Official Account of the Bombardment of Fort McHenry. Unlike its counterpart on the Cumberland, Fort Henry was situated on low, swampy ground and dominated by hills across the river. The Second Battle of Fort Fisher was a successful assault by the Union Army, Navy and Marine Corps against Fort Fisher, south of Wilmington, North Carolina, near the end of the American Civil War in January 1865. It discovered the real weakness of the Confederacy in that direction, the feasibility of marching an army into the heart of the Confederacy, and, better than all, it developed the most gratifying evidences of genuine Union feeling in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama.”[23] According to the same account, Phelps recruited several pro-Union Southerners to assist him during the raid. Tilghman was imprisoned at. [6], The Union military command in the West suffered from a lack of unified command, and were organized into three separate departments: the Department of Kansas, under Maj. Gen. David Hunter; the Department of Missouri, under Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck; and the Department of the Ohio, under Brig. This was the last major obstacle preventing the control of the rivers that led into Tennessee and Missouri and Grant was poised to besiege and overcome it. Generals/Commanders: Union: Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant (Army), Gens. Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant’s success here, along with his victory at Fort Donelson, paved the way for the Union to capture Nashville, Tennessee near the end of February. Civil War Times Editor Dana Shoaf shares the story of how Battery H of the 3rd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery found itself in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg. [18], After the bombardment had lasted 75 minutes, Tilghman surrendered to Foote's fleet, which had closed to within 400 yards (370 m) for a close-range bombardment. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with 4,000 men; the center consisted of two forts, Forts Henry and Donelson, under the command of Brig. (Rodney Bryant and Daniel Woolfolk/Military Times)... HistoryNet, Homepage Featured Top Stories, Homepage Hero. Nevin, pp. A severe indisposition, the effect of great fatigue and exposure, has prevented me heretofore from presenting you with an account The Confederate response from the nine guns facing the water was lively and accurate—all the Union gunboats were hit, although only the Essex sustained major damage, when a shell hit its middle boiler. While the Confederate leadership in the Western Theater was unified under General Albert S. Johnston, the Union command was divided under Major General Henry Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri, and Brigadier General Don Carlos Buell, commander of the Department of the Ohio. A small launch from the flotilla sailed through the sally port of the fort and picked up Tilghman for the surrender conference and ceremony on Cincinnati. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, displaying the personal initiative that would characterize his later career, seized Paducah, Kentucky, a major transportation hub of rail and port facilities at the mouth of the Tennessee River. The history of military engineering records no parallel to this case." For the Confederate strength: Eicher, p. 171; Gott, pp. Colonel Armistead, to the Secretary of War, dated . [24] The Union gunboats returned safely to Fort Henry on February 12. Immediately after the surrender, Foote sent Lieutenant Phelps with the three timberclads, Tyler, Conestoga, and Lexington, on a mission upriver to destroy installations and supplies of military value. Its 17 heavy guns were mounted with 12 facing the river and five securing the land approaches. The Union expedition left Cairo, Illinois, on February 2. Only nine guns remained above the water to mount a defense. After the fall of Fort Donelson, ten days later, the two major water transportation routes in the Confederate west, bounded by the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, became Union highways for movement of troops and material. (The troops serving under Grant were the nucleus of the Union's successful Army of the Tennessee, although that name was not yet in use. 54, 73; Cooling, p. 12; Stephens, p. 45. Immediately following the victory, Grant began discussing the capture of Fort Donelson. After Tilghman rejected an initial call to surrender, the fleet continued to bombard the fort. The commander-in-chief of the French forces, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, lays siege to Fort William Henry which Lt. Col. George Monro is finally forced to surrender. Twelve officers and 82 men surrendered; other casualties are estimated to be 15 men killed and 20 wounded. More formidable than Fort Henry, General Grant expected to fight a greater battle at Fort Donelson if he was going