George Martin
DIARY ACCOUNT OF FORT DONELSON
(Lt. Selden Spencer, Graves’ Battery)
Battery consisted of " . . smoothbores, except one rifled ten-pound Parrott gun in our battery."
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orphanhm/spencer.htm
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2nd Kentucky Volunteer Infantry
Details on Fort Donelson, prison life and escape from Camp Morton, battle of Hartsville
[Louis Douglass Payne's War Experience as written by his wife] (extract)
The 14th was a day of comparative inaction, except for the firing between Foote's squadron and the water batteries. Although Foote's flotilla had been driven off, and we had so well maintained our position on the 13th, it was evident that a desperate struggle was at hand. Before day on the 15th, our regiment was ordered to leave the entrenchments, march to the left, and take a position near Graves's Battery. This battery opened fire on the enemy, and was answered by one of the Federal batteries. These two kept up a sort of duel for some time. About nine o'clock, Buckner sent some Tennessee and Mississippi regiments to dislodge the Federal battery, but they were well supported and held their position. Then Buckner said: "The 2nd Kentucky will have to do that work." Just then Colonel Graves came over the hill, behind which we were standing and shouted, his keen, incisive voice cutting the air like a knife: "Company B! Company B! come to my assistance." Company B heard him. Away we dashed, regardless of aught else, even the hoarse call of our own beloved Hanson, "Come back! come back!" then, as he saw himself unheeded, "Go to hell, every one of you!" And it was nearly that, the storm of shot and shell that rained around us: but we saved his battery. Many, many of our gallant men fell in that mad charge. As we dashed up the hill to the Federal battery, I saw on the ground a cap and sword of an officer, I picked them up, and, after returning to the main body of the army, presented them to Col. Roger Hanson. He exclaimed: "Ah! Col. John A. Logan! He was a good man; I am sorry he was killed." He was not killed, however, only severely wounded. He lived to become a general on the Union side.
Colonel Hanson now came to our aid. The battery was well defended, but we captured the guns and carried them back to Graves. We were then drawn up in a hollow square and complimented by General Buckner on the gallant action of our regiment. And what an encouragement it was to the weary soldier! How it nerved us for the bitter fighting and hardships that followed! It was such things as this that forever bound us to those incomparable commanders. We knew that we were in their hearts as men, and were not merely the machinery of war. "The Incomparable Regiment," they called us. We were ordered back to the entrenchments, and set off in high spirits. But just as we stepped over the breastworks, there were the Yankees! Instead of continuing to retreat, they had brought up fresh forces and arrived at the rifle pits as soon as we. They greeted us with the most galling fire, and we fell into utter confusion. General Buckner, coming up, ordered us to fall into line, regardless of companies or regiments. We did so and retreated in good order to the second line of the entrenchments, which were made at intervals of twenty or thirty yards. We lay there, keeping up a desultory fire, until about nine o'clock at night. The marching, fighting, cutting trees, digging trenches, and throwing up earthworks had kept us almost incessantly engaged now for four or five days, so we were in an exhausted condition. That night we slaked our thirst on the blood and water which filled the horses' tracks.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orphanhm/paynerem.htm