Civil War Battlefields: Ft. Donelson | History Traveler Episode 36

I've done several of these history traveller videos now and it seems almost criminal that I've gone through all of these trips and all of these videos and have yet to visit a civil war battle site well I am fixing that today right here at Fort Donelson National Battlefield in Tennessee now during the 1800s rivers were of vital importance to the United States they were kind of like our interstate today they were the the major arteries that materials and weapons and things like that travel on so whenever the Civil War broke out it became vitally important to both sides to not only protect the rivers but to also try and capture different points because that was going to be the access either into the south or into the north well that's where Fort Donelson comes in in Tennessee there was a line that the Confederates were guarding that stretched pretty thin Lee all the way across the northern Tennessee border and the southern Kentucky border two rivers that came down out of the north and into the south with the Tennessee and the Cumberland River and two forts were protecting them one was Fort Henry over on the Tennessee River and then this one that we're going to be looking at today Fort Donelson which was on the Cumberland River so under the leadership of u.s. grant the Union had already taken Fort Henry and then started moving in on Fort Donelson that was in February of 1863 so we're gonna go to the visitors center and go see what else we can learn before we start touring this battlefield all right so here we are at the Fort Donelson visitor center and unfortunately we're not going in [Music] because it is closed for renovations this seems to happen to me quite a bit but that's okay we're going to go ahead and go through the battlefield and see what we can learn anyway wow that's a real bummer because I was planning on getting some cool shots at this place today so note that if you see any drone shots in this video it is not going to be here on the battlefield so don't be calling and turning me into anybody [Music] now Fort Donelson is not what you would consider a typical Fort usually whenever I think of before I think of something made of brick or stone or you know maybe a wooden structure and that's not what Fort Donelson was Fort Donelson was made up of what you call earthworks so what happened was Confederate soldiers and slaves would build up these huge earthen walls that were made of logs and earth about ten foot tall and they did it around the perimeter of the fort which was about 15 acres now due to the fact that erosion would you know completely destroy these earthworks you're not allowed to get up on top of them but you can you can kind of see them right here behind me and I'm going to show a few of these and and do my best to give everyone a little bit of a view of what these earthworks would have looked like it's pretty fascinating so here's another look at the outer perimeter fort donelson and I would say that oh this is probably six or seven foot deep and you can see where the walls go up that's probably about ten foot tall so as you can imagine would be pretty difficult to attack and a lot easier to defend now this is from the inside of the earthen walls you can see where like artillery would have been positioned and then Confederate soldiers would have been right here in this area to mount a defense of Fort Donelson let me go over here and I'll lift the camera up and you can get kind of a decent view from the from the side of these earth and forts so this is on the western side of Fort Donelson now here is how Fort Donelson would have originally looked during the Civil War so the spot that I just showed right here hence the you are here spot and we're going to drive around and go over here to the river batteries that defended against the Union incursion on the Cumberland River but this this is Fort Donelson so all of this right here would have been Confederate quarters interesting here's an example of the living quarters that you would have found at Fort Donelson for the Confederates and there were about 400 of these that were built by Confederate soldiers and slave laborers so you of course have your log structure a little fireplace in the back made out of stone and mortar and then a canvas roof top go around here and take a look inside this thing okay get some straw on the floor and then there's your fireplace kind of keep you out of the elements now this battle took place during February so it would have been really cold guarantee that this would have been much more preferable than a tent these all ended up getting burned down though because there was a measles outbreak so this is a replica of what the confederate living quarters would have looked like here inside of Fort Donelson they would have been scattered all throughout all throughout the valley here inside the fort oh we crud there goes an eagle how neat is that and looky there happen to catch a barge moving up the rather down the Cumberland River golly that thing is big okay well I am now on the eastern side of Fort Donelson right along the Cumberland River on the lower gun battery a pretty cool place that we're down here kind of in the trenches and all along here you can kind of see up here too there were eight Confederate guns that were manning positions guarding the Cumberland River here on on the lower battery and as you can see move up here a little bit whatever the the Union ironclads under the command of Andrew foot crossed right through here and came around the bend they were pretty much in an open range of these Confederate guns and they were not successful in moving in on Fort Donelson and had to turn back and grant ended up having to have his men come up from from the western edge but pretty cool to be down here in these spots where the Confederates were defending Fort Donelson and you can see here there's a gun missing I think one of the guns ended up getting hit by the Union boats but you can see they've kind of reconstructed these sandbags got these earthworks which probably are better than stone because they're more capable of absorbing energy from from a cannonball blast but very very interesting [Music] I was just getting ready to leave the trenches and happen to see this reconstructed powder magazine pretty interesting so this would have been a one-room structure that was doubled up with logs to make it more bomb-proof and then have you know earthworks covering it and would have held without a thousand rounds for the guns of the lower river battery here pretty interesting to be here now here are four more mounds that were built by the Confederates that had some thirty-two pound cannon behind him but they ended up moving them before the gunboat attack so this is behind the lower battery but they figured it would be ineffective from here and the lower battery had it covered but man oh man hard to imagine how the Union would have been successful with an amphibious invasion on the sport just seeing the defense's [Music] so I just left the eastern edge of Fort Donelson which forms the the gun battery that is right there on the Cumberland River so February 14th is whenever the Union boats were turned back and the spot where I'm standing at right now is back on the outer perimeter on the western side of Fort Donelson on a ridge that formed kind of a defensive line before you actually got to the fort and on the 15th you can see a cannon and some of these earthworks and trenches behind me on the 15th of February the Union mounted an assault up here on this Ridge they drove the Confederates off of this Ridge and across this road you can see that there's a ravine that dips back down into here drove the Confederates down into that ravine up on the next Ridge and then the Union just kind of encamped here and we're waiting to move into the actual 15 acre for itself on the 16th but they didn't have to because the commander of the fort offered up a surrender to General Grant and that concluded the Battle of Fort Donelson was a huge huge victory for the Union really kind of helped grant make a name for himself and gave the Union kind of an open incursion into the south so in the east where the Union wasn't doing so well it was pretty discouraging but here in the West at places like Fort Henry and Fort Donelson there were signs of hope we have one more stop that we're gonna make and then we're gonna wrap up this visit to Fort Donelson our last stop here at Fort Donelson is at the Fort Donelson National Cemetery which is the final resting place of those that fought in that battle just like Arlington Normandy these these national cemeteries serve as a reminder to us of what what the cost of war is and and what the the price of freedom is it's one thing to sit in school and learn about history it's another to to read about history and those are both good things but it's on another level to come out here to the place where these men and women walked fought made history and actually experience it for yourself so I only scratched the surface today on the Battle of Fort Donelson so look it up for yourself and then if you ever have a chance come here to Dover Tennessee to the battle site fort donelson it it's a pretty amazing place [Music] [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 41,741

Rating: 4.9648647 out of 5

Keywords: history, us history, history underground, history traveler, civil war, union, confederates, confederacy, the south, tennessee, ft donelson, fort, grant, ulysses grant, war, american history, civil war battlefields, civil war battlefields today, civil war tennessee, american wars, american battlefields

Id: oaNl0p9IxIA

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 03 2020