was the note appended to F’s letters which I received and read on the battlefield at Donelson. It was very strange to see your writing there and to read the merry ideas F. put into her letter; the circumstances and feelings which attended its writings were so widely different from those at its reading. I thought of you almost incessantly during those four days but never with the same feeling as when I received your own writing. The bearer of it handed it to me, seized his gun, and plunged into the thicket to try his skill with the sharpshooters. It is said he killed a number of them and was himself unhurt but I never saw him afterwards and never learned how he got the letter.

          I promised you sometime since to write you a description of the battle but as I did not then expect, all correspondence is subject to scrutiny of the officials. While I was in the South, my letters were under constraint because there was danger of their being captured. Now they are so because they are already captured.

          Our condition now, thanks to friends at home and our own exertions, is much better than when we came. We have bought a cooking stove and utensils and we are allowed to send out to buy butter, eggs, etc. and we live, so far as eating is concerned, as well as we desire. At first we did our own cooking but now two faithful servants have been permitted to come to us.

A third one, who waited on our staff for many months and who served us with a faithfulness that made us love him and one who braved all the dangers of the battle to remain with us; he cooked the meals we had time to eat while the balls were whistling and the shells bursting all around him and who refused to leave us after the surrender. He was arrested and confined at Indianapolis and as soon as he got free he followed us here where he was denied admittance; he is gone and we know not where. We all feel that in him we have lost a worthy member of the staff. The poor slave hung around the gates trying to get in for several days and now he is gone. Tell S. if he sees him, Whiting by name, to help him along and see that he is cared for.

General Simon B. Buckner
C.S.A.

In the late letter I wrote you I told you we would probably be sent to Fort Warren and I believe it was so intended. Had we been sent there we would have been with our general who is as pure, as generous, as courageous, as noble in triumph or adversity as the great Washington ever was. This is not the blindness of friendship; it is the feeling of the army who was with him. I have yet to hear the first one of them reproach him with anything, even in their present aggravating misfortune. You cannot conceive how noble he looked the night before the surrender at the council of general officers when the other generals announced their intention of retiring and he said, “Gentlemen, you must decide for yourselves; as for me, I will share the fate of my troops.”

While on the subject of this council, I will say that, as far as I know, General Floyd determined “I will never be taken alive” with the approbation of everyone present. So bitter is the feeling against him that he would be subjected to indignities to which death would be preferable. There is bitterness enough against General Buckner, but not of the sort or intensity of that against General Floyd who is accused of the most heinous crimes. I told General Floyd there that he was right not to be taken. I and everyone else thought differently about General Pillow, who everyone here thinks left from different motives. General Buckner offered to those of his staff present at the council the opportunity to escape on the boat that carried off the generals and send the same offer to those not present. Only one of them accepted. I have never regretted my action.

Less than two weeks later, Major Alex Casseday died of pneumonia in Columbus aged 26. His remains were returned home to Louisville and buried at Cave Hill Cemetery but a cenotaph to his memory is at Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery in Columbus.

Source:

“Fort Donelson: Graphic Account of the Surrender of the Famous Fortress by One who participated in the Battle,” Winchester Daily Democrat (Kentucky), April 13, 1887, pg. 1

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