On 6 February 1862 a Union flotilla of seven gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew Foote bombarded Fort Henry, a Confederate earthwork on the east bank of the Tennessee River. The river was in flood, much of the fort was under water, and its commander, Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, had already sent most of his garrison away to Fort Donelson. After a short and violent exchange of fire Tilghman surrendered to the navy. Ulysses S. Grant's infantry, slowed by mud, arrived only after the fort had fallen.
Twin forts on two rivers
In early 1862 the Confederate commander in the West, General Albert Sidney Johnston, held a long defensive line across Kentucky and Tennessee. Two forts guarded the rivers that cut through its center: Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, about 12 miles (19 km) apart. Taking both would split Johnston's line in two and open the rivers to Union boats.1
Major General Henry Halleck authorized the expedition on 30 January 1862. On 2 February Grant's troops began moving up from Cairo, Illinois, and Paducah, Kentucky: about 15,000 men on transports, escorted by Foote's flotilla of four ironclads and three wooden timberclads. On 4 and 5 February the troops landed a few miles below the fort, one division on each bank of the river.2
A fort in the wrong place
Fort Henry had been built on low, marshy ground beside the river and was overlooked by hills on the opposite bank. Winter rain had raised the Tennessee so far that the fort was flooding. The American Battlefield Trust writes that its parade ground lay under two feet of water and much of the powder in the magazines was damp. Tilghman concluded the fort could not be held. He abandoned the unfinished Fort Heiman across the river and marched most of his roughly 3,000 men overland to Fort Donelson, keeping only the gun crews to hold off the gunboats.3
The National Park Service notes that the site was later lost completely: when the Tennessee was dammed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the remains of Fort Henry disappeared beneath Kentucky Lake.4
The bombardment of 6 February
Foote's ironclads came up the river around midday, opened fire at about 1,700 yards and steadily closed the range to a few hundred yards. The fort answered hard. A shot from Fort Henry pierced the ironclad USS Essex and burst its middle boiler, and the scalding steam killed or wounded 32 of the crew. But inside the fort guns burst, jammed or were knocked out one after another, and the rising water left little powder dry. With only a few guns still working, Tilghman lowered his flag.5
The surrender was signed aboard the flagship USS Cincinnati: 12 officers and 82 men were taken prisoner, Tilghman among them. According to the American Battlefield Trust, Foote told him that his surrender would be unconditional, a phrase Grant would make famous ten days later. Grant reached the fort later in the afternoon and wired Halleck that Fort Henry was his; in his memoirs he recalls telling his commander that he would take Fort Donelson on 8 February. Read how that promise turned out in our article on the Battle of Fort Donelson and on our 11 February page.6
Losses and consequences
The figures differ by source. Britannica and the American Battlefield Trust give Union losses of 11 killed and 31 wounded, while a National Park Service study counts 15 killed and 34 wounded in the fleet alone. On the Confederate side Britannica lists 5 killed, 11 wounded and 78 prisoners, and the Park Service study adds 5 missing. The older Park Service battle summary gives 40 Union and 79 Confederate casualties in total.7
The battle was small, but its effect was large. The Tennessee River was now open to Union boats as far as Muscle Shoals in Alabama, and Foote's timberclads raided upriver at once, capturing the unfinished Confederate ironclad Eastport. Fort Henry was one of the first important Union victories of the war and the first step in the rise of Ulysses S. Grant.8
