[CHAP.XII. OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE.

mile north of the offset in the boundary line of the State on its western extension. It is 20 miles below Danville, where the memphis, Louisville, and Nashville Railroad crosses the Tennessee, and 60 miles above Paducah. The river at this point is 1,200 feet wide. it is a bastion fort, inclosing an area of a little over 3 acres. The ditch surrounding it is 20 feet in width, with an average depth of 10 feet, making the height of parapet from the bottom of the ditch about 18 feet. The line of parapet is 2,270 feet.

Its armament consists at present of six 32-pounders, two 12-pounders and one 6-pounder field piece.

Four of the 32-pounder range down the river, and the fifth may be brought to bear when a boat passes the channel between the island and the bank, which is a distance of about 1 1\2 miles. Should a boat be able to run close to the bank in high water, this gun would have a very uncertain range.

The head of the island is 1 1\2 miles from the fort. The island is 1 mile in length and about 350 feet in width, and is heavily timbered. The channel is 700 feet in width. The chute between the island and the Kentucky shore is not navigable except the river is very high.

The valley is which the force is situated is parallel with the river, about 7 miles in light and from 1\2 to 1 1\2 miles in breadth, excepting one point north of the fort 1 1\3 miles, where the valley is narrowed by projecting spurs to about 350 yards.

The hills on the east outlying this valley have a steep acclivity to a height of 80 to 100 feet in a horizontal distance of 300 feet. These hills are spurs from a dividing ridge distant from the bank of the river from 3 1\2 to 6 miles. This ridge is about 350 feet above low water, and divides the waters of the Tennessee from the Cumberland River.

The hills of the greatest elevation fronting upon the river are south of the fort about 3 miles and distant from the river about 2 mile. Two hills within 1 1\4 miles from the fort attain the height of 220 feet above the crest of the parapet, but owing to the heaviness of the timber between them and the fort, they can be of little advantage to an enemy.

There is also a ridge northeast of the fort, about 3,000 feet distant, with an elevation of 60 feet above the parapet, which furnishes an effective basis of operations if the fort should be attack by land forces. From low-water mark to high-water mark is about 56 feet; the rise of water from an average to high-water mark is 44 feet.

At the high state of the river the water backs up into Panther Creek on the north and Lost Creek on the 2 1\2 miles, and at this stage the lower part of the fort is not free from overflow, being 7 feet 6 inches lower than the highest part. The leading roads being to ascend the hills in about half a mile from the river, and are generally located on the summits of the ridges, are gravelly, and generally very good.

This is the topography around the fort on the east bank (Tennessee side) of the river.

On the west bank of the river (Kentucky side) the valley extends northwards to the month of Blood River, about 9 miles from the fort, and to the southward only about 1 1\4 miles.

The hills outlying this valley are distant from the fiver at the south only 80 yards, just opposite the fort only 700 yards, and thence recede to a general distance of 1\2 to 1 mile.

The hill abutting on the river on the south side of the fort and on the west bank is distant from the fort 1,500 yards and is 170 feet above the crest of the parapet. Across the summit of this hill runs the dividing line between Tennessee and Kentucky. About 3\4 of a mile north of