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. The commanders received national recognition for their victories in February 1862, as they were the first major Union successes of the war. The capture of Fort Donelson and its garrison by the Union led to the capture of Tennessee's capital and industrial center, Nashville, which remained in Union hands from February 25, 1862 until the end of the war, and gave the Union effective control over much of Tennessee. This stuck a major blow to the Confederacy early in the war.
The main portion of the park, in Dover, Tennessee, commemorates the Battle of Fort Donelson (36°29′41″N 87°51′22″W / 36.49472°N 87.85611°W / 36.49472; -87.85611). Fort Heiman, in nearby Calloway County, Kentucky, was a Confederate battery in the Battle of Fort Henry.
Read more about Fort Donelson National Battlefield: History, Administrative History of The Park, Park Today, Cemetery
Famous quotes containing the words fort, national and/or battlefield:
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“We are constantly thinking of the great war ... which saved the Union ... but it was a war that did a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union, it was the rebirth of the Union.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
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—Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949)