{ 74} [Illustration: BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION OFF FORT MONROE.]
When Gen. Henry W. Halleck was placed in command of the Department of Missouri, in November, 1861, he divided it into districts, giving to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant the District of Cairo, { 75} which included Southern Illinois, the counties of Missouri south of Cape Girardeau, and all of Kentucky that lies west of Cumberland River. Where the Tennessee and the Cumberland enter Kentucky from the south they are about ten miles apart, and here the Confederates had erected two considerable works to command the rivers--Fort Henry on the east bank of the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the west bank of the Cumberland. They had also fortified the high bluffs at Columbus, on the Mississippi, twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and Bowling Green, on the Big Barren. The general purpose was to establish a military frontier with a strong line of defence from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi.
[Illustration: THE BURNSIDE EXPEDITION CROSSING HATTERAS BAR.]
[Illustration: ROANOKE ISLAND, N. C., AND CONFEDERATE FORTS.]
A fleet of iron-clad gunboats had been prepared by the United States Government for service on the Western rivers, some of them being built new, while others were altered freight-boats.
After a reconnoissance in force by Gen. C. F. Smith, General Grant asked Halleck's permission to capture Fort Henry, and, after considerable delay, received it on the 30th of January. That work was garrisoned by three thousand men under Gen. Lloyd Tilghman. Its position was strong, the ravines through which little tributaries reached the river being filled with slashed timber and rifle-pits, and swampy ground rendering approach from { 76} the land side difficult. But the work itself was rather poorly built, bags of sand being largely used instead of a solid earth embankment.
On the morning of February 2d the fleet of four iron-clad and two wooden gunboats, commanded by Flag-officer Andrew H. Foote, left Cairo, steamed up the Ohio to Paducah, thence up the Tennessee, and by daylight the next morning were within sight of the fort. Grant's land force was to coöperate by an attack in the rear, but it did not arrive in time. The gunboats moved up to within six hundred yards, and opened a bombardment, to which the guns of the fort immediately responded, and the firing was kept up for an hour. The _Essex_ received a shot in her boiler, by which many men were wounded or scalded, including Capt. William D. Porter, son of Commodore David Porter who had won fame in another _Essex_ in the war of 1812-15. Otherwise the fleet, though struck many times, was not seriously injured. On the other hand, the fire from the gunboats knocked the sand-bags about, dismounted seven guns, brought down the flagstaff, and, together with the bursting of a rifled gun in the fort, created a panic. All but about one hundred of the garrison fled, leaving General Tilghman with the sick and a single company of artillerists; and, after serving a gun with his own hands as long as possible, he ran up a white flag and surrendered. The regret of the victors at the escape of the garrison was more than counterbalanced by their gratification at the behavior of the gunboats in their first serious trial. After the surrender, three of the gunboats proceeded up the Tennessee River to the head of navigation, destroyed the railroad bridge, and captured a large amount of stores.