As the calendar had rolled over from 1861 to 1862, both the Union and the Confederacy
were preparing for what they both expected would be the pivotal year of the Civil War.
Nineteen days into the New Year, and the Union had already won the first significant battle
of 1862: the Battle of Mill Springs in Eastern Kentucky. Yet this battle is too far away
to have any direct impact on the centerpiece of the Western Theater: the Mississippi Valley,
or to help local Unionists being bitterly persecuted in Eastern Tennessee.
In the winter of 1861, the Union armies in the West experienced a significant shift in
command structure. Replacing Major General John C. Frémont as senior commanding general
of the Department of the Missouri was Major General Henry Wager Halleck, a prominent political
general with high connections in Washington. From his headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri,
General Halleck commands a Union army of roughly 70 - 80,000 men in strength. To the east,
Major General Don Carlos Buell’s 50,000-man Army of the Ohio is headquartered at Louisville,
Kentucky. The boundary between these two armies’ jurisdictions as it enters Confederate territory
is the Cumberland River. In the early months of 1862, the Union strategy
in the Western Theater shifted from pitched battles to control over the key waterways
in the West, such as the Tennessee, Ohio, and Cumberland Rivers, as well as the mighty
Mississippi. Simultaneous river and overland movement would provide Union armies with multiple
opportunities to breach Confederate defenses further south. Yet the biggest question at
this time is how to requisite a proper riverine force of gunboats and transports - a question
that proves challenging to Union commanders in the theater.
Not withstanding the U.S. Navy’s preference for war at sea, Secretary of the Navy Gideon
Welles sends officers to the Western rivers to construct and organize a proper gunboat
flotilla. This “brown-water navy” as it is called, is fundamental to reopening the
Mississippi and its tributaries, including the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. But it
will take months of patient preparation and coordination between the armed services as
well as cooperation with local shipbuilding industries to produce the requisite force.
The Union Army, jealous and distrustful of intrusions into its affairs, attempts to build
its own riverine fleet. But veteran sailors such as John Rodgers, Andrew Hull Foote, and
Henry Walke persevere. They develop close ties with General Halleck and the Army soldiers,
and engage in shipbuilding interests from Cairo and DeKalb in Illinois, Mound City in
Missouri, and other river towns to build new vessels or convert available rivercraft for
combat. Inventor and engineer James B. Fads of St. Louis is contracted to fabricate what
will become known as the “Western Flotilla” of ironclad gunboats. These vessels are fitted
with heavy iron plating, intended to absorb or even deflect incoming enemy artillery shells.
Army camps are scoured for gunboat volunteers. National arsenals dispatch heavy shipboard
ordnance, and shore-based service and supply facilities are created to support the Union
Navy on inland waters. All of this preparation takes time, however, and delay Major Generals
Halleck and Buell from launching their great advance southward. To make matters worse,
Halleck and other Union Army generals in the Western Theater are beginning to come under
pressure from President Lincoln, who urges them to launch a general offensive by George
Washington’s birthday on February 22nd. Enter Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant,
commanding general of the Union Army’s District of Cairo. In January of 1862, General Grant,
displaying personal initiative that would later characterize his career, approaches
General Halleck at his headquarters in St. Louis to propose a bold strategy to seize
control over the upper Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. In cooperation with Union Navy Flag
Officer Andrew H. Foote, General Grant will transport his command upriver from Cairo to
seize the strategically-important Confederate strongholds of Forts Henry and Donelson, located
on the Tennessee and Cumberland, respectively. Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston,
commander of the Army of Central Kentucky, had realized that his forces are too thinly-stretched
over a wide defensive line. Johnston’s left flank was defended by Major General Leonidas
Polk, with his 12,000-man force centered in Columbus, Kentucky. His right flank is guarded
by Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner in Bowling Green, Kentucky, leading 4,000
men. The center of the Army of Central Kentucky’s lines consists of Forts Henry and Donelson,
under the command of Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, also with 4,000 men. These two strongholds
are the only two defensive positions guarding the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. If these
rivers were to open to Union military traffic, it would open two direct invasion paths into
Tennessee and beyond. Brigadier General Grant realizes this precarious
situation for the Confederates, but his proposal is initially rejected by Major General Halleck,
who dismisses the idea since he is aware of Grant’s reputation for drinking in his past
career with the Army. It takes the intervention of the older and more respected Flag Officer
Foote to convince Halleck that the idea of a joint Army-Navy expedition up the Tennessee
and Cumberland Rivers in midwinter might produce results, and that Grant should be the man
to lead it. Finally, Halleck relents and unleashes these two commanders against the Rebels.
