Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of
the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers, was vital to the United States
because of its location and the operations base established there. The
Mississippi Flotilla had nine new ironclad gunboats, seven of which
were the creation of James B. Eads, a boat builder in St. Louis. Each
of the seven had 13 guns, a flat bottom, and shallow draft. Protection
was provided by a sloping casemate covered with iron armor 2.5 inches
thick designed by Samuel Pook. The most famous of "Pook's Poodles"
was the USS Carondelet.
The first test of three of these new
warships was against Fort Henry, an earthen fort that the Confederates
had hastily constructed on the east (Tennessee) bank of the Tennessee
River during the winter of 1861-62. When Confederate Brig. Gen. Lloyd
Tilghman was sent to command the fort, he immediately realized that
Fort Henry was indefensible, because it was constructed on low ground
susceptible to flooding and was directly across the river from high
ground. In January 1862 he ordered the construction of a new fort on
the high ground on the west (Kentucky) side of the Tennessee River,
known as Fort Heiman. The new fort remained under construction when
Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant launched his offensive against Forts
Henry and Donelson in early February 1862.
In a joint army-navy operation a fleet
of seven gunboats - four ironclads and three wooden ones -- under Union
naval Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote steamed out of Cairo, Illinois, on
February 2, leading the transports carrying Grant's force. On February
4-5, Grant landed his divisions in two different locations, one on the
east bank of the Tennessee River to prevent the garrison at Fort Henry
from escaping and the other to occupy the high ground on the Kentucky
side to ensure the fall of both Forts Heiman and Henry. After Foote's
gunboats began bombarding the forts, Tilghman recalled the troops building
Fort Heiman to assist in the defense of Fort Henry. Tilghman soon realized
that he could not hold Fort Henry. Thus, he ordered his barbette-mounted
cannons to hold off the Union fleet while he sent most of his men to
Fort Donelson, 11 miles away.
On February 6, the Union gunboats steamed
to within 200 yards of Fort Henry and knocked out 13 of its 17 heavy
guns. Confederate fire exploded the boiler of the Essex, a converted
ironclad, causing 38 casualties. Tilghman surrendered both forts Henry
and Heiman after 70 minutes of bombardment, enabling the Federals' wooden
gunboats to ascend the Tennessee River south to Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
After the fall of Fort Donelson on the
Cumberland River, ten days later, the two major water transportation
routes in the Confederate west, bounded by the Appalachians on the east
and the Mississippi River on the west, became Union highways for movement
of troops and material.
In 1993, the Civil War Sites Advisory
Commisision designated the Battle of Fort Henry as one of the Civil
War's 384 principal battlefields. The Battle of Fort Henry, along with
the battle at its sister Forts Heiman and Donelson, is nationally significant,
because it was the first great Union victory of the Civil War, and it
gave the North a new military hero - "Unconditional Surrender"
Grant - who was promoted to major general. After the Confederate surrender
of these three forts, the South was forced to give up southern Kentucky
and much of Middle and West Tennessee, and the Tennessee and Cumberland
rivers became avenues for Union penetration into the heartland of the
Deep South. Thus, Fort Henry, along with its sister forts, was a major
battle that had a direct, observable impact on the Federal quest to
obtain control of the principal rivers in the western Confederacy and
hence the outcome of the Vicksburg campaign, as well as a decisive battle
that had a direct, observable impact on the direction, duration, and
final outcome of the Civil War.