Grant as a Soldier

Seitenzahl:

136

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209 g

Erschienen bei:

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Kurzbeschreibung

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FORT HENRY. The Confederates held as their northern line of defense Columbus, Ky.. on the Mississippi, Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland, and further East, Bowling Green and Mill Spring. The Tennessee furnished good navigation as far as Muscle Shoals, in Alabama, and the Cumberland as far as Nashville. The capture of these forts would not only break the Confederate line, but would open a gateway to the cotton States by furnishing cheap and rapid transportation for troops and supplies. In January, in aid of a movement which resulted in the Federal victory of Mill Spring, Halleck ordered a reconnoissauce of the Tennessee by Flag-officer Foote and Gen. C. F. Smith. These officers approached Fort Henry near enough to inspect its strength and approaches and to become satisfied that it could be easily captured, and they so reported to Halleck. Accordingly, February 1, Halleck ordered Grant to move against Fort Henry, and the expedition, attended by the gunboats, started on the 2d. McClernand, in command of perhaps eight or nine thousand troops in transport boats convoyed by gunboats, was sent in advance. When these were landed far enough below that is, north of the fort, to be out of range of its cannon, the transports returned to Paducah for the remainder of the 17,000 constituting Grant's command. On the 5th Grant returned with the remaining troops under command of C. F. Smith. Grant issued orders for an advance on the fort to begin at 11 a. m. on the 6th. The garrison of the Fort was less than 3,000, Gen. Lloyd Tilghman in command. Seeing that resistance against so overwhelming a force of army and gunboats was hopeless, Tilghman promptly sent his little army over to Fort Donelson, eleven miles distant. Himself and sixty cannoneers remained in the for...

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Mehr von:  Augustus Washington Alexander, Cambridge Scholars Publishing