gain control and drive out the Confederate soldiers occupying it. This neutrality was first violated on September 3, when Confederate Brig. The Confederates had many more casualties than the Union. At about 11:45, with no sign of Union troops, who were mired in the muddy roads and would not arrive until after the battle was over, Foote began the attack. (Union cavalry pursued the retreating Confederates, but poor road conditions prevented any serious confrontation and they took few captives.) After this flurry of activity, the remainder of 1861 saw little action because forts on the Mississippi River had a higher priority for receiving men and artillery. The Union timberclads and their raiding parties destroyed supplies and an important bridge of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad, 25 miles (40 km) upriver. [7], Grant wasted no time, leaving Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, on February 2. The Union flotilla got under way at 10:50, with the Essex, Cincinnati, Carondelet, and St. Louis forming a line abreast and the timberclads about a half mile behind them. Gott, pp. Casualties - American casualties were estimated to be 1 wounded. It is currently part of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. While leaving artillery in the fort to hold off the Union gunboats, he ordered the majority of his force to march, under the command of Col. Adolphus Heiman, on the overland route to Fort Donelson, 12 miles (19 km) away. [19], Tilghman wrote bitterly in his report that Fort Henry was in a "wretched military position. The five-sided earthwork parapet of Fort Henry occupied about three acres on the east bank in Stewart and Henry counties of Tennessee, with rifle pits extending to the river and about two miles to the east. When the Tennessee River was dammed in the 1930s, creating Kentucky Lake, the remains of Fort Henry were permanently submerged. Fort Heiman was abandoned on February 4, and all but a handful of artillerymen left Fort Henry on February 5. The battle of Fort Donelson, which began on February 12, took place shortly after the surrender of Fort Henry, Tennessee, on February 6, 1862.Fort Henry had been a key position in the center of a line defending Tennessee, and the capture of the fort now opened the Tennessee River to Union troop and supply movements. 9–11; Eicher, p. 148; Gott, pp. Stephens, p. 46; Nevin, pp. In the days following the fort's surrender, from February 6 through February 12, Union raids used ironclad boats to destroy Confederate shipping and railroad bridges along the river. They soon opened fire from a distance at 1,700 yards (around 1,554 meters), beginning an exchange of gunfire with Fort Henry that continued for over an hour. Chancellorsville. Late in the afternoon on February 5, three Union gunboats approached Fort Henry and fired, eliciting a six-shot Confederate response, after which the Union gunboats withdrew. Casualties; 40. That would not be quite as easy a task as this had been. Halleck and the other generals in the West were coming under political pressure from President Abraham Lincoln to participate in a general offensive by Washington's birthday (February 22). Gott, pp. [cat totalposts=’21’ category=’1112′ excerpt=’true’ order=’desc’ orderby=’post_date’]. Cooling, pp. Construction began in mid-June, using men from the 10th Tennessee Infantry and slaves. Gott, pp. As Grant suspected, the Union capture of the two forts and the rivers flanked the Confederate forces at Columbus, and soon caused them to withdraw from that city and from western Kentucky. Nevin, p. 61: 17,000. Fort Henry’s fall opened the Tennessee River to Union gunboats and shipping as far as Muscle Shoals, Alabama. 61, 62, 89. The Battle of Fort Henry was fought on February 6, 1862, in Donelson, Stewart County, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. When the river was at normal levels, the fort's walls rose 20 feet (6.1 m) above it and were 20 feet (6.1 m) thick at the base, sloping upward to a width of nearly 10 feet (3.0 m) at the parapet. After the battle had lasted 75 minutes, Tilghman surrendered to the fleet, which had engaged the fort and closed within 400 yards (370 m). February 6, 1862: Battle of Fort Henry Casualties: 119 40 Union 79 Confederate. His invasion force, which arrived on the Tennessee River on February 4 and 5,[8] consisted of 15–17,000 men in two divisions, commanded by Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater. Fort Henry's fall quickly opened the Tennessee River to Union gunboats and shipping south of the Alabama border. The Confederates learned of the Union advance early on February 4. The Battle of Fort Donelson cost Grant 507 killed, 1,976 wounded, and 208 captured/missing. This was its first engagement using newly designed and hastily constructed ironclads. There were also two 42-pounders, but no ammunition of that caliber was available. The evacuating Confederate force left