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Fort Donelson, Tennessee, guarding the Cumberland River, became the site of the first major Confederate defeat in the Civil War. Victory at Donelson started Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant on his road to Appomattox and the White House. His ....

Middle of Term Paper
... both the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers just south of the Kentucky line. They built Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, on ground susceptible to flooding, but chose higher ground for Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. Both sides wanted Kentucky but recognized that the first to cross its borders risked losing popular support. Confederate Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow rashly seized Columbus, Kentucky, on the Mississippi River bluffs, a move that appalled President Jefferson Davis, who first ordered Pillow to withdraw, then allowed him to stay when he realized that the deed could not be reversed. Grant, commanding at Cairo, Illinoi ...