 Fort Henry was the gateway to the Confederate heartland. In fact, the first book to really bring to light the strategic significance of Fort Henry and Donaldson was Benjamin Franklin Cooley's 1988 work, which was subtitled The Key to the Confederate Heartland. Cooley was including both forts in that subtitle, but it was really Fort Henry more than Fort Donaldson that gave the Union access to the southern heartland, since it protected the Tennessee River, which went straight south into Alabama. Fort Donaldson protected the Cumberland River, which gave access to Nashville, but it ran east and then back up into Kentucky. The Confederates building the fort understood that the Tennessee River was the most crucial waterway, even given the importance of Nashville's resources. So when they constructed Fort Henry, they made sure that it could withstand a respectable assault. Its walls were 20 feet high, and at their base, they were also about 20 feet thick, though they narrowed as they moved upward to about 10 feet thick at the top. 11 guns were positioned to fire on the river, and another six were pointed toward the land to repel an army. In the river, the Confederacy piled stones and logs and dirt to make the river less passable, and they also deployed their new technology of floating mines called torpedoes to add an additional barrier to a naval attack. Surrounding the fort was a swamp, which was nearly impassable for infantry to begin with, so they built a single road and gave access to the fort with a drawbridge like we would expect in a medieval castle. They also dug rifle pits around the fort so soldiers could fire their guns from a safe location outside the walls of the fort. To complete all of this, in the small window of time the Southerners were dealing with, they brought in teams of slaves from Alabama to do most of the work. The result was a fort that could provide a formidable defense with even a modest garrison. But the men who chose the location for the fort never bothered to ask any of the locals about the geography they were dealing with. Had they done so, they might have learned that the ground they were building the fort on was part of the Tennessee River, whose waterline would rise and fall with the seasonal rains. As it happened, they started construction at a time when the river was particularly low, giving them ground that in other months would be covered with water. Although Ulysses S. Grant and Captain Andrew Hullfoot would earn credit for conquering Fort Henry on February 6, 1862, it might be more accurate to say that the majority of the credit for the Confederate defeat was the rain they faced just prior to the Union attack. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. In the previous episode, we looked at the tension in the West coming into 1862, and Lincoln's impatience with the inaction of his generals. At the end of the episode, General Halleck, commander of the Department of the West, finally gave Grant and Foote permission to commence their attack on Fort Henry, a battle that is frankly a bit anti-climatic, but had a tremendous degree of strategic significance. Across the river from Fort Henry, the Confederacy had also started building another fort, Fort Hyman. Grant's plan was to have the Brigadier General Charles Smith move down on the western side of the river to capture Fort Hyman, while Brigadier General John McLernan moved down at the eastern side to capture Fort Henry. Captain Andrew Foote would move down the river with his gunboats, with the iron clads in the front to take the fire from the forts, and the timber-clad gunboats in the rear lobbing shells from a safer distance. The trip from Cairo showed the attack getting off to a poor start. One of the transport boats sank on the way, forcing the men on board to jump overboard and swim to the shore. In a different accident on another boat, the brother of one of Grant's subordinate officers fell into the waters and drowned, having been weighed down by his weapon in uniform. As the ships approached the fort, the weather seemed to be a bad omen. Heavy rain was falling, which made the current stronger and brought down branches and other kinds of debris into the waters around the ships. In one case, one of Foote's iron-clad gunboats became tangled up in a pile of driftwood, and it was pulled a half-mile downstream despite its engines working at full capacity and having its anchors lowered. So this should give you an idea of the strength of the river currents that the Union forces were fighting against just to get to the forts. But as it happened, the weather may have actually proven to be more of a benefit than a hindrance for the Yankees. Driftwood wasn't the only thing that the currents carried downstream. It also took the Confederate torpedoes out of harm's way. The naval crew still picked up a couple of torpedoes that didn't get swept downstream, though. To the Union, this was a new technology. The crew of one ship picked up a torpedo, turned a screw to open it up, and the mine started to emit a hissing sound. Thinking it was about to explode, they flung it overboard and started leaping to find cover. When they realized nothing was going to happen, they regained their composure, brought the torpedo back on board, and found that it had been so thoroughly soaked that the powder inside was damp and useless. But the Union now had access to the Confederacy's new technology to study for themselves. The attack began on the western side of the Tennessee River, where General Smith took two brigades of troops to capture Fort Hyman. There were no roads on this side of the river, so the soldiers had to march during a downpour through the swampy Tennessee backcountry, which one soldier described as, quote, this outlandish portion of secessed them, end quote. At