Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862.  By Kendall D. Gott.  Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2011.

Easily overlooked and underappreciated are the campaigns in the western United and Confederates States during the first stages of the Civil War because most historians, like most Americans, tend to focus on the front-door fighting going on between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia.  This is a grave oversight, as Kendall Gott points out in his excellent work Where the South Lost the War, in which he claims the blunders committed by the Confederate Army, commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston, irrevocably burst open the back door to the Confederacy and ensured the North would eventually win.

Gott backs up this claim by opening with a discussion on how important the region in question was to both sides.  The critical rivers in question, the Tennessee and the Cumberland, are navigable down to northern Alabama and Nashville respectively.  It was not difficult to see that whomever controlled these rivers would control Kentucky and Tennessee as well as have access to the interior of the Confederacy.  The defense of this region was absolutely vital for Confederate survival and essential for the Union if the Federal troops were to maintain a strong presence in the region. 

Initially, however, there were no forts on either river, and neither the North nor the South were eager to construct one in the area so long as the neutrality of Kentucky remained undisturbed.  The critical state of Kentucky was important to the North and the South, for so long as the Bluegrass State remained neutral, any campaigns waged by Federal troops into the south in that region would have to take more circuitous routes through Missouri and Arkansas, acting as a buffer for the South and a roadblock for the North. 

Confederate generals still desired a fortification on the river in order to halt any Union commercial activity on the river and defend against possible invasion should Kentucky's neutrality be broached.  An expedition was sent out to find ideal sites for forts which could dominate the rivers in question, but remain on the Tennessee side of the river.  Ultimately, two good sites were located on both rivers a mere twelve miles apart from one another--ideal for defense in case the garrison had to shift power from one fort to another.  The only problem with the Fort Henry site, located on the Tennessee River, was that it was dominated by a hill on the opposite side of the river.  To solve the problem, another fort was constructed on the hill to prevent Union armies from occupying the hill and forcing the surrender of Fort Henry.  However, the site of the support fort, dubbed Fort Heiman, was, in fact, in Kentucky.  The construction of a Confederate fort on Kentucky soil breached her neutrality, and Kentucky would ultimately side with the Union. 

The Kentucky buffer now gone, Generals Henry Halleck and Ulysses S. Grant planned to take the Confederate forts and open the rivers to Union military traffic.  To achieve this, Grant planned to use newly minted ironclads to attack the forts from the river side and simultaneously attack the forts from land.  Moving quickly from his headquarters not far away in Paducah, Kentucky, Grant moved his 15,000 men and seven gunboats into position in just a few days, taking the Confederate forces by surprise on February 4.  Hearing reports of strong concentrations of Federal infantry and seeing the gunboats, the commandant of Fort Henry, General Tilghman, saw his position as untenable and evacuated most of the infantry before Grant could capture them.  Tilghman remained behind with his artillery crews to fight a delaying action, but only held out for about seventy-five minutes. 

Grant regrouped quickly and moved on Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River less than a week after accepting the surrender of Fort Henry.  Fort Donelson had a stronger position on the river and a larger garrison of somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 men.  Grant had somewhere between 20,000 and 26,000 and his seven gunboats, and his strategy for taking Donelson was identical to that he used for Fort Henry.

The Confederates counterattacked, however, and nearly drove Grant's forces from the field.  The gunboat attack also faltered, leaving Grant without support from the river.  The Confederates forced open an escape route, but the commander of that wing, General Gideon Pillow, paused to regroup.  Grant directed a counterattack in this area of the field while ordering an attack on the opposite side with General Smith's still unengaged forces.  As the day ended, the Confederate generals held a council of war and determined that their position was perilous.  Terms were requested in the morning.

Gott places blame for the losses of Forts Henry and Donelson squarely on the shoulders of General Johnston, who never personally visited either fort, and approved their sites and construction sight unseen.  With the loss of these critical points in the line, the Confederates had no force, fort, or battery which could stop Union boats from traversing all the way down to northern Alabama on the Tennessee, or all the way to Nashville on the Cumberland.  The Confederacy's back door was forced open forever, and Union victory in this theater all but assured.

Stephen Edwards