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Updated: May 31, 2025
A work named Fort Heiman was begun on the bluff on the opposite side of the river, but was incomplete. General McClernand, commanding the advance, landed eight miles below the fort. General Grant made a reconnoissance in one of the gunboats to draw the fire of the fort and ascertain the range of its guns.
I at once ordered General Smith to send a force up the west bank of the Tennessee to threaten forts Heiman and Henry; McClernand at the same time with a force of 6,000 men was sent out into west Kentucky, threatening Columbus with one column and the Tennessee River with another. I went with McClernand's command.
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.
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.
In the night, General C.F. Smith was sent across the river to take Fort Heiman, but it was evacuated while Grant was landing his force at Bailey's Ferry. McClernand was ordered to move out at eleven o'clock in the morning of the 6th, and take position on the roads to Fort Donelson and Dover.
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.
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.
A determined assault was made on the position held by Maney's battery, supported by Colonel Heiman with the Tenth, Forty-eighth, and Fifty-third Tennessee, and the Twenty-seventh Alabama. This position was, at the same time, the most salient and the most elevated in the entire line of intrenchment.
I at once ordered General Smith to send a force up the west bank of the Tennessee to threaten forts Heiman and Henry; McClernand at the same time with a force of 6,000 men was sent out into west Kentucky, threatening Columbus with one column and the Tennessee River with another. I went with McClernand's command.
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