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Updated: May 31, 2025
General Smith was to land a brigade of his division on the west bank during the night of the 5th and get it in rear of Heiman. At the hour designated the troops and gunboats started. General Smith found Fort Heiman had been evacuated before his men arrived.
A portion of the ground on which Fort Henry stood was two feet deep in water. Below, the water extended into the woods several hundred yards back from the bank on the east side. On the west bank Fort Heiman stood on high ground, completely commanding Fort Henry. The distance from Fort Henry to Donelson is but eleven miles.
General Smith was to land a brigade of his division on the west bank during the night of the 5th and get it in rear of Heiman. At the hour designated the troops and gunboats started. General Smith found Fort Heiman had been evacuated before his men arrived.
General Smith was to land a brigade of his division on the west bank during the night of the 5th and get it in rear of Heiman. At the hour designated the troops and gunboats started. General Smith found Fort Heiman had been evacuated before his men arrived.
Buford's division occupied Fort Heiman, well above the crucial section. The Confederates also held Paris Landing. Now they were set to put the squeeze on any river traffic. Guns were brought into station Buford's two Parrots, one section of Morton's incomparable battery with Bell's Tennesseeans down at the Landing.
General Smith had been directed to leave a portion of his division behind to guard forts Henry and Heiman. He left General Lew. Wallace with 2,500 men. With the remainder of his division he occupied our left, extending to Hickman creek. McClernand was on the right and covered the roads running south and south-west from Dover.
Each of these positions was strongly fortified, as were also points on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers near the Tennessee state line. The works on the Tennessee were called Fort Heiman and Fort Henry, and that on the Cumberland was Fort Donelson. At these points the two rivers approached within eleven miles of each other.
But when General George H. Thomas moved upon the enemy at Mill Springs and totally routed him, inflicting a loss of some 300 killed and wounded, and forts Henry and Heiman fell into the hands of the National forces, with their armaments and about 100 prisoners, those losses seemed to dishearten the Confederate commander so much that he immediately commenced a retreat from Bowling Green on Nashville.
But, on the morning of the 6th, Tilghman gave up the idea of using his infantry in the defence, ordered Colonel Heiman to move the command to Fort Donelson, while he remained with the company of artillerists to engage the fleet and the land force, if it should appear, with the heavy armament of the fort, and thus retard pursuit.
As a result of this expedition General Smith reported that he thought it practicable to capture Fort Heiman. This fort stood on high ground, completely commanding Fort Henry on the opposite side of the river, and its possession by us, with the aid of our gunboats, would insure the capture of Fort Henry.
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