Since the Western Flotilla belonged to the Army at that time, Flag Officer Foote was
ready to team up with Grant to make the expedition a success. It was Foote’s mature and confident
manner that had won over the skeptical Halleck. General Halleck’s main task soon becomes
to provide support to this pair, as well as to secure General Buell’s cooperation to
pin down the enemy from reinforcing the threatened point on the twin rivers.
The news that Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard, the hero of Fort Sumter and the
Battle of Manassas, was en route to the Western Theater with fifteen regiments of reinforcements
for General Johnston may have also helped convince Halleck of the necessity of a quick
action against the Confederates. General Halleck approves the Grant-Foote expedition plan on
January 30th, 1862. News of his decision hits Grant’s Cairo headquarters like a thunderbolt.
Brigadier General Grant and his staff quickly spring into action making the necessary preparations
for the expedition. Finally, on February 3rd, nine transport boats
carrying some 15,000 troops, animals, supplies, and artillery batteries slip away from their
moorings at Cairo and steam slowly upstream against the rain-swollen current of the Ohio
River. Picking up Flag Officer Foote’s escort of four ironclad and three “timberclad”
gunboats, the flotilla reaches Paducah, Kentucky, and then turns southward up the Tennessee
River. Slowly making their way past random cabins and farms and an occasional friendly
inhabitant waving a handkerchief or Union flag, the column aims at establishing base
camps just out of range of Fort Henry’s guns.
Many of Grant’s units in the expedition had participated in his very wet and unpleasant
reconnaissance in western Kentucky behind Columbus in mid-January. Untested in battle,
these men are still eager to close with the enemy and to have a chance to capture the
forts and secessionist property. An Illinois officer boasts to his wife that he expects
to float up the Tennessee and capture the two forts before breakfast. Meanwhile, the
Navy would scout the Confederate position. The force converging on Fort Henry consists
of two divisions. The first is commanded by another Illinois officer, the politically-connected
Brigadier General John B. McClernand; the second is led by Brigadier General Charles
F. Smith, a stern Regular Army officer who had been Grant’s cadet commander at West
Point. Scattered throughout the land force are other notables - the Illinois officer
John A. “Black Jack” Logan and Indiana native Lewis “Lew” Wallace, as well as
a smattering of West Pointers and other experienced militia officers. But mostly, Grant’s force
is a vast array of farmhands from Nebraska, clerks from Indiana, and riverhands and tradesmen
from Ohio and Illinois. On the gunboats serve Jack Tars from the seagoing Navy as well as
newly-minted freshwater sailors from the Army, lured by promises of no more tedious drilling
or marches in the sleet and snow and easier tasks aboard the boats.
Facing Grant’s invasion force are Brigadier General Tilghman’s 2,800 half-sick, poorly-armed,
multi-attired young soldiers - drawn mostly from Tennessee but also representing Alabama,
Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Morale within Fort Henry had been high until the
onset of winter, when the icy blasts and snowy interludes had chilled secessionist ardor
for some of the most ardent boys from the Deep South. Isolation, high incidence of illness,
and the poor position of the fort - now half-submerged underwater in the swollen Tennessee River
- had dampened the spirits of others. With two feet of swollen river water coursing
the parade grounds in Fort Henry, and Fort Heiman of no use for cross fire from across
the river, Brigadier General Tilghman is in a tough position. He controls access to hundreds
of miles of fertile river-bottom farms and plantations all the way to Muscle Shoals,
Alabama. Just upriver at Danville lay the major river crossing for the railroad line
from Bowling Green to Memphis. The torpedo or mine obstructions in the river had been
swept away or rendered impotent by the floodwaters. Fort Henry's powder magazines contained inferior
powder (much of it damp or wet) and only eleven of the seventeen heavy cannon could be brought
to bear downriver. General Tilghman decides quickly to abandon
Fort Heiman and concentrate his small garrison inside Fort Henry and its shallow rifle pits
nearby. Eventually, he disperses his infantry to higher ground outside the main fort both
to guard the land approach to the post and to avoid the rising water. Most of the men
under his command are armed with shotguns and 1812-era flintlock muskets. They lack
sufficient field artillery to counter General Grant’s columns. Indeed, Grant’s plan
of attack calls for a combined naval and land assault on the earthworks. General Smith would
move against Fort Heiman, which the Federals do not know is unfinished and about to be
abandoned, while General McClernand would march to the rear of Fort Henry and assault
the outlying entrenchments, thereby closing off Tilghman's retreat route. Foote would
steam his gunboats directly against the heavy seacoast guns commanding the channel approach
to Fort Henry.
