The Union's First Great Victories

On 2 February 1862, Commodore Andrew H. Foote led a Union flotilla from Cairo, Illinois, up the Tennessee River. Four ironclad gunboats preceded three lightly armored "timberclad" gunboats and numerous transports carrying thousands of Union troops commanded by Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. The Tennessee's strong current made for slow and dangerous progress, but on the 4th, the leading vessels halted some six miles below Confederate-held Fort Henry. Captain Jesse Taylor, commanding the fort's artillery, recalled, "Far as eye could see, the course of the river could be traced by the dense volumes of smoke issuing from the flotilla—indicating that the long-threatened attempt to break our lines was to be made in earnest."1

Control of Tennessee was vital to both sides in the Civil War. Its agricultural production was critical to Confederate armies, and Nashville was one of the most important manufacturing centers in the Confederacy. Along the Cumberland River northwest of Nashville lay the South's largest gunpowder mills. The state also contained much of the Confederacy's mineral wealth.2 The two keys to controlling central Tennessee lay only 12 miles apart along its northern border: Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.

Although Union forces in the Western theater outnumbered the Confederates two to one in the summer of 1861, most Federal commanders were unenthusiastic about a thrust into Tennessee. Reportedly, Confederate defenses were well developed, and the lack of good north-south roads and adequate rail lines presented serious logistical difficulties. Both Major General Henry Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri, and Brigadier General Don Carlos Buell, head of the Department of the Ohio, cited logistics and insufficient resources for their failure to advance.3

In mid-September General Albert Sidney Johnston took command of the Confederacy's Western forces. Faced with the unenviable task of defending a 500-mile front with inadequate resources, Johnston opted for a broad-front strategy. His defensive line ran east from Columbus, Kentucky, briefly dipped into northern Tennessee before re-entering Kentucky and continuing to the Cumberland Gap. The Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, the two main tributaries of the Ohio, bisected the line, and where the two rivers were at their closest, the Confederates had built Henry on the east bank of the Tennessee River and Donelson on the west bank of the Cumberland.

Johnston's broad-front strategy was a calculated risk. In September he informed Confederate President Jefferson Davis, "We have not over half the armed forces that are now likely to be required for our security against disaster." Johnston hoped to hold his weak forward line until he could bring up reinforcements, and for six months his gamble paid off. He deployed the bulk of his troops at Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his headquarters was located, and Columbus. The rest of the long defensive line was stretched thin; only 5,500 troops garrisoned Henry and Donelson. Seizure of the forts would force Johnston to retreat from Kentucky and northern Tennessee or risk having his supply lines severed and his entire army destroyed.4

The Gunboat Flotilla

To control the Western rivers, both the Union and the Confederacy built gunboats—broad-beam, shallow-draft vessels that mounted as many as four guns forward and two aft with others in broadsides. The North had superior manufacturing resources, and in early June 1861 the U.S. Navy contracted to buy and convert three wooden side-wheel steamers—the Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga—that would be under Army control. Strengthened to carry heavy guns and bolstered by 5-inch-thick oak siding to withstand at least small-arms fire, these so-called timberclads were ready by late July.

James Eads, who directed the timberclad conversions, also secured an Army contract to build seven ironclads. Designed by John Lenthall and modified by Samuel Pook and Eads, each was propelled by a stern paddlewheel located amidships. They were called "Pook Turtles" for their rectangular casemates, designed by Pook, that covered the ships with sloped, armored sides. The ironclads, all named for towns on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers—the Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis—were protected with 2.5 inches of armor on the casemate and 1.25 inches on the conical forward pilothouse. When the vessels were completed and commissioned in January 1862, each mounted three 8-inch smoothbores, four Army 42-pounder coast defense rifled guns (7-inch bores), and six 32-pounder rifled guns. Eads also converted a ferry purchased by the War Department into the ironclad Essex, arming her with one 32-pounder, three 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and one 10-inch smoothbore. Like all U.S. warships on inland waters, the vessels would remain under the overall jurisdiction of the Army until October 1862.5

In September 1861, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had assigned Foote, a veteran of nearly 40 years of naval service, to command the Western flotilla. Blunt and of implacable resolve, Foote, like Grant—the commander of the District of Cairo, Illinois—believed the way to defeat the enemy was to attack him. He was no less determined an organizer. Certainly, much of the subsequent Union success in the West was attributable to his ability to overcome daunting problems and to his smooth working relationship with Grant. Foote soon proved the flotilla's worth in speeding the movement of soldiers and supplies and providing artillery support for troops ashore.6

