. Young folk's history of the war for the union . sippi Kiver. General Polk gave as his reason fordoing this that the Union troops were getting ready to occupyColumbus, but it was probably a part of the plan for gettingpossession of Cairo, only about twenty miles above the same time General Powill was ordered to withdraw fromNew Madrid and take his whole force to Island Number Ten,an island in the Mississippi about forty miles below Columbus. 1861.] ULYSSES S. GRANT. 117 About the same time that General Polk took Columbus, a Con-federate force under General Felix K. Zollicoffer ent
. Young folk's history of the war for the union . sippi Kiver. General Polk gave as his reason fordoing this that the Union troops were getting ready to occupyColumbus, but it was probably a part of the plan for gettingpossession of Cairo, only about twenty miles above the same time General Powill was ordered to withdraw fromNew Madrid and take his whole force to Island Number Ten,an island in the Mississippi about forty miles below Columbus. 1861.] ULYSSES S. GRANT. 117 About the same time that General Polk took Columbus, a Con-federate force under General Felix K. Zollicoffer entered East-ern Kentucky from Tennessee. The country around Cairo was then under the command ofGeneral Ulysses S. Grant. General Grant was a graduate ofWest Point, and had served bravely in the war with Mexico,having been made a cai)tain for gallantry. In 1854 he resignedfrom the army, and was engaged in business in Illinois whenthe war broke out. Being chosen captain of a company of vol-unteers, he showed so much skill that he was made colonel of. Fortifications on Bluff at Columbus, with Gen. Polks Headquarters. the Twenty-first Illinois (June 17, 1861). In August he be-came a brigadier-general of volunteers, and was given commandat Cairo. As soon as he heard of General Polks invasion ofKentucky he took possession of Paducah, at the junction of theTennessee with the Ohio, thus getting ahead of the Confeder-ates, who were reported to be marching on it. About the sametime General Simon B. Buckner, a Kentuckian in the Confed-erate service, entered Kentucky with a considerable force, andmoved rapidly on the railroad from Nashville toward Louisville,in hope of surprising that imj)ortant city on the Ohio beforenews of his coming could reach there. The telegraph wiresbeing cut, and no trains reaching Louisville, a locomotive was 118 LEXING TON.—BELMONT. [1861. sent down the road to see what the trouble was. This fell intoBuckners hands; but a fireman escaped, and, putting a hand-car
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