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Article: Fort Donelson and the flight of John B. Floyd.(Saturday)(The Civil War)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- April 21, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On May 1, 1861, Jefferson Davis appointed John B. Floyd - President Buchanan's former secretary of war - as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He was sent to southwestern Virginia, where, according to one biography, he repelled federal troops, and where, according to another biography, he was defeated.
He was then dispatched with his small army of 2,500 men to Kentucky to assist in the defense of that state. He was placed in command of Fort Donelson. But Floyd had little military experience, and Simon Bolivar Buckner, one of the other Confederate generals, had been Ulysses S. Grant's classmate at West Point.
Floyd apparently reached Fort ...