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There was general agreement that Fort Donelson was probably untenable. General Pillow was designated to lead a breakout attempt, evacuate the fort, and march to Nashville. Troops were moved behind the lines and the assault readied, and they broke through Union lines, but Grant sent them back to Fort Donelson reeling.
The general was colloquially known from then on as "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers. [10] The surrender of Fort Donelson was a tremendous victory for the Union war effort; 12,000 Confederate soldiers had been captured in addition to the bountiful arms inventory of the fort.
The Union Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, who later became president, captured the fort in February 1862 from the Confederate Army in the Battle of Fort Donelson. This was a great strategic victory for the Union forces, and part of Grant's campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River.
Fort Donelson National Battlefield preserves Fort Donelson and Fort Heiman, two sites of the American Civil War Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign, in which Union Army Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote captured three Confederate forts and opened two rivers, the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River, to control by the Union Navy.
On February 12, 1862, Union forces under the command of Brigadier General Grant began to arrive near Fort Donelson. [41] On the night of February 14, Floyd and his subordinate commanders decided to try to break out of the fort and escape a likely Union siege before the full Union force could arrive. [42]
During the American Civil War, he served in the Army of the Tennessee under Ulysses S. Grant, who was a student of his at the military academy. Smith was instrumental in Grant's victory at the Battle of Fort Donelson but died in April 1862 due to infection of a non-combat leg injury and subsequent dysentery.
That May he approved the sites for construction of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the latter named in his honor. (Fort Henry was a poor site, as it nearly flooded and was easily captured by Union General Grant.) After Tennessee joined the Confederacy, Donelson became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army on July 9, 1861.
Fort Donelson protected the crucial Cumberland River, and indirectly, the manufacturing city of Nashville and Confederate control of Middle Tennessee. It was the companion to Fort Henry on the nearby Tennessee River, which, on February 6, 1862, was captured by United States Army Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and river gunboats. Floyd was ...