This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Chapter 4.
A PRISONER OF WAR
Snow still lay deep on the ground at Fort Donelson that Sunday morning, February 16, Pvt. Baxter and the rest of the Confederates awaited their Federal captors. Baxter had come through Saturday?s heavy fighting without a scratch, but not all of his comrades in Company E were as fortunate. Pvt. J. P. Wattlebaum had been killed, and 12 others (including the acting company commander, Lt. W. S. Champlin) had been wounded. Of the 12, six were wounded so seriously that Lt. Champlin decided Saturday afternoon to put them aboard a steamer carrying other wounded to Nashville. In this group was Cpl. J. P Yates, brother-in-law of Baxter?s oldest sister, Mary Elizabeth Baxter Yates.
Shortly after daylight, Baxter and his fellow soldiers watched Gen. Lew Wallace and his staff enter the old hotel at Dover to take breakfast of cornbread and coffee with Gen. Buckner. Before long the first Federal troops appeared, and the business of taking possession of the fort and disarming the Southerners began.
An hour or so after Gen. Wallace, Gu6. Grant and his staff arrived, took over the hotel for headquarters, and began the arduous task of feeding and transporting'12,000 prisoners of war - the largest number taken in American military history up till then. (Lionel - it isn?t clear where all these prisoners came from). By noon the prisoners were collected near Dover, given rations for two days, and allowed to keep their clothing, blankets, and such private property as they could carry on their person.
Guards and transportation for the Confederate prisoners were at a premium, but by Monday morning, 20 steamers had been assembled at Dover. The weather had improved markedly since Sunday, and when Pvt. Baxter and the rest of Company E went aboard the steamer Universe about 8 o?clock in the evening,
31