Union Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson (February 1862)
The capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, and the Confederate surrender at the latter, were the first significant Union victories and the start of a mostly successful campaign in the western theater. Ulysses S. Grant completed both actions by February 16, 1862, and by doing so, opened the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers as Union supply lines and avenues of invasion to Tennessee, Mississippi, and eventually Georgia. The loss of control of these rivers was a significant strategic defeat for the Confederacy. This was the start of offensive actions by Grant that, with the sole exception of the Battle of Shiloh, would continue for the rest of the war.
Read more about this topic: Turning Point Of The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the words union, capture and/or forts:
“Our age is pre-eminently the age of sympathy, as the eighteenth century was the age of reason. Our ideal men and women are they, whose sympathies have had the widest culture, whose aims do not end with self, whose philanthropy, though centrifugal, reaches around the globe.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“To capture robbers, first capture their leader.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)