Hey everyone, thanks for downloading episode number 89 of our Civil War podcast.

I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy.

Hello y'all.

Welcome to the podcast.

Beginning with this episode, we'll start to look at Ulysses S. Grant's campaign

in February 1862 to capture Fort Henry and Donaldson.

The battles for those two Confederate forts in rural northern Tennessee just below the

Kentucky border were a crucial turning point in the course of the Civil War.

The loss of the forts, which controlled the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, fatally

cracked the Southern defensive line west of the Appalachians and fixed the course of the

war in the Western theater for the next 18 months.

As the calendar had rolled over from 1861 to 1862, both the Union and the Confederacy were

preparing for what they expected would be the pivotal year of the Civil War.

Most people expected the decisive blow would be struck in Virginia.

For months, Major General George McClellan had been organizing and training his Army of

the Potomac and its camps around Washington, D.C.

And since November, when he replaced Old Winfield Scott as General Inchef, McClellan had

also been responsible for supervising the operations of all the other Federal armies.

But it was still to the Army of the Potomac that all northern eyes turned, expecting little

Mac would soon use his well-trained and well-equipped Army to deal a death blow to the rebellion.

But McClellan's expanded authority as General Inchef didn't seem to make him any more inclined

...