Once his scouts announce the presence of the enemy’s soldiers and gunboats, Brigadier
General Tilghman sends most of his garrison overland to Fort Donelson. He knows that Fort
Henry is untenable, but is determined to make a stand against the gunboats. No attempt would
be made to push McClernand and Smith from their camps into the river. In spite of familiarity
with the roads and creek crossings in the vicinity, where he might have ambushed the
blue coats as they floundered through knee deep mud en route to the fort, General Tilghman
decides to concentrate on the river battle. And he does not have long to wait. The Battle
of Fort Henry commences at about noon on February 6th, 1862, as Flag Officer Foote’s flotilla
moves to the attack. Foote divides his gunboats into two divisions.
Four ironclads of the so-called City Series, USS Essex, Cincinnati, Carondelet, and St.
Louis lead the assault. The three timberclads, USS Tyler, Conestoga, and Lexington, steam
behind the ironclads. The Union flotilla mounts fifty-four guns, although only eighteen bow
pieces can bear on Fort Henry in such a formation. Therefore, odds are somewhat even until Foote
orders his gunboat captains to close within point-blank range and simply overwhelm the
fort’s gunners. Heavy fire from Fort Henry and the gunboats
soon echo across the river flats as action opens up at 12:34 PM. Yet the fight proves
short and unexpectedly easy for the Union side. Tilghman loses all but four of his heavy
guns. Two of these cannon either explode upon firing or are rendered inoperable by inexperienced
gun crews. As the Federal gunboats close to within 300 yards of the fort, the carnage
inside the work becomes dreadful. Twenty-one Confederate gunners are killed
or wounded by the fusilade of naval gunfire. Decapitated and armless bodies, shattered
gun carriages, and dismounted cannon as well as battered parapets present a gruesome spectacle.
Confederate engineer Captain J. A. Haywood watches the unequal fight, recording that
the fort’s gunners become completely exhausted, with some scarcely able to stand. All are
full of bravery and spirit and some are confident, but those who know better see that it is vain
to fight longer. Captain Haywood records how it is a “useless sacrifice of life.” He
adds that this opinion is entertained for a full hour and a half before the fight ends.
Still, Captain Jesse Taylor’s men stick to their posts and manage to plant a shot
squarely in the Essex’s boiler, knocking it out of action while the Cincinnati receives
thirty-two hits, severely damaging its smokestacks, main cabin, and small boats and silencing
two of its guns. But Flag Officer Foote clings tenaciously to his mission, claiming, “it
must be victory or death.” Before long, General Tilghman asks for terms.
Foote replies, “No, Sir, your surrender will be unconditional.” While Grant’s
soldiers slog towards the fort, two of Foote’s subordinates row through the sally port and
onto the flooded parade ground to accept Tilghman’s sword. It is late in the afternoon before
Grant and his land forces arrive. They have missed the retreating Confederate infantry,
which has escaped to Fort Donelson as soon as the Rebel Stars and Bars flutter from Fort
Henry’s flagstaff in defeat. The Federals discover the environs of the fort cluttered
with abandoned cooking pots of stew and other food, and sizeable quantities of quartermaster,
commissary, and ordnance supplies, while on the road to Fort Donelson lay six abandoned
cannon mired in the mud. Sullen prisoners mingle with elated Yankee soldiers and sailors
as Union forces celebrate their first major victory of the campaign. Now, Grant and Foote
would shift their attention toward the more menacing stronghold on the Cumberland River:
Fort Donelson.