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Responding to Grant’s Postwar Request for a Report of Guns Captured at Fort Donelson, His First Success |
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[ULYSSES S. GRANT]. FRANKLIN D. CALLENDER.
Manuscript Letter Signed as Lt. Col of Ordnance and Brevet Brigadier General, to Adam Badeau, Grant’s Military Secretary, St. Louis, Arsenal, Mo., August 1, 1866. 2 pp., 7¾ x 9½ in.
Inventory #22955
Price: $495
Callender responds to Grant’s aide-de-camp Adam Badeau’s request “for a statement of the number and calibre of guns captured at Fort Donelson, February 16th 1862,” the Tennessee battle that was Grant’s first success. Not having that report, he offers one on Vicksburg instead.
Callender advises: “I have not been able to find any report of the character referred to among the records of my office, and search for such a report has also been made among the records of the Department of the Missouri - likewise without success. But I applied to Capt. Brink, late Acting Ordnance Officer at Fort Donelson for information on the subject, and he has kindly furnished me with the enclosed list which I transmit herewith together with his letter [neither is present]. In looking for a report of the guns captured at Fort Donelson a very full report was found of guns and Ordnance Stores captured at Vicksburg - which if the General [Grant] desires could be forwarded to you.”
Franklin D. Callender (1817-1882) Union officer; after distinguished service in the Seminole War and Mexican War, took command of the St. Louis Arsenal in 1861 and served as Chief of Ordnance of the Dept. of the Missouri [Nov. 19, 1861-Mar. 11, 1862]; holding same post in Dept. of the Miss. [March 11 - July 11, 1862], he returned to Mo., where he was on the Governor’s staff and then served in the advance upon and siege of Corinth; returned to Dept. of the Mo. and the St. Louis Arsenal July 11, 1862 and commanded it throughout the war; breveted B.G. USA for Corinth, St. Louis, and war service.
