The Cumberland and the Tennessee are navigable rivers which in their lower course flow parallel in a northerly or north-westerly direction to join the Ohio not far above its junction with the Mississippi at Cairo.  Fort Henry was a Confederate fort guarding the navigation of the Tennessee near the northern boundary of the State of that name, Fort Donelson was another on the Cumberland not far off.  Ulysses Simpson Grant, who had served with real distinction in the Mexican War, had retired from the Army and had been more or less employed about his father’s leather store in Illinois and in the gloomy pursuit of intoxication and of raising small sums from reluctant friends when he met them.  On the outbreak of the Civil War he suddenly pulled himself together, and with some difficulty got employment from the Governor of Illinois as a Major-General in the State Militia (obtaining Army rank later).  Since then, while serving under Halleck, he had shown sense and promptitude in seizing an important point on the Ohio, upon which the Confederates had designs.  He had a quick eye for seeing important points.  Grant was now ordered or obtained permission from Halleck to capture Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.  By the sudden movements of Grant and of the flotilla acting with him, the Confederates were forced to abandon Fort Henry on February 6, 1862.  Ten days later Fort Donelson surrendered with nearly 10,000 prisoners, after a brilliant and nearly successful sortie by the garrison, in which Grant showed, further, tenacity and a collected mind under the pressure of imminent calamity.  Halleck had given Grant little help.  Buell was reluctant to detach any of his volunteer troops from their comrades to act with a strange army, and Halleck had not warned him of his intentions.  Halleck soon applied to Lincoln for the supreme command over the two Western armies with Buell under him.  This was given to him.  Experience showed that one or the other must command now that concerted action was necessary.  Nothing was known at Washington to set against Halleck’s own claim of the credit for the late successes.  So Lincoln gave him the command, though present knowledge shows clearly that Buell was the better man.  Grant had been left before Fort Donelson in a position of some danger from the army under Albert Johnston; and, from needless fear of Beauregard with a Confederate force under him yet further West, Halleck let slip the chance of sending Grant in pursuit of Johnston, who was falling back up the Cumberland valley.  As it was, Johnston for a time evacuated Nashville, further up the Cumberland, the chief town of Tennessee and a great railway centre, which Buell promptly occupied; Beauregard withdrew the Confederate troops from Columbus, a fortress of great reputed strength on the Mississippi not far below Cairo, to positions forty or fifty miles (as the crow flies) further down the stream.  Thus, as it was, some important steps had been gained in securing that control of the navigation of the