all of its artillery and equipment behind. It was during this battle when Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner. Before the battle, Tilghman told his men that he would offer an hour of resistance to allow his men additional time to escape. [5], By early 1862, a single general, Albert Sidney Johnston, commanded all the Confederate forces from Arkansas to the Cumberland Gap, but his forces were spread too thinly over a wide defensive line. Grant ordered the advance, a simultaneous land and water attack, to begin at 11 a.m. on February 6, in order to strike quickly before the Confederates could be reinforced. Confederate losses were much higher due to the surrender and numbered 327 killed, 1,127 wounded, and 12,392 captured. The fighting at Fort Henry also marked the first combat involving ironclad gunboats during the Civil War. At last the casualties at Fort Donelson all together including the dead, wounded and missing or captured were about 2,691 on the Union side and about 13,846 on the Confederate side. On February 7, the Union gunboats Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Essex returned to Cairo with whistles blowing and flying Fort Henry's captured Confederate flags upside down. 1864-'65. The Tennessee was flooding, putting parts of the fort under water. Capture of Fort Heiman Gen. Ulysses S. Grant advanced cross-country to invest Fort Donelson. 97–98; McPherson, p. 397; Nevin, p. 67; Cooling, p. 15; Eicher, p. 172. 107–14; McPherson, p. 397; Cooling, pp. By February 8, Fort Henry was completely underwater. Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and its counterpart on the Cumberland, Fort Donelson, were separated only by a narrow strip of land. Animated history of the Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson, CWSAC Report Update and Resurvey: Individual Battlefield Profiles, Newspaper coverage of the Battle of Fort Henry, Letter from H. B. Hillen, a Union soldier in an Indiana regiment, written shortly after the Battle of Fort Henry, 1862, List of Union Civil War monuments and memorials, List of memorials to the Grand Army of the Republic, Confederate artworks in the United States Capitol, List of Confederate monuments and memorials, Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote (Navy) In early 1861 the critical border state of Kentucky had declared neutrality in the American Civil War. 88–89, 91–92; Cooling, p. 13. Confederate losses in the fighting numbered around 15 killed and 20 wounded. (Donelson thought it unlikely that the two forts would be attacked simultaneously.) McClernand's division was 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the fort, on the east bank of the Tennessee River, to prevent the garrison's escape. The Johnston’s sacrifice allowed for General Douglas MacArthur to retake the Philippines... Homepage Featured Top Stories, Homepage Hero. Foote deployed the four ironclad gunboats in a line abreast, followed by the three timberclads, under the command of Seth Ledyard Phelps, which were held back for long-range, but less effective fire against the fort. (This measure turned out to be ineffective, due to high water levels and leaks in the torpedoes' metal containers. The battle’s consequences were greater than its size, however. Wreck of USS Johnston Discovered 77 Years After its Sinking at the... How a One-Armed Outfielder Became an Inspiration to Wounded WWII Veterans. Halleck and Grant were also concerned about rumors that Confederate General P.G.T. Battle of Fort Henry The Union had made a great effort to gain control of rivers and supply lines of the Confederates. VIDEO: Battery H Of The 3rd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery At Gettysburg, Dan Bullock: The youngest American killed in the Vietnam War. After the fall of Fort Donelson, ten days later, the two major water transportation routes in the Confederate west, bounded by the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, became Union highways for movement of troops and material. Feb 6, 1862. In addition, the fort was undermanned, with less than 3,000 troops in two brigades, many of them fresh recruits. Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S. Confederate States presidential election of 1861, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Fort_Henry&oldid=1015302735, Battles of the Federal Penetration up the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers of the American Civil War, Battles of the Western Theater of the American Civil War, Union victories of the American Civil War, Battles of the American Civil War in Tennessee, Articles with dead external links from October 2016, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Engineering records no parallel to this case. and Brig, then returned to Fort Donelson Lake.... Leaks in the Western Theater and 13,846 Confederate Result: Union victory of the and... 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