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When the exit of eleven slave-holding states from the USA in 1860/61 widened into civil war, they linked their fate with a clever plan.
Since it was US President Abraham Lincoln who wanted to keep the breakaway southern states in the Union, the Union had to go on the offensive.
This enabled the newly formed Confederate States to take advantage of the inner line in an area the size of half of Europe.
But that would more than compensate for the numerical and economic superiority of the north, so the calculation.
This strategy immediately paid off in the theater of war east of the Appalachians.
In their attempts to secure the federal capital Washington by advances towards the Confederate capital Richmond, Virginia, Union armies had suffered several severe defeats.
Between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, however, the Union troops largely held back, as their generals lacked the imagination for a successful offensive in the vastness of the Midwest.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) during his campaign in Tennessee
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Collection
That changed in February 1862 when a hitherto unknown brigadier general came up with an almost daring plan.
Ulysses S. Grant, who had drawn attention to himself before the war mainly because of alcohol problems on duty and therefore left the army, recognized the importance of the rivers between the Confederate state of Tennessee and Kentucky, which, although adhering to the Union, as a slave state had considerable sympathy for the south showed.
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After the war began, the Confederation immediately set about blocking the Mississippi with heavily armed forts to prevent direct incursions into the south.
Less attention was paid to the Ohio, which flowed from Cairo through Tennessee and Alabama, although its mighty tributary Cumberland led directly to Nashville.
The city was not only the capital of Tennessee, but also the center of gunpowder production, while Clarksville on the Cumberland was one of the most important ironworks in the south.
One of Pook's turtles in the Mississippi River basin
Source: picture-alliance / newscom / picture history
With steam-powered gunboats clad in iron armor and named "Pook's turtles" after their designer, the north now had vehicles to attack the embryonic forts that the south had built on these rivers from the water.
And with Andrew H. Foote, about a naval officer who was ready to use these new weapons on the floodplain.
Even more important was his willingness to work with Grant, although as a teetotaler he deliberately overlooked his sporadic whiskey inclination.
At the beginning of February Grant set out from Cairo with 15,000 men on the way to Fort Henry, which was about 100 miles southwest of the Tennessee estuary.
Erected on a low high bank, dominated by the surrounding mountains and threatened with flooding by every swell of the river, the position was no glory for southern engineering, writes the American civil war specialist James M. McPherson.
Union assault on Fort Donelson
Source: picture alliance / United Archives / WHA
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On February 6th, Foote's armored boats were parked in front of the fort, which had only nine guns in position, while each “Pook's turtle” had a good dozen guns.
A heavy artillery duel convinced the southerners to vacate the position before Grant's infantrymen had made their way through swamps and watercourses.
2,500 Confederates then strengthened the garrison of Fort Donelson on Cumberland, which was only separated from Fort Henry by a headland 20 kilometers wide.
Foote and Grant wanted to land their second punch there.
But now the Confederate leadership was warned.
Albert Sidney Johnston, Commander in Chief on the Western Front, immediately ordered 7,000 men to Fort Donelson, whose defenders were thus increased to 12,000.
The palisades were also strengthened and twelve heavy guns were put into position.
That was enough to repel the attack that Grant launched from land on February 12.
The Union gunboat fire was too deep
Source: Getty Images
Foote's gunboats, which arrived on February 14, were also unsuccessful.
The guns of the south, positioned on a steep bank, destroyed the superstructure of his boats, especially the chimneys, so that the battered "turtles" had to be driven downstream out of the danger zone.
After all, transport ships had arrived with them, adding 10,000 soldiers to Grant's troops.
With them he set about constricting the fort from the land side.
He did not expect the southerners to attempt to break out.
Fort Donelson on the east bank of the Cumberland, surrounded by troops from the north
Source: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS
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But that is exactly what his opponents on the other side planned.
On the morning of February 15, 10,000 southerners, supported by snowstorms, stormed the Union lines and threw them back a mile in several hours of fighting.
The siege ring was broken, but the Confederates did not take advantage of it.
Shaken by the losses and condition of his men, Gideon Pillow, who led the attack, halted the advance.
A late counterattack by Grant drove the southerners back into Donelson's fortifications.
