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In his official reports of the battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, General McClernand, commanding the First Division, speaks highly of Colonel Logan's conduct in them. Touching Fort Donelson, McClernand says:

Schwartz's battery being left unsupported, by the retirement of the Twenty-ninth, the Thirty-first boldly rushed to its defence, and at the same moment received the combined attack of the forces on the right [under Polk] and of others in front, supposed to have been led by General Buckner. The danger was imminent, and calling for a change of disposition adapted to meet it, which Colonel Logan made by forming the right wing of his battalion at an angle with the left. In this order he supported the battery, which continued to play upon the enemy and held him in check until his regiment's supply of ammunition was entirely exhausted.

The report of Colonel Oglesby of the eighth Illinois, commanding the First Brigade, also says:

Turning to the Thirty-first, which yet held its place in line, I ordered Colonel Logan to throw back his right, so as to form a crotchet on the right of the Eleventh Illinois. In this way Colonel Logan held in check the advancing foe for some time, under the most destructive fire, while I endeavored to assist Colonel Cruft with his brigade in finding a position on the right of the Thirty-first. It was now four hours since fighting began in the morning. The cartridge-boxes of the Thirty-first were nearly empty. The colonel had been severely wounded, and the lieutenant-colonel, John H. White, had, with some thirty others, fallen dead on the field, and a large number wounded. In this condition Colonel Logan brought off the remainder of his regiment in good order.

Says another writer:

The annals of the war speak of General Logan as being where danger was the greatest and the blows of death the thickest and most heavy, and no name is inscribed more brightly upon the roll of honor of Donelson.

The "unconditional surrender" of Fort Donelson, February 16, 1862, was a heavy shock to the South, and correspondingly swelled with joy the Northern heart.

At this distance of time it is hard to realize what was endured by our Union soldiers at Donelson. The cold was of such intensity that the hands and feet of many of them were frozen. Everything was covered with a thick crust of ice, and the sleet continued to fall heavily and ceaselessly day and night during the siege. The besiegers were, moreover, so close to the fortifications that no fires could be lighted, and neither officers nor men had anything to eat save the insufficient, cold cooked rations in their haversacks. Nor had they anything to protect them from the pitiless driving storm; and to keep their powder dry taxed their vigilance to the utmost.

The following letter exhibits the fact that Colonel Logan's conduct at this siege had attracted the personal attention of General Grant:

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT WEST TENNESSEE,
FORT HENRY, March 14, 1862.

Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

I have been waiting for reports of sub-commanders at the battle of Fort Donelson to make some recommendations of officers for advancement for meritorious services. These reports are not yet in, and as the troops under my command are actively engaged, may not be for some time. I therefore take this occasion to make some recommendations of officers who in my opinion should not be neglected. I would particularly mention the names of Colonel J. D. Webster, First Illinois Artillery; Morgan L. Smith, Eighth Missouri Volunteers; W. H. L. Wallace, Eleventh Illinois Volunteers; and John A. Logan, Thirty-first Illinois Volunteers. The two former are old soldiers, and men of decided merit. The two latter are from civil pursuits, but I have no hesitation in fully indorsing them as in every way qualified for the position of brigadier-general, and think they have fully earned the position on the field of battle. There are others who may be equally meritorious, but I do not happen to know so well their services. U. S. GRANT,

Major-General.

For his gallantry in the reduction of Donelson, Colonel Logan was accordingly promoted to be a brigadier-general of volunteers. For some time he was confined by his wounds

to his bed; but so impatient was he to return to his command, that, with his wounds still unhealed, he essayed to do so, although unable to wear a coat, as soon as he was able to sit up. He reached his command on the evening of the bat tle of Shiloh, April 7, 1862, just too late to participate in the engagement-much to his disappointment.

GENERAL LOGAN IN COMMAND OF A BRIGADE-HIS SERVICES AT AND ABOUT CORINTH-GENERAL SHERMAN'S APPRECIATION OF THEM.

Being assigned to the command of the First Brigade, Third Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, General Logan took a distinguished part in the movement against Corinth; and, had his suggestions been acted upon, that vast fortified encampment, with the enemy encamped therein, would have been captured, instead of being merely occupied after the enemy had evacuated it.* After the occupation of Corinth, General Logan guarded with his brigade the railroad communications with Jackson, Tenn., of which place he was subsequently given the command, and engaged in rebuilding the railroad to Jackson and Columbus.