For some time Grant and Foote had urged Halleck to take action against Fort Henry. Others had also suggested such an operation and, with pressure from President Abraham Lincoln and under threat of rumored Confederate reinforcements, Halleck finally agreed; the expedition set out on 2 February.7

The Move against Fort Henry

In December 1861, Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman had assumed command of Forts Henry and Donelson and quickly realized the weaknesses of the former. Johnston's military engineers confirmed that Henry had been badly sited on low ground and could easily be dominated by high ground across the river. Johnston then ordered the west bank to be fortified. For some reason Tilghman was dilatory in carrying out the work; the west-bank fortifications, known as Fort Heiman, were unfinished when Union troops arrived.8

Fort Henry, a solidly built five-sided earthwork, lay in a bend of the Tennessee River and commanded a three-mile straight stretch of water. By February 1862, Henry mounted 17 heavy guns: 12 facing the river and five guarding land approaches. It had eight 32-pounders, two 42-pounders, one 128-pounder Columbiad rifled gun, five long 18-pounder siege guns, and a 6-inch rifled gun. In early February some of the roughly three acres of land within the fort was two feet under water, threatening magazines and even the guns themselves. Moreover, the defenders had no ammunition for their 42-pounders, leaving only nine guns to counter a water approach. Tilghman also had only 2,610 men in two brigades; many were raw recruits armed with only shotguns and hunting rifles.9

Late on 5 February, three of the Union gunboats steamed into view of the fort and, according to Taylor, opened a "vigorous and well-directed fire," which killed one defender and wounded three others. The Confederates fired six shots in return, and the gunboats withdrew.10

Grant believed that the Confederates would quickly reinforce Fort Henry and therefore ordered a simultaneous land and water attack to begin at 1100 the next day. In readying his vessels, Foote reportedly told the crew of the Essex to "be brave and courageous, and above all to place their faith in Divine Providence."11

For the army advance, Grant sent Brigadier General Charles F. Smith and two brigades along the west bank of the river to prevent reinforcement and escape from that direction and to seize Fort Heiman. Most of Grant's men—Brigadier General John A. McClernand's division augmented by Smith's remaining brigade—advanced along the river's east bank, but wretched roads, dense woods, and swampy conditions delayed them.

Although Tilghman had telegraphed for reinforcements, none was sent, and at 1000 on the 6th he ordered all but the artillery company manning the batteries to march to Donelson. Fifty minutes later Foote ordered his gunboats forward, and at 1135 the four ironclads—the Cincinnati, Carondelet, St. Louis, and Essex—formed in line abreast. With no sign of Union troops ashore, Foote decided to begin the battle alone. Soon the fort with its Confederate flag, huts, and earthworks came into view. At 1145, from about 1,700-yard range, Foote's flagship, the Cincinnati, opened fire, and the other gunboats followed suit. At about a mile's range the Confederate water battery responded and the firing became general. The gunboats used only their bow guns as they closed to within 600 yards of the fort. Meanwhile, the timberclads Lexington, Conestoga, and Tyler lobbed shells into the forts from long range.12

Behind Henry's earthworks, Captain Taylor ordered each of his gun crews to concentrate on a particular vessel. The defenders knew the ranges to their targets, and their fire was both lively and accurate. Although Fort Henry had only nine guns that could respond, the Confederates hit each gunboat numerous times (59 hits in all), but most damage was slight, save to the Essex. Well into the battle, after she had fired 72 shots from her 9-inch Dahlgren guns, the Essex took a shell in her middle boiler. The resulting blast and steam killed or wounded 32 officers and men, including the captain, Commander William D. Porter, who was badly scalded. Out of control, she drifted downriver.13

The Confederates, however, were sustaining the more serious damage. Union fire was very accurate and shell explosions threw up earth around the Rebel guns. At 1235 the 6-inch rifled gun blew up, killing or wounding all its crew. A primer became stuck in the vent of the 10-inch Columbiad, disabling it. Then two 32-pounders were hit. As Taylor described it, "the flying fragments of the shattered guns and bursted shells disabled every man at the two guns." The gunners were dispirited and even Tilghman's example of working one of the guns himself failed to elicit enthusiasm.14

With only four guns able to return fire, at 1350 Tilghman mounted the parapet and waved a flag of truce, but heavy smoke obscured the scene. Five minutes later Taylor lowered the Confederate flag, which brought firing to an end. By that time the gunboats were only 200 yards from the fort.15
 
