The Battle of Fort Donelson: No Terms but Unconditional Surrender

by James R. Knight, Doug Bostick

Overview

In February 1862, after defeats at Bull Run and at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, the Union army was desperate for victory on the eve of its first offensive of the Civil War. The strategy was to penetrate the Southern heartland with support from a new Brown Water navy. In a two-week campaign plagued by rising floodwaters and brutal winter weather, two armies collided in rural Tennessee to fight over two forts that controlled the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Those intense days set the course of the war in the Western Theater for eighteen months and determined the fates of Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew H. Foote and Albert Sidney Johnston. Historian James R. Knight paints a picture of this crucial but often neglected and misunderstood turning point.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609491291
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	03/04/2011
Series:	Civil War Series
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

James R. Knight is a graduate of Harding University, 1967. He spent five years as a pilot in the United States Air Force, flying the C-130E, and thirty-one years as a pilot for Federal Express, flying the Dassault DA-20 Falcon, the Boeing 727 and the McDonnell Douglass DC-10. In the early '90s, he began researching a historical incident in his hometown and published his first work, an article in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in 1997. In 2003, Eakin Press published his biography of two Texas outlaws titled Bonnie and Clyde: A 21st Century Update. In 2007, he published the story and correspondence of a Confederate cavalryman from Tennessee titled Letters to Anna. This is his second work in The History Press's Sesquicentennial Series, having written The Battle of Franklin in 2009. Knight retired from Federal Express in 2004 and lives in Franklin, Tennessee, where he works part time as a historical interpreter for the Battle of Franklin Trust. When not encouraging visitor at the Carter House to relive some moments of the Battle of Franklin, he sings on the worship team at church, collects historical documents and artifacts and occasionally drives around in his restored 1934 Ford V-8. He and his wife, Judy, and have three children and six grandchildren.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements and a Note on Sources 5

Prologue 7

Chapter 1 The Confederates: April to September 1861 13

Chapter 2 The Federals: April to September 1861 18

Chapter 3 Takes Command Albert Sidney Johnston 25

Chapter 4 Defending the Rivers 29

Chapter 5 The Brown Water Navy 34

Chapter 6 Command and Control 39

Chapter 7 First Blood 47

Chapter 8 Time Grows Short 54

Chapter 9 Time Runs Out 62

Chapter 10 "Make Your Preparations to Take and Hold Fort Henry" 67

Chapter 11 Fire on the River 74

Chapter 12 Gunboats in the Heart of Dixie 84

Chapter 13 The Main Event 91

Chapter 14 Wednesday, February 12, 1862: The First Day 98

Chapter 15 Thursday, February 13, 1862: The Second Day 103

Chapter 16 Friday, February 14, 1862: The Third Day 108

Chapter 17 Saturday, February 15, 1862: The Fourth Day 116

Chapter 18 Sunday, February 16, 1862: The Last Day 124

Epilogue 131

Appendix A The Leaders 137

Appendix B Order of Battle 143

Notes 149

Index 155

About the Author 159