240 The American Civil Warlivestock, its agriculture, its manufacturing
and mining, and its almost 500 miles
(800km) of banks along the Ohio River, the
Union could not afford a hostile Kentucky.
Lincoln raised substantial forces and
positioned them to strike into the
commonwealth, but only if the Confederacy
violated its neutrality first.
Fortunately for Lincoln, he did not have
to wait long. In one of the great blunders of
the war, Major-General Leonidas Polk, a
former West Point classmate of Confederate
President Jefferson Davis, who had gone on
to become an Episcopal bishop, violated
Kentucky neutrality. Fearful that Federals
might seize Columbus, Kentucky, Polk
ordered its occupation in September 1861.
Union Brigadier-General U. S. Grant
responded by sending troops to Paducah and
Smithland, where the Tennessee and
Cumberland Rivers meet the Ohio. The
Union-leaning legislature of Kentuckycondemned Polk's act and proclaimed that
the Confederate invaders must be expelled.
By acting with restraint, Lincoln kept
Kentucky in Union hands. And it paid
great dividends. While some 35,000
Kentuckians served in the Confederate army,
50,000 fought for the Federals.Leonidas Polk, a West Point graduate and bishop of the
Louisiana. Polk violated Kentucky's neutrality in one of
the great blunders of the war. As a corps commander, he
promoted unrest with Bragg. Polk was killed during the
Atlanta campaign. (Library of Congress)
Grant, a West Point graduate with
considerable combat experience in the war
with Mexico, had grasped the value of
aggressiveness in warfare. Two months after
his move into Kentucky, he gained his first
Civil War combat experience at Belmont,
Missouri. Grant's forces surprised a
Confederate command there and drove them
out of camp. Then, the lack of discipline
among Grant's inexperienced troops wreaked
havoc. They broke ranks and began
plundering, setting themselves up for a
Confederate counterattack that drove them
back. At Belmont, Grant exhibited dash and
recorded an important lesson about the
nature of his volunteers.
Grant's first major campaign brought him
back to the Tennessee and Cumberland
Rivers. The Tennessee River dipped down
through Kentucky and Tennessee and into
northern Alabama. The Cumberland
extended not quite as far south, but it did
course through the Tennessee state capital of
Nashville. Union control of these rivers
would offer excellent naval support for
invading armies.
The Confederates, who recognized the
value of these waterways, erected forts
along both rivers to block Federal
movements, but with a huge area stretching
from the Appalachian Mountains to
southwest Missouri to protect, they lacked
the troop strength to repel a large and
effectively managed attack - exactly what
Grant delivered.
In February 1862, Grant had obtained
permission from his superior officer,
Major-General Henry Wager Halleck, to
transport his command of 15,000,
accompanied by naval gunboats, down the
Tennessee River and to secure Fort Henry,
which blocked waterway traffic and military
penetration into central Tennessee. By the
time he arrived there, winter rains and
ensuing floods had swamped Fort Henry,
making it indefensible. Instead, Confederate
forces concentrated on firmer ground at Fort
Donelson, a dozen miles (19km) east on the
banks of the Cumberland River, leaving
behind only a paltry garrison of artillerists.