Tilghman had gained two hours for the garrison to escape. Only 94 men, including the commander and 16 men aboard a hospital boat, surrendered. Confederate losses from Federal fire were remarkably light: five dead, 11 wounded, and five missing. Union troops, meanwhile, arrived about an hour after the surrender; clearly the honor of the capture of Fort Henry belonged to the Navy.16

Foote quickly capitalized on the victory, sending three timberclads up the Tennessee River to disable the Memphis-Louisville railroad bridge and to conduct raids. His forces destroyed half a dozen Rebel steamers laden with supplies and seized the 670-ton steamer Eastport, which the Confederates had been converting into an ironclad ram. Union naval forces got as far south as Florence, Alabama, where the shallow water of Muscle Shoals stopped the gunboats.17

A Tougher Battle

Grant, meanwhile, wasted no time turning his attention to Fort Donelson. Larger than Henry and on a steep bluff, it overlooked a several-mile-long straight stretch of the Cumberland. The fort's guns were mounted in two water batteries cut into the slope of the ridge facing downriver. The most important of these, the lower one to the north, contained nine 32-pounders and the defenders' largest gun, a 10-inch Columbiad on a barbette mount. The upper battery, directly east of the fort, also could fire upriver. It held a 10-inch Columbiad, rifled as a 32-pounder to fire a conical 128-pound shot, and two 32-pounder carronades for close-range fire. The fort itself had eight additional guns.18

When Fort Henry fell, only 6,000 troops, including those who had fled Henry, were at Donelson. Johnston assumed that Grant would move against the second fort and that it would probably fall to Union gunboats alone. He therefore decided to give up Kentucky for the time being and ordered his troops at Bowling Green to retreat on Nashville for a defense behind the Cumberland. Except for a small force, Columbus would also be evacuated.

But Johnston also ordered 12,000 reinforcements to Donelson in order to buy time to withdraw the rest of his eastern forces to Nashville. That number of troops would be insufficient to defeat Grant and might increase possible losses through capture. The Confederate commander's error lay in not concentrating all of his available forces at Donelson. Had Johnston done that, he could have confronted Grant's 15,000 troops with 30,000 of his own before his opponent could be reinforced. With Grant defeated, Buell would have had to retreat back to the Ohio River. In any case, by mid-February Donelson's commander, Brigadier General John B. Floyd, had a garrison of 18,000 to 21,000 men.19

On 12 February, the first of Foote's gunboats, the Carondelet, arrived just downriver from the fort. Not sighting any Union troops ashore, Commander Henry Walke ordered ten rounds fired at Donelson from long range to "unmask the silent enemy, and to announce my arrival to General Grant." The Confederates did not reply. The Carondelet then dropped downriver and anchored for the night. The next morning she returned to near Donelson, and Grant made contact, asking for a diversion while his troops improved their lines.

The Carondelet, masked by a heavily wooded point on the riverbank, then fired 139 70-pound and 64-pound shells at the fort from long range. This time the Confederates returned fire. Most of their shots passed high, but two hit home. At 1130 one of these, a 128-pound solid shot from the rifled gun in the upper battery, burst through the gunboat's front casemate, wounded half a dozen crewmen, and slightly damaged the ship's machinery. The Carondelet halted fire briefly to transfer wounded and then lobbed another 45 shells into the fort, ceasing only when she had expended nearly all of her ammunition. One of her shots struck a Confederate 32-pounder, disabling it and killing two defenders and wounding five.20

Major land fighting also erupted on the 13th. Despite Grant's order not to initiate combat, General McClernand ordered an assault against a Confederate battery at the middle of the enemy line. That night Foote arrived with the ironclads St. Louis (his flagship), Louisville, and Pittsburgh. Behind them the Tyler and Conestoga convoyed transports with reinforcements.21

Grant's plan was to hold the Confederates within the fort from the land side while the Union flotilla attacked at close range and reduced the fort's deadly water batteries. If possible, some of the gunboats were to run past the batteries and get south of Dover, within the Rebel lines just south of the fort, to cut off Confederate resupply down the Cumberland.22

On the morning of the 14th, gunboat crews placed hard materials, such as chains, lumber, and bags of coal on the upper decks of their vessels to provide protection from plunging shot, and by afternoon all was ready. The assault began shortly before 1500, with virtually the same formation as at Fort Henry—the ironclads St. Louis, Carondelet, Louisville, and Pittsburgh led, while the vulnerable Tyler and Conestoga followed, keeping beyond the range of Donelson's guns.

