Fort Donelson - History

History

Fort Donelson was garrisoned by the Confederate troops until 1862. The fort was captured by Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his army during a winter offensive to divide the Confederacy in two by controlling the Mississippi River. (see Battle of Fort Donelson)

The fort was attacked again on August 25, 1863, by a Confederate force demanding its surrender. The attack was unsuccessful and was repulsed.

Bushrod Johnson of the Corps of Engineers approved the build site. Construction was started by a large force of men brought from the nearby Cumberland Iron Works.

Confederate commanders

  • Bushrod Johnson (Feb 9, 1862)
  • Gideon J. Pillow (Feb 10-13, 1862)
  • John B. Floyd (Feb 14-16, 1862)
  • Simon B. Buckner, Sr. (Feb 16, 1862)
  • Major Rice E. Graves, Jr., Artillery Commander

Read more about this topic:  Fort Donelson

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.
    Josiah Royce (1855–1916)

    America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.
    Attributed to Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)