Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862

by Kendall D. Gott

With the collapse of the Confederate defenses at Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, the entire Tennessee Valley was open to Union invasion and control. These Northern victories set up the 1864 Atlanta Campaign that cut the Confederacy in two. Had Confederate planning and leadership been better, no one can say what difference it might have made to the Civil War in the West and the outcome of the war itself.

Genres: Civil War, History, American Civil War, American History

387 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2003

About the author

Retired Team Chief/Senior Historian at Combat Studies Institute Current Gentleman-Farmer in Kickapoo, KS

Kendall D. Gott is a retired army officer and as well as a retired senior historian of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth Kansas. He is the author of several studies on American military history and the book Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign February 1862. Mr. Gott resides in Leavenworth County with his high school sweetheart, Julia.

Reviews

[Manray9]

I gave Kendall Gott's Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry-Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862 Four Stars for being a comprehensive account of the Civil War campaign against Forts Henry and Donelson. On the other hand, I couldn't gin up more than Two Stars for the book's misspellings, typographical errors, amateurish maps, and minor errors of fact. Such miscues undermine the credibility of any serious work of non-fiction. Overall: Three Stars.

[John]

"The Fort Henry–Fort Donelson campaign is not often associated with the great battles of the war, such as Gettysburg, Vicksburg, or Chancellorsville. It was fought so early in the war, and in comparison, the casualties sustained there were light. Neither side used dynamic tactics, which became required study at military academies. The military advantages the campaign brought about were truly significant, but the full advantages of the victory were not quickly achieved, since Halleck stopped the advances and temporarily passed the initiative to the Confederates. The great victory faded from memory as bloodier battles were fought for less result. The campaign, though, did give the nation and the world confident assurance of the United States’ ability to restore the national union."

I visited Fort Donelson recently and I saw this book in the gift shop. I decided to read it because I wanted to read a new book about Fort Donelson, and I also heard about it. Kendall Gott, an Army veteran, argues that the Confederacy lost the war when Fort Donelson fell because it opened the Union invasion of the South by capturing major rivers and being able to attack other portions of the Confederacy. Let us not forget the CSA lost an army here, one of three captured by Ulysses S. Grant.

I do agree that Fort Donelson is not remembered as a great victory, and that is a shame because the South lost a lot here. The great northern victory is usually seen by many as Gettysburg. I remember in David Powell's first volume about Chickamauga he points out most Civil War scholarship focuses on the Eastern Theater. A colleague of mine, who worked for the park service at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania, stated that the battlefields in the east were just killing fields and the Union won the war in the Western Theater. As I study the war, I see his point, and this book convinces me more of that.

The book is readable, and Gott makes valid points. His analysis a the end I thought was interesting and well thought out. One of his examples was "The first mistakes by the Confederate command were in the placement and design of the forts guarding the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, and the low priority given them. Unlike the forts along the Mississippi, neither Fort Henry nor Fort Donelson was assigned a dedicated engineer officer to oversee construction until late October 1861." He provides more reasons why the South lost at Fort Donelson and why it was an important victory for the North, but I do not want to spoil it for you. Some grammar errors were in the book and my kindle did not have the best maps. I still recommend reading the book to read a different perspective, and Fort Donelson is worth visiting. Fort Henry is under water, so there is not much to see

[Steven Peterson]

This book presents one of the best detailed descriptions of the Fort Henry and Fort Donelson campaign. The volume lays out the preparation, the logistics, and the actual campaign. The book details the futile (and brief) defense of the poorly designed Fort Henry. It demonstrates the willingness of General Ulysses Grant, unlike many of his general officer brethren in the Union Army at that time, to take action with his immediate move against Fort Donelson, even though he was not sure of what awaited him.

It shows some of his sloppiness in combat situations (as at Shiloh, where he did not bother preparing a stout defense or at Belmont when he lost control of his troops), for instance, when he left Fort Donelson to meet with the naval commander--leaving his army leaderless at the time when the Confederates attempted a breakout. But the book also well describes his tenacity. After the near breakout, Grant takes initiative once again.

The description of the dysfunctional Confederate command structure (from Albert Sydney Johnston on down to the commanders on the ground at Fort Donelson) is done well, although--perhaps--Simon Bolivar Buckner may not have been quite as ineffective as depicted.

All of that said, though, it is hard to see that this campaign was "Where the south lost the war." It certainly destroyed Johnston's defensive line and forced him to retreat all along his line. But with a bit of luck, Shiloh could have recouped some of the loss, had the South prevailed on that bloody battlefield. And many other campaigns and battles--east and west--were critical in their own way.

Nonetheless, a valuable book that probably warrants being in the library of Civil War history buffs.

[R. Jones]

Though Kendall Gott was a little lacking in the poetry department, this is pretty much how a Civil War battle book should read. It was interesting, not too dry, and it didn't get too focused in the small details that I lost sight of the entire campaign. The forest wasn't lost for the trees, so to speak. And of course it had - my favorite! - maps; detailed, simple, and regularly updated maps that I could study with the movement of the troops. This is closer to a 4.5 than a 5 because, like I said, some of the prose could have been a little more exciting, but it's still an excellent, solid history.

[Sean Chick]

This one is more like a 3.5, so I rounded it up to a 4. Research is good and Gott is best in discussing the options and decisions by the commanders, although it is sometimes there is a bit too much finger-wagging. He finds much to praise about Pillow. Where the book suffers is the descriptions of the fighting. We do not get a strong feeling for what the soldiers experienced. All in all a solid if unspectacular book on an operation that is not so much forgotten as it is glossed over.

[Blake]

The title is an exaggeration, but this early campaign set the south in the direction to lose. The author did a good job describing the hectic early days of the war creating armies, river fleets and forts from nothing. Gott shows what generals knew when they made their usually bad decissions. Grant was remarkable, mainly because he actually moved.