Booknotes: Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson

New Arrival:

• Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles by Hank Koopman [(Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series) U Tenn Press, 2025].

From the description: "The Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson took place in February of 1862 and were early indicators of the success the US would have in the Civil War’s Western Theater. Due to Kentucky’s neutrality at the time, Brig. Gen. Daniel S. Donelson was instructed to find suitable sites for fortification along the Tennessee River but just inside the state boundaries of Tennessee. Forts Henry and Donelson were constructed in the summer of 1861 and were quickly identified by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as strategic fortifications that, if conquered, would open the Federal Army’s path to Alabama and Mississippi. Fort Henry fell to Federal control on February 6, 1862, and Fort Donelson fell six days later. With the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers now open to Federal gunboats, Grant and his army would head southwest to Memphis and on to Vicksburg."

This was one of those Civil War campaigns in which the actions of smaller forces produced enormous strategic consequences. While it may not have been, as Kendall Gott maintains, "Where the South Lost the War," there is no denying that the twin Union victories at Henry and Donelson were unmitigated disasters for Confederate fortunes. It also firmly placed the careers of two key generals of the war, Confederate western department commander Albert Sidney Johnston and Union army commander U.S. Grant, on opposite trajectories that were cemented conclusively at Shiloh. That things might have turned out differently at key moments during the campaign makes Henry-Donelson a strong candidate for an interesting addition to University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series.

More from the description: Hank Koopman's Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles "explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Federal commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Hank Koopman hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the conflict to provide a blueprint of the Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson at their tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battles to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened."

Of added interest is the presence of a new voice in the series, this being Koopman's first contribution. I look forward to delving into his interpretation of the campaign's key moments and how well he works within the well-established structure of the series.