some points, the men had to wade through waters that were so high that they had to carry their cartridge boxes over their heads to keep them from becoming soaked. As they trudged slowly and miserably through the swamp, they could hear the firing of cannons as the naval assault on Fort Henry apparently began, but they couldn't tell who was winning, if anybody. But after hours of marching when the Union troops finally came to Fort Hyman, they found it abandoned. They were disappointed, most of them hoping for their first taste of combat. Frustrated at the lack of fighting, the only firing that took place on the western side of the Tennessee River was when, in the words of one of the Iowa soldiers, quote, a flock of sheep came near our Bioback, and our men commenced firing as though it was a battle. Our colonel stops it, though but few sheep were killed, end quote. Another Missouri soldier expressed his disappointment at not getting to fight the rebels. In a letter home, he said, quote, instead of resistance, which we expected, what was our surprise to find the camp entirely deserted? Their cowardly legs got the better of them. We did not get a shot at them. They were cooking dinner when the cannonating began and ran away leaving it on the fire. It was very nicely cooked when we got here, and if it was sase, tasted well. We found many of their letters, some only half finished when the panic seized them. If they had whipped the Yankees the way they told their friends they intended doing, we would have fared badly. But they didn't, end quote. The officers also found the makeshift headquarters for Colonel Adolphus Hyman, the man for whom the incomplete fort was named. In his tent, they found some of his papers as well as a feast that had only just been prepared before the Confederates evacuated. The Union officers dined on the fresh pork, cornbread, and coffee that had been left for them. One of Smith's subordinate officers later reminisced that, quote, the absence of Colonel Hyman was never more sincerely regretted. Out of a small contribution foraged from General Smith's right pistol holster, we drank to the excellent Germans' health, end quote. With Fort Hyman under Union control, the first small victory in Grand's plan had been won without bloodshed. McLernon's forces on the eastern side of the river would not have quite so easy a victory. Just like their counterparts on the other side of the river, they were hardly prepared for the weather or the swampy terrain of secessedum. One soldier remembered, quote, we took a circuitous route so that we had to go 10 or 12 miles to get five in such a road, mud, mud, mud, mud, creek almost up to our knees, end quote. There were some poorly constructed roads on the eastern side, but the rain had rendered them so muddy that they were useless. The cannon fire from the gunboats was, as one soldier put it, quote, splendid music to march by, end quote. But when the firing stopped, they didn't know what it meant. Had Andrew Foot been beaten, or was he going to claim credit for the capture of the fort, stilling the army's glory before they could even get there? The Union soldiers under McLernon were blind to what was going on at the fort, but from what they could hear, major events were unfolding without them, good or bad. At Fort Henry itself, the Confederates were not much more aware of what was going on, especially those in the rifle pits around the fort. With the rain coming down hard, their field of vision was small. The first thing they could see was the black smoke coming up from cannon fire, as well as the sound of distant shots. As the morning progressed, the smoke got closer and thicker, but still the soldiers could see nothing on the river. Finally, just before noon, the first ironclad gunboat emerged from the smoke and came into the Confederate field of vision. Then a second one emerged, then a third, then a fourth. Each of them firing their cannons from their turtle shells that floated above the water line as they moved in. River gunboats, particularly ironclad ones, had never been used in the United States before, so you might imagine the intimidating side of these gunboats emerging from the smoke for these Confederates. They fired as they moved in, but they anchored 600 yards away from the walls of Fort Henry to fire at close range. Inside Fort Henry, Captain Jesse Taylor described the fires, quote, one broad and leaping sheet of flame, end quote. In command of both forts, Henry and Donaldson was Brigadier General Lloyd Tillman. Even before the cannon fire from the Union gunboat started bearing down on him, he knew that he was in no position to hold off Granton foot. The rain had been pouring down on them for a while now and the water was rising around the fort so that it was, quote, on the point of being submerged, end quote. He was learning now that Fort Henry had been constructed in a flood zone. And even if Granton foot couldn't flush him out, the water would. As soon as he learned that Union troops were closing in on him, he ordered everyone to evacuate to Fort Donaldson while the artillery's covered their escape. As soon as the firing started, the Confederate infantry and the rifle pits followed orders and took off. So by the time that the Union gunboats were anchoring 600 yards away from Fort Henry, they were attacking a fort that was already in the process of being evacuated. But there were still those in the fort returning fire and both sides took damage. The fort had been manned with older guns as the Confederate government in Richmond was being stingy about sending out cannons and ammunition to anywhere that wasn't between Richmond and Washington DC. One of these guns, the 24 pound rifled cannon, exploded from the inside, either killing or wounding every man handling it, as well as some