Like Pillow, its commander, John Floyd, was one of the so-called political generals who had achieved rank and honor less because of their military skills and more because of their relationships.
They handed over command to the career officer Simon Buckner and sneaked away with their staffs through the thin lines of the north during the night.
Blue and gray generals
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As a military layman, US President Abraham Lincoln (with top hat with George B. McClellan) pulled numerous rivets.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was appointed commander in chief of all Union troops in 1864.
His strategy led the north to victory.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) conquered Atlanta with three armies and perfected the scorched earth strategy.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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Philip Sheridan (1831-1888) led the Potomac Army's cavalry in the eastern theater of war.
Source: picture alliance / united archiv / united archives / WHA
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George B. McClellan (1826-1885; right with Abraham Lincoln) was a brilliant organizer, but a fearful general.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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The headquarters of Joseph Hooker (1814-1879) was a place from which a decent man would stay away.
Source: picture-alliance // Newscom
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Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824-1881) also proved to be clearly inferior to the southerner Robert E. Lee.
Source: picture-alliance / newscom / Pi / Newscom
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George Gordon Meade (1815-1872) defeated Lee at Gettysburg in July 1863, breaking the south's offensive power.
Source: picture-alliance / newscom / Pi / Newscom
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Rear Admiral David Farragut (1801-1870) captured New Orleans in 1862 and blocked the Mississippi Estuary.
Source: picture-alliance / imagestate / HI / The Print Collector / Heritage-I
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George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) led a cavalry division under Sheridan and later fell against the Sioux at Little Big Horn.
Source: picture-alliance / newscom / Pi / Newscom
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Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) had military experience as a former Secretary of War.
Source: picture-alliance / (c) Illustrat / Mary Evans Picture Library
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Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), commander of the Northern Virginia Army, was and is considered the best strategist in the north and south.
Source: picture alliance / landov / MCT
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Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-1863) moved his infantrymen faster than the Yankees could ride.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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James Longstreet (1821-1904) was considered Lee's "workhorse".
Source: picture-alliance / (c) Illustrat / Mary Evans Picture Library
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George Edward Pickett (1825-1875), one of Long Street's division commanders, led the failed attack at Gettysburg.
Source: picture-alliance / newscom / Pi / Newscom
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James Ewell "Jeb" Stuart (1833-1864) commanded Lee's cavalry and fell against Sheridan.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images / akg
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Braxton Bragg (1817-1876) led armies in the western theater of war, but could not hold out against Grant.
Source: picture-alliance / newscom / Pi / Newscom
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Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) used unorthodox methods to lead spectacular cavalry raids behind Union lines.
Source: Wikipedia / Public Domain
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On April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee negotiated the surrender of the Northern Virginia Army at Wilmer McLean's home.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
The eruption of Nathan Bedford Forrest was of a different caliber.
As a wealthy plantation owner, he had set up his own battalion, which he led according to his rules.
They weren't in any textbook, but for that very reason they turned out to be extremely innovative, as the military self-taught invented the highly effective combat of mounted and dismounted cavalry.
Forrest evacuated his 700 men safely from Fort Donelson on secret routes and was soon to become one of the most feared cavalry generals of the entire war.
Indignantly, Buckner finally took over to negotiate the formalities of the handover with Grant.
Since he had lent him money for the journey home when he left in 1854, he probably relied on comradely benevolence.
But Grant's harsh response convinced him otherwise.
For this the sentence wrote world history: "Can only accept unconditional and immediate surrender".
The "unconditional surrender" a few wars later became the model for the war goal against Germany and Japan, on which US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed at their conference in January 1943 in Casablanca .
The conquest of Fort Donelson opened large parts of Tennessee to the north.
A few days later, Johnston not only had to give up Nashville, but also had to evacuate the fortresses on the Mississippi south of Cairo.
"Of all previous civil war campaigns, this was the most momentous in strategic terms," says James M. McPherson.
Above all, however, he promoted the commander to an important step higher.
Lincoln made Grant a major general and thus one of the most important commanders in the western theater of war.
A good year later, with the conquest of Vicksburg, he was to achieve the decisive victory in the west; two years later, as commander-in-chief of the north, he accepted the surrender of the most important southern army.
From 1869 to 1877 he was the 18th President of the United States.
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This article was first published in February 2019.