General Smith had been directed to
leave a portion of his division behind to guard forts Henry and Heiman.
He left General Lew. Wallace with 2,500 men. With the remainder of his
division he occupied our left, extending to Hickman creek. McClernand
was on the right and covered the roads running south and south-west from
Dover. His right extended to the back-water up the ravine opening into
the Cumberland south of the village. The troops were not intrenched, but
the nature of the ground was such that they were just as well protected
from the fire of the enemy as if rifle-pits had been thrown up. Our
line was generally along the crest of ridges. The artillery was
protected by being sunk in the ground. The men who were not serving the
guns were perfectly covered from fire on taking position a little back
from the crest. The greatest suffering was from want of shelter. It
was midwinter and during the siege we had rain and snow, thawing and
freezing alternately. It would not do to allow camp-fires except far
down the hill out of sight of the enemy, and it would not do to allow
many of the troops to remain there at the same time. In the march over
from Fort Henry numbers of the men had thrown away their blankets and
overcoats.
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