of the artillerists at nearby guns. Even more than the loss of men, the psychological effects of this explosion dampened the Confederate defense. In the words of the engineer on site, quote, "'The effect of this explosion "'was very serious upon our artillerists. "'First, because it made them doubt "'the strength of these large guns "'to resist to the shock of full charges. "'And secondly, because much was expected "'from the long range or rifled cannons "'against the gunboats.'" End quote. So now the men working the larger and presumably more effective guns were worried that the equipment couldn't be safely handled. They may have been right as it wasn't long before another rifled cannon, this time a large 42 pounder exploded, killing another three men and wounding several more. One of their largest guns became an operable when a primer became stuck in the vent and nobody could get it loose. Nobody died in this mishap at least but the rapid loss of guns meant that the ability of the Southerners to hold off the attack was quickly slipping away. As enemy fire came down around them, a fourth gun was destroyed along with a handful of men working it. All of this occurred while the Union ships were still moving into place. By the time foot's gunboats anchored at their 600 yard point, the Confederacy had already been reduced from 11 to only seven operable cannons. But this was enough to hit the Yankees with at least one devastating shot. The ironclad gunboats each suffered dozens of hits from the Confederate cannons but most of the damage was minor. The Essex, however, was a different story. When the Confederates landed a hit against the ship, they saw it float downstream, apparently disabled. They recognized the victory in taking one of foot's ships out of commission, but what they couldn't see was the horror taking place inside it. As later described by one of the survivors on board, the Confederate shell tore through one of the ship's portholes and took out the top of the head of the captain's young secretary. Even worse, the shell continued flying until it hit the worst place that a steamship could be damaged, the boiler. The cylinder that contained the steam was ripped open and the men around the boiler were scalded. The number of men scalded vary in the books I've read. One lists 29 and the other 32 but included among them was the ship's captain, William Porter. Several of them died from the injuries. Those who could leapt out of the nearby portholes and into the water. Though several of them drowned, unable to swim in their agony. The two pilots of the ships who were civilian contractors were both killed. One of them was found still holding the spokes of the will with one hand while his other hand was clutching the rope for the bell to signal the alarm. A gunner nearby was found dead, having been killed so quickly that his corpse was still kneeling as he had been in the process of taking a fresh shell from the ammunition box for his gun. But this catastrophe was the only serious damage the Union would suffer. With water rising around Fort Henry and the Confederate cannons going out of commission one by one until they were down to only four smoothbores, Tillman knew that it was time to surrender. At two o'clock, he waved the white flag and ordered the lowering of the Confederate flag that waved about Fort Henry. Had Tillman known what Andrew Foote was thinking at the time, he may have tried to hold out a bit longer. Foote himself had been knocked down by a Confederate shell that landed close to the pilot house on his ship, knocking the breath out of him, even though nothing actually hit him. He later wrote his wife, quote, at a moment when it seemed as if we must be killed or sunk, the big secession flag was hauled down and victory was ours, end quote. When Tillman surrendered, he and roughly 100 of his men were taken prisoner. Communication about the decision wasn't very effective between those inside the fort and the rest of the Confederates who were manning the rifle pits in various locations. As some of the infantry marched southward, they didn't actually know what was going on. They thought they were being taken to fight the Yankees, but they also thought it was odd that they were marching in the opposite direction. Upon realizing that the fort had surrendered, some of them were outraged, as one Alabama volunteer wrote, quote, it soon dawned on us that the fort had surrendered and we were retreating, running from the Yankees. We, who had so recently left home with visions of glory to be achieved on the fields of battle, of hundreds of Yankees to be slain with our buck and ball and our long-bladed knives steeped in Yankee gore, actually running before we had fired a gun or even caught a glimpse of a blue coat, end quote. Union soldiers under McLernon were similarly disappointed. They had been trudging through the merciless terrain for hours, suffering the mud and rain, only to realize that the Navy gained credit for the capture of Fort Henry before they could even face combat. But as cavalry did come across some of the Southerners as they were retreating and they gave chase. As an Alabama, remember to the move, quote, when it became known that we were retreating, the impulse to go faster and faster seemed to strike all of us at the same time. While the dashing past of small squads of frightened cavalrymen and an occasional shot in the rear served to accelerate our speed until short-legged fellows like myself had to go in a lively trot to keep up with the procession. End quote. As the Union cavalry closed in, the retreating Southerners had to race to stay out of their reach. One soldier had the measles at the time and when the Northerners closed in on him, he had to make the choice between surrendering or possibly being shot or diving into