In January 1862, General Grant went to see General Henry Halleck in St. Louis to discuss the possibility of taking Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. If Halleck appeared reluctant to Grant it might have been a superior’s response to a subordinate’s recommendation on strategy. Halleck was sensitive to such things. More likely it was that Grant wasn’t the only one thinking that Tennessee was available if one cared to go up river to Nashville and Halleck, and others, had been discussing Fort Henry before Grant came to visit.

Today one can’t mention Fort Henry without adding Fort Donelson, but Donelson wasn’t discussed in the earliest conversations among Union generals. They could both be had with a combination of gunboats and infantry and, to Grant’s good luck, with the gunboats came Commander Andrew Foote. He was Grant on deck if a little more demonstrative in his beliefs. He hated alcohol and preached against it but he was also the sort of man not to be put off by challenges. That’s good. Grant was the same sort.

Grant knew that Fort Henry was poorly situated and had to fight the intruding waters of the Tennessee River. It wasn’t unusual for the river to work into the fort and threaten the powder magazine and gun positions. The Confederates were trying to address the situation by building Fort Heiman up river a bit from Henry. It would take more time to complete Heiman but once Grant decided to move time was one currency he was loath to spend. The general’s determination could overcome virtually any condition except Tennessee in February, where a combination of cold and constant rain turned the modest roads into nearly impassable routes. Grant’s Army of 15,000 was a formidable force, but sucking mud and icy roads slowed their progress.

What Grant may not have known was something that both Captain Foote, and Confederate commander General Lloyd Tilghman were almost certain of—gunboats could easily take the already crippled fort. In early afternoon, February 6, 1862, Foote’s ironclads and “tinclads” (timber and cotton bales were used to protect wooden vessels), settled in for the bombardment. The Confederate cannoneers kept up a hot fire, hitting a number of gunboats and disabling one, but as the enemy vessels drew to within 300 yards it became clear to Tilghman that the fort would fall. Sending 2,000 men over to Fort Donelson to escape capture the Confederate general struck his flag. A cutter from a union gunboat rowed into the fort and carried Tilghman to Foote’s flagship.

A day after the victory, a newspaper reporter hunted up Grant to say good-bye. You’d better wait a day to two, Grant advised him: “I am going over to attack Fort Donelson tomorrow.” Coming from Hooker, Pope or McClellan, this statement might be viewed as bombast or wishful thinking. With Grant it was an indication of his nature—a “kindhearted but resolute man,” a captured confederate officer noted. To strike at Donelson made perfect sense to Grant. It was only a dozen or so miles away (hard miles it would turn out—the terrain was a mass of heavy timber and ravines), and he could count on Foote’s gunboats. He didn’t know much about Donelson, he told the reporter. But he thought that his army, with the gunboats, could take it.

In the Civil War men saw the elephant. That was the first time they had been in battle and went from the gentle, easy nature of a civilian to the laconic, wry outlook of a veteran. It doesn’t happen all at once, of course, and not every soldier behaves in the same way but it’s the turning point, the definitive break between toy soldiers and combat soldiers. With this mysterious transition comes a series of fundamental characteristics, one of which is the hard confidence of a professional soldier. Grant was infused with this trait; the enemy was there, and he meant to go there, and nothing else really mattered.

When Grant and his army faced Fort Donelson, it was a good five days after he optimistically predicted he would arrive, and he was facing a larger enemy force in a stronger position.  The fort was better sited; part of its defense was a swamp to the north and the natural abatis of recently felled trees. Donelson was also thirty feet above the river, which limited the gunboats’ fire—the closer they got to the works, the more elevation was denied them. On the 13th the Union gunboats opened a long-range duel with Fort Donelson while Union infantry moved forward to cut off any chance of Confederates escaping from the fort.

The next day brought Foote’s four ironclads into play (they had just arrived from Cairo), and they opened a duel with Donelson. The boats were fighting a strong current and very effective Confederate fire. The ironclads were only partially protected by iron—their upper deck was exposed to plunging fire and while attempts had been made to create temporary armor of chains, timbers and other materials; these measures would not stop cannonballs. Fifty-four crewmen were killed and the wounded included Foote.

The next day it was the Confederates’ turn to take the battle to Grant. Lacking gunboats, they did the best they could by attacking General John A. McClernand’s line. It was a hammer-blow of an assault that drove the Union general’s troops back. McClernand called on General Lew Wallace for assistance but the rebels were still short of being stopped, even with the arrival of reinforcements. Those men who had not become casualties—the count was at roughly 2000--were disorganized or simply worn-out by hard fighting. The lines were confused or non-existent and it looked as if Grant’s victorious army was within a shadow of ignominious defeat.

As Wallace and McClernand talked over the situation—the air around them boiling with smoke, leavened with the crash of musketry, Grant rode up. He appeared calm with that rock-hard set to his jaw and after taking stock of the situation, he said quietly: “Gentlemen, the position on the right must be retaken.” There were no histrionics from the general commanding, nor did he chastise Wallace or McClernand. He told them what he wanted. Grant moved along the weakened line, exhorting the men, urging them to be ready to attack, gaining control of the situation. He told General C. F. Smith to take Fort Donelson and Smith drove his men straight against the Confederate line. The charge was a success due to Smith’s leadership and the fact that his men were more afraid of their profane commander than they were of the enemy. A great deal of the victory was also due to an unlikely source and that was the Confederate command. General Gideon Pillow’s attack was a success but for unexplained reasons he called his men back. The plan had been to shatter the Union lines and open an escape route and this had been accomplished. But when Smith struck and Pillow ordered his men to fall back to the fort, Donelson’s fate was sealed.

That evening rebel commandant General John B. Floyd, former secretary of war under James Buchanan, began to consider the realities of capture by federal troops. He concluded that it would be best for him to turn over command of the fort to General Pillow. Pillow, certain that he would suffer a harsh fate if he were captured, turned over command to General Simon Bolivar Buckner. Pillow and Floyd both departed the fort immediately. There was nothing that Buckner could do but solicit surrender terms.

Buckner had loaned money to a destitute Grant before the war and perhaps he thought that he was owed something for that act of kindness. What he received in answer to his request for terms struck him as “ungenerous and unchivalrous.” Grant’s reply, in part, was this: “No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.”  Ringed by federal troops, denied the river by ironclads, Buckner had no course left open to him but surrender.

Grant’s army captured a fort and about 12,000 men, opened the Cumberland River, and helped create a legend. It was Grant of whom Lincoln said: “I can’t spare this man. He fights.” and that was the most telling compliment that anyone could make about the quiet, unassuming general. At Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and finally Appomattox Court House, what both the Union and Confederate armies discovered about Grant was—he fights.