Forts Henry and Donelson

This chapter explains the campaign for Forts Henry and Donelson as a contest for vital resources—human, animal, and mineral—that shaped Union and Confederate strategies and outcomes. By combining military, political, and material history, it shows how sailors, soldiers, citizens, and slaves shaped the battles and their aftermath while facing environmental challenges, including frigid weather, muddy roads, and swollen rivers. These conditions mixed with intangible factors, like morale, rumors, emotions, egos, prejudices, loyalties, and culture, to frame how people fought and thought about the campaign. By combining naval and army operations, Adm. Andrew Foote’s ironclad flotilla and Brig. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s army deprived the Confederacy of its richest iron and hog region and accelerated emancipation in the western theater by establishing its first contraband camp at Fort Donelson.