the ice cold waters of a creek that stood in his way. He chose the water along with several of his comrades. With the geography blocking their retreat, McLernon was able to capture an additional 38 prisoners as well as killing at least one fleeing Southerner. Those who were lucky enough to escape reached Fort Donaldson soaking wet, many of them having tossed to their blankets, rations and weapons to hasten their escape, leaving them without adequate provisions to survive the winter cold. As the Northerners took Fort Henry, they claimed the spoils of victory. This included the working guns that the Union was able to take as their own, of course, but also any items left behind by the Confederates, including their letters home. One staff officer remembered, quote, there was everything that can be thought of taken by the first ones in. Gold watches, splendid uniforms, blankets, a large number of tents as well as barracks. Some I hear got $50 to $300 in money out of the officer's trunks. One got a hundred half dollars, end quote. But for many soldiers, the thrill of victory was dampened with their first recognition of the grim horrors of war. One man wrote his sister, quote, I saw four rebels that were killed in the fort. One of them had his head and both arms blown off and his neck was cut about two thirds off and the other, his head was split right in two, end quote. Another described a similar experience, quote, on every side lay the lifeless bodies of the victims and reckless confusion, intermingled with shattered implements of war. Our eyes then met each other's gaze with a sadness full of meaning that forbade any attempt to speak. And in the quietness like that of a graveyard, we walked slowly over the desolate scene, end quote. Grant arrived less than an hour after foot to accept Tillman's surrender and he congratulated the Navy for their victory. Even though McLernan did nothing more than chase down some already retreating Confederates, he made sure to take as much credit for the victory as possible, sending out a series of letters to politicians, including President Lincoln, to inform them of the crucial role he played in the outcome of the battle. Grant, for his part, simply wired General Hallick, quote, Fort Henry is ours, I shall take and destroy Fort Donaldson on the eighth and return to Fort Henry, end quote. Grant, of course, would find that Donaldson would not be so easily conquered. Ever since the capture of Fort Henry and Donaldson have been identified as crucial events in the Union War after their importance has been treated as a single issue. But Fort Henry really should be seen as the most important of the two of them. Even had Grant not moved on to Donaldson, access to the Tennessee River was the largest victory that came out of them, even more so than the occupation of Nashville, which is on the Cumberland River and was protected by Fort Donaldson. This is because the Tennessee River continued straight south, all the way in Alabama, and not far from Corinth, Mississippi, which would be an important strategic city and Grant's efforts over the coming months. The Confederates probably recognized this even before the Union did. News of the fall of Fort Henry spread fear through the southern states. One soldier referred to it as, quote, a perfect bull run on our side, end quote. As if to prove this true, Foote sent his entire Timberclad division under the command of Seth Ledgerd Phelps south down the Tennessee River to conduct a significant, though often ignored, Union expedition, the first one that would push deep into the Confederate territory. In fact, one of the reasons that Grant did not press against Fort Donaldson as quickly as he claimed was because they wanted to wait for the return of these ships. The expedition started as simply a quick move to destroy the railroad bridge that crossed the Tennessee River only a few miles south of Fort Henry. By destroying this bridge, railroad transportation between Columbus and Bowling Green was cut off. Rendering it that much more difficult for Leonidas Polk and Albert Sidney Johnston to reinforce each other. By the way, in the last episode, I said that Albert Sidney Johnston was the brother of Joseph Johnston. They were not related. I don't know how I got that idea in my head, but I apologize for the oversight. The listener corrected me, they were not related. The Union had knowledge of the Confederacy attempting to build their own river-capable iron clads along the Tennessee River. With the railroad bridge destroyed, Phelps had nothing stopping him from moving further south and doing damage to the Confederacy in places where they had no means of defending themselves. And Grant encouraged him to push further. So with only three wooden gunboats, the Tyler, the Lexington, and the Conestoga, Phelps probed south. As they came to the bridge, they found Confederates trying to disable it. Upon seeing the Union gunboats, the Confederates took off on unarmed transport steamers. Phelps sent his two faster ships, the Lexington and the Conestoga, to pursue them while the slower Tyler stayed behind to destroy the bridge and raid the deserted Confederate camp. In the camp, Phelps found more letters left behind by the Confederate Navy officer Isaac Brown, which referred to Tillman as a traitor for surrendering Fort Henry so readily. Phelps was on the Conestoga, which was the fastest of his three ships. Chasing the Confederates further south, they caught the three Confederate steamers and forced them to stop. The Southerners on them landed the ships and destroyed them so they couldn't fall into Union hands. The explosion of one of the ships, which was loaded up with gunpowder, also destroyed the house of a local resident who Phelps suspected to be owned by a Union loyalist. I don't know if Phelps