Surprise was impossible. The Confederates had an excellent field of fire up the straight stretch of the Cumberland, while their earthen works were difficult to locate from the water. At about 1530, from a range of 1,500 yards, the Rebels fired two shots from their 10-inch Columbiad. Both fell short. At about a mile from the fort, the St. Louis opened up and the other gunboats joined in. Foote varied speed to try to reduce the accuracy of the Confederate shots, and the gunboats fired rapidly until they were within 400 yards of the batteries.23

The battle raged for an hour and a half. Confederate plunging fire from the water batteries and guns on the bluff nullified the Union gunboats' sloping armor by hitting it at right angles. As Walke noted, the shot "knocked the plating to pieces, and sent fragments of iron and splinters into the pilots, one of whom fell mortally wounded, and was taken below. . . and still they came, harder and faster, taking flag-staffs and smoke-stacks, and tearing off their side armor as lightning tears the bark from a tree."24 The nearness of their targets also aided the inexperienced Confederate gunners.

The Union gunboats, meanwhile, were limited to their bow guns, and the gunners found it difficult to locate the Confederate positions and to elevate their guns sufficiently to bring them under fire. Soon the steering mechanisms of two of the Union warships were shot away and pilothouses of two others badly damaged. The St. Louis alone was hit 59 times, and Foote was wounded in an arm and a foot by splinters from a shell that killed the pilot standing next to him and took away the ship's wheel. The Louisville, disabled by a shot that carried away her rudder chains, drifted out of action. On board the Carondelet, a rifled gun loaded too hastily exploded, wounding more than a dozen men. Two Confederate hits killed four others. More would have been casualties had not lookouts shouted warnings of incoming Confederate shots. Still, Walke reported that there was so much blood on the decks "that our men could not work the guns without slipping."

The Carondelet, which took 54 hits, sustained the most damage. The Pittsburgh, also in difficulty, crashed into her and broke her rudder, and the St. Louis was disabled by the Tyler smashing into her steering gear. Three of the four ironclads were now hors d'combat, drifting downstream. Confederate soldiers broke into cheers as the Union vessels withdrew. In the entire flotilla, 11 men were killed and 43 wounded, half of these on the Carondelet. Damage to the gunboats was not as severe as it had initially appeared; none sustained serious injury. Incredibly, there were no casualties among the defenders and no damage to the water battery or its armament.25

In his official report, Foote wrote that if the action could have been continued 15 more minutes, it would have resulted in Donelson's capture.26 There seems little justification for such a conclusion, however.

Despite the setback, Union reinforcements continued to arrive. On the 15th the Confederate forces attempted a breakout, surprising the Federal troops with a dawn attack. But Brigadier General Gideon Pillow, in command of the operation, threw away the opportunity. Imagining that he was now in position to defeat Grant and force the Federals back to Henry, Pillow ignored the breakout plan and continued the attack. Union troops held, then drove the Confederates back, and Pillow ordered his men to return to Donelson.27

Grant, meanwhile, had ordered Smith to attack the Confederate right, which he reasoned must have been weakened for Pillow's attack. Smith's assault broke the Confederate lines, and nightfall found the Confederates unable to dislodge the Federals. With Union strength up to 27,000 men, a Southern surrender was inevitable. Generals Floyd and Pillow abandoned their commands and escaped by boat; Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest led some 500 out on horseback through a swollen creek.28

On the morning of the 16th, Confederate Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner asked for terms. Grant's famous response was "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." Figures for Confederate losses vary greatly: Between 11,738 and 17,000 Confederates surrendered; some 1,500 to 3,500 were killed or wounded. Union losses totaled 500 killed, 2,108 wounded, and 221 captured or missing.29

Fort Henry had fallen to the U.S. Navy, Donelson to the U.S. Army. They were the first great Union victories of the war, shattering the Confederate defensive line and giving the Federals control of Kentucky and most of middle and western Tennessee. Johnston now abandoned Nashville; it fell on 25 February, and the Confederates evacuated Columbus on 2 March.30

The victories at Forts Henry and Donelson won "Unconditional Surrender" Grant lasting fame in the North. Foote was not so fortunate. The wound from the fighting at Donelson took its toll, and he was forced to relinquish his command in May. After recuperating, Foote was on his way to assume command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron when he died in New York City in June 1863 of Bright's Disease.