General S. B. Buckner, Confederate Army.

Sir:—­Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received.  No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.  I propose to move immediately upon your works.

I am, sir, very respectfully, Your ob’t se’v’t, U. S. Grant, Brig.  Gen.

To this I received the following reply: 

Headquarters, Dover, Tennessee, February 16, 1862.

To Brig.  Gen’l U. S. Grant, U. S. Army.

Sir:—­The distribution of the forces under my command, incident to an unexpected change of commanders, and the overwhelming force under your command, compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant success of the Confederate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms which you propose.

I am, sir, Your very ob’t se’v’t, S. B. Buckner, Brig.  Gen. C. S. A.

General Buckner, as soon as he had dispatched the first of the above letters, sent word to his different commanders on the line of rifle-pits, notifying them that he had made a proposition looking to the surrender of the garrison, and directing them to notify National troops in their front so that all fighting might be prevented.  White flags were stuck at intervals along the line of rifle-pits, but none over the fort.  As soon as the last letter from Buckner was received I mounted my horse and rode to Dover.  General Wallace, I found, had preceded me an hour or more.  I presume that, seeing white flags exposed in his front, he rode up to see what they meant and, not being fired upon or halted, he kept on until he found himself at the headquarters of General Buckner.

I had been at West Point three years with Buckner and afterwards served with him in the army, so that we were quite well acquainted.  In the course of our conversation, which was very friendly, he said to me that if he had been in command I would not have got up to Donelson as easily as I did.  I told him that if he had been in command I should not have tried in the way I did:  I had invested their lines with a smaller force than they had to defend them, and at the same time had sent a brigade full 5,000 strong, around by water; I had relied very much upon their commander to allow me to come safely up to the outside of their works.  I asked General Buckner about what force he had to surrender.  He replied that he could not tell with any degree of accuracy; that all the sick and weak had been sent to Nashville while we were about Fort Henry; that Floyd and Pillow had left during the night, taking many men with them; and that Forrest, and probably others, had also escaped during the preceding night:  the number of casualties he could not tell; but he said I would not find fewer than 12,000, nor more than 15,000.