General Sherman, in his official report of the siege of Corinth, dated "Camp near Corinth, May 30, 1862," says:

Colonel John A. Logan's brigade, of General Judah's division of McClernand's reserve corps, and General Veatch's brigade, of Hurlbut's division, were placed subject to my orders, and took an important part

* The over-cautious Halleck, and others of his generals, believed that the noise of incoming and departing trains within the enemy's lines at Corinth, coupled with the occasional loud cheering of Beauregard's men, indicated the arrival of heavy reinforcements of the enemy, and expected him to come out and offer battle outside his lines. Logan, however, whose troops were on the railroad, was satisfied that an evacuation was going on, because, by listening close to the rails, the difference in the sound caused by the incoming unloaded cars and the outgoing loaded ones was quite distinguishable, and Beauregard's ruse of heavy cheers when the unloaded cars steamed in did not deceive him. Logan therefore suggested an immediate attack on the enemy's position, and asked permission to himself make it with his command. That permission was refused, and the enemy escaped, to the intense chagrin of the "Grand Army" of the Union.

with my own division in the operations of the two following days, viz., May 28 and May 29, 1862; and I now thank the officers and men of those brigades, for the zeal and enthusiasm they manifested and the alacrity they displayed in the execution of every order given. And further, I feel under special obligations to this officer, General Logan, who, during the two days he served under me, held critical ground on my right, extending down to the railroad. All that time he had in his front a large force of the enemy, but so dense was the foliage that he could not reckon their strength save from what he could see in the railroad track.

LOGAN SOLICITED TO RETURN TO CONGRESS-HIS GRANDLY PATRIOTIC REFUSAL—“I HAVE ENTERED THE FIELD TO DIE. IF NEED BE, FOR THIS GOVERNMENT -HIS ONLY POLITICS, HIS "ATTACHMENT FOR THE UNION."

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In the summer of 1862, General Logan was warmly urged by his numerous friends and admirers in Illinois to become a candidate for re-election to Congress as a Representative-atLarge, but in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State of Illinois, glowing with the fires of true patriotism, General Logan answered:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your complimentary letter of the 18th inst., asking permission to use my name in connection with that of Representative for the Fourteenth Congressional District of the State of Illinois.

In reply I would most respectfully remind you that a compliance with your request on my part would be a departure from the settled resolution with which I resumed my sword in defence and for the perpetuity of a Government, the like and blessings of which no other nation or age shall enjoy if once suffered to be weakened or destroyed.

In making this reply, I feel that it is unnecessary to enlarge as to what were, are, or may hereafter be, my political views, but would simply state that politics of every grade and character whatsoever are now ignored by me, since I am convinced that the Constitution and life of this Republic, which I shall never cease to adore, are in danger.

I express all my views and politics when I assert my attachment for the Union. I have no other politics now, and consequently no aspirations for civil place and power.

No! I am to-day a soldier of this Republic, so to remain, changeless and immutable, until her last and weakest enemy shall have expired and passed away.

Ambitious men, who have not a true love for their country at heart, may bring forth crude and bootless questions to agitate the pulse of our troubled nation, and thwart the preservation of this Union; but for none of such am I. I have entered the field-to die if need befor this Government, and never expect to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has become a fact established.

Whatever means it may be necessary to adopt, whatever local interest it may affect or destroy, is no longer an affair of mine. If any locality or section suffers or is wronged in the prosecution of the war, I am sorry for it; but I say that it must not be heeded now, for we are at war for the preservation of the Union. Let the evil be rectified when the present breach has been cemented forever.

If the South by her malignant treachery has imperiled all that made her great and wealthy, and it has to be lost, I would not stretch forth my hand to save her from destruction, if she will not be saved by a restoration of the Union. Since the die of her wretchedness has been cast by her own hands, let the coin of her misery circulate alone in her own dominions, until the peace of union ameliorates her forlorn condition.

By these few words you may readily discern that my political aspirations are things of the past, and I am not the character of man you seek. No legislation in which I might be suffered to take a feeble part will in my opinion suffice to amend the injury already inflicted upon our country by these remorseless traitors. Their policy for the dissolution of the Government was initiated in blood, and their seditious blood only can suffice to make amends for the evil done. This Government must be preserved for future generations in the same mould in which it was transmitted to us, if it takes the last man and the last dollar of the present generation within its borders to accomplish it.

For the flattering manner in which you have seen fit to allude to my past services, I return you my sincere thanks; but if it has been my fortune to bleed and suffer for my dear country, it is all but too little compared to what I am willing again and again to endure and should fate so ordain it, I will esteem it as the highest privilege a Just Dispenser can award, to shed the last drop of blood in my veins for the honor of that flag whose emblems are justice, liberty, and truth, and which has been, and as I humbly trust in God ever will be, for the right.

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