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Book, page 161 / 242 "Buckner and Forrest will be strongly for it, and they're likely to have their way. We must report at once to General Grant." The Southern attack had been planned for the next morning, but it did not come then. Pillow, for reasons unknown, decided to delay another day, and his fiery subordinates could do nothing but chafe and wait. Dick spent most of the day carrying orders for his chief, and the continuous action steadied his nerves. As he passed from point to point he saw that the Union army itself was far from ready. It was a difficult task to get twenty thousand raw farmer youths in proper position. They moved about often without cohesion and sometimes without understanding their orders. Great gaps remained in the line, and a daring and skilful foe might cut the besieging force asunder. But Grant had put his heavy guns in place, and throughout the day he maintained a slow but steady fire upon the fort. Great shells and solid shot curved and fell upon Donelson. Grant did not know what damage they were doing, but he shrewdly calculated that they would unsteady the nerves of the raw troops within. These farmer boys, as they heard the unceasing menace of the big guns, would double the numbers of their foe, and attribute to him an unrelaxing energy. Thus another gray day of winter wore away, and the two forces drew a little nearer to each other. Far away the rival Presidents at Washington and Richmond were wondering what was happening to their armies in the dark wilderness of Western Tennessee. The night was more quiet than the one that had just gone before. The booming of the cannon as regular as the tolling of funeral bells had ceased with the darkness, but in its place the fierce winter wind had begun to blow again. Dick, relaxed and weary after his day's work, hovered over one of the fires and was grateful for the warmth. He had trodden miles through slush and snow and frozen earth, and he was plastered to the waist with frozen mud, which now began to soften and fall off before the coals. Warner, who had been on active duty, too, also sank to rest with a sigh of relief.
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