was right or not, but his suspicion was that they deliberately halted their steamers near this guy's house so that it would be destroyed with the ships. Phelps' own ships took damage from the debris sent flying with the explosion. As he described it, quote, even there our skylights were shattered by the concussion. The light upper deck was raised bodily. Doors were forced open and locks and fastenings everywhere were broken. The whole river for half a mile around about was completely beaten up by the falling fragments in the shower of shot great balls, et cetera. End quote. The next day, now February 7th, Phelps found an even better prize. In Hardin County, Tennessee, they came across a dock where an ironclad gunboat was being constructed. The Southerners working on it took off at the side of the Union ships and the half-finished gunboat, named the East Port, was taken, giving the North another ironclad. To protect the gunboat, he left the slower Tyler behind while the Lexington and Conestoga continued their expedition south. On February 8th, they passed East Port, Mississippi, the town that their previous ship had been named after. Here they captured two more Confederate steamers. One of them was loaded up with iron, probably on its way to the Tredegar ironworks. It now belonged to Phelps. Wasting no time, Phelps continued to move until he was in Florence, Alabama. They came across three more Confederate ships, which were torched by Southerners before they too could fall into the hands of the Yankees. Phelps sent men to salvage what they could from the ships before they finished burning, and they managed to take some supplies that were to be delivered to Fort Henry, as well as iron plating that was being shipped north for the East Port. As they were taking their spoils, some of the citizens of Florence came out to plead for mercy from the Yankees as their town was undefended. They asked, as Phelps later wrote about it, quote, that they might be made able to quiet the fears of their wives and daughters with assurances from me that they should not be molested, end quote. Phelps answered that his men weren't savages and they were only there to enforce the law, obviously referencing Lincoln's standard justification for the war. Florence was his last stop and Phelps turned back north. On the way back north, on February 9th, Phelps also stopped back at the camp where the Tyler had been left protecting the captured East Port. There they found abandoned Southern rifles, as well as more mail and some other equipment. They set fire to everything they left behind, including the log huts that the soldiers had been sleeping in. What most struck Phelps, though, is the adulation he received from some of the locals. According to his own account, Union sentiment ran high in this part of Tennessee and some of the citizens he and his officers spoke to told them how badly they had been treated at the hands of the Confederates. In his recollection, quote, tears flowed freely down the cheeks of men as well as of women and there were those who had fought under the stars and stripes at Monterey who in this manner testified to their joy, end quote. Some of the other cases we've talked about tales of Unionism among the locals have been exaggerated. Such exaggerations are common in cases like these on both sides where each side claimed that it was liberating the people in an enemy territory. Phelps' account is difficult to corroborate in this case so it can be taken with some degree of skepticism. But there's also certainly some truth to his finding Unionists in Tennessee. Like Kentucky and Virginia, Tennessee was very split in its support for either the Union or the Confederacy and Phelps did bring back 25 recruits from his expedition who volunteered to fight for the Union army. And he claimed that had he stayed a bit longer he could have raised an entire regiment. In addition to a few new recruits, the expedition had netted the Union three ships, one of which was a partially built iron-clad gumboat that was in great condition, as well as a bounty of supplies and iron. He had also destroyed another six boats. Another benefit of this expedition was the information that Phelps brought back with him which would influence the move south that would take Grant to Corinth. Perhaps most significant though was the effects that his expedition had in the mines of the Southerners. Citizens in the deep south such as the residents of Florence thought they were well insulated from Union assaults at least at this point in the war. The raid down the Tennessee River shook their confidence in their own security. In Columbus, Kentucky, one panicked Confederate wrote to his wife, quote, I hear the Yankee gunboats are at Florence, Alabama. Ending the sentence with three exclamation marks. Newspapers throughout the south reported on the quote unquote Lincoln gunboats that moved down the Tennessee River. The Confederate command enrichment finally seemed willing to respond to the pleas for more resources around the Tennessee and Cumberland River defenses. But their feet dragging had limited what they could do before Grant's attack on Donaldson which they all knew was imminent. Johnston made the decision to remove his army from Bowling Green to defend Nashville. He also sent General John Floyd to take over for Tillman at Fort Donaldson. Floyd, now the ranking officer at the fort, was the former United States Secretary of War but he had no actual military experience. Within days, he would be testing his inexperience against Ulysses S. Grant in a five day battle for control of the Cumberland River. This will be the topic of our next episode. Historical controversies is a production of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. 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