Iowa Soldiers At Fort Donelson

Storming of Fort Donelson, Grant leading the charge
(colorized print, circa 1865)

Fort Donelson was cold misery before it was history. Snow lay deep in the woods. Ice crusted the roads. Men slept on frozen ground with no tents, no fires, and rations that came late or not at all. An Iowa soldier said the army looked “more like a band of refugees than conquerors,” wrapped in blankets stiff with frost. Another said the cold “cut like a knife and stayed with you.”

The Davenport Democrat warned readers the expedition was “no holiday march. The army was moving into “the teeth of winter and the teeth of the enemy at once.” The Burlington Hawk-Eye told its readers Iowa men were going south “not to parade, but to endure,” adding that the war was already “shedding its illusions.”

 

Then the shooting started.

 

Fort Donelson sat above the Cumberland River in northern Tennessee, a rough triangle of earthworks, rifle pits, and heavy guns meant to block Union movement south. Confederate commanders John B. Floyd, Gideon Pillow, and Simon Bolivar Buckner believed it could hold. The fort had numbers, artillery, and ground that favored defense.

Fighting at Fort Donelson, with gunboats offshore
(colorized print, circa 1865)

Ulysses S. Grant believed something else. In his Personal Memoirs, he wrote simply, “I determined to take Fort Donelson.”

 

Iowa troops were there from the beginning. The Second Iowa Infantry were joined by the Seventh, Twelfth, and Fourteenth Iowa Infantry, part of General John A. McClernand’s and C. F. Smith’s divisions. Most were still learning how to march in formation without tripping over frozen roots.

 

An Iowa newspaper said the men went forward “with little knowledge of what awaited them, but no lack of willingness.” The Dubuque Herald sharpened the point, writing that if the war was to be won, “it will be won by men who can sleep on frozen ground and fight the next day.” Iowa, the paper said, was sending exactly that kind of soldier.

 

The siege settled into a grinding standoff. Union lines crept closer. Confederate guns barked from the works. Skirmishers snapped at each other in the timber. The cold did as much damage as the enemy. A soldier in the Seventh Iowa said the men “froze by night and fought by day.” Another complained that fingers were so numb “a man could scarcely load.”

 

The Iowa State Register said the army was “encamped in a wilderness of ice and mud,” while the Muscatine Journal told readers that Iowa soldiers were “holding their muskets with hands stiffened by frost, yet refusing relief.” The Keokuk Gate City called the cold “a silent enemy,” adding, “Our boys fight not only the rebellion, but the elements, and conquer both.”

 

On February 15, 1862, the Confederates struck first. Before dawn, Pillow launched a massive breakout attempt against the Union right. Confederate columns slammed into McClernand’s division and drove it back. The fighting was savage and confused. A Union officer said the attack “came like a whirlwind,” and Grant admitted later that parts of his line were “badly broken.”

 

The Iowa regiments were right in the storm. The Seventh Iowa, under Colonel Jacob G. Lauman, was hit hard. They fought in dense woods where visibility dropped to yards. Smoke clung to the ground. Men fired by instinct. A soldier said he could “see nothing but flash and shadow.” Another said the noise was “one continual crash, like heavy wagons breaking through timber.”

 

Capture of Fort Donelson
(colorized engraving, circa 1866)

The Ottumwa Courier admitted the Union line had been “driven back in confusion,” but added that Iowa regiments “stood where others gave way.” The Council Bluffs Bugle said, “The battle on Saturday morning tried men’s souls.”

 

The Twelfth Iowa, commanded by Colonel J. J. Woods, was thrown into the gap to help stabilize the line. Woods said his regiment went in “under a most destructive fire,” and the men “advanced steadily, though suffering severely.” The Burlington Hawk-Eye said the Twelfth “moved forward as if on parade, though men were falling at every step.”

 

By midmorning, Confederate forces had opened an escape route. The road was clear. Union troops were reeling.

 

Then Grant returned to the field. He’d been away conferring with the navy. When he rode back and saw the situation, he understood something the Confederate commanders did not. “The enemy are trying to escape,” he said. “The one who attacks first now will be victorious.”

 

He ordered a counterattack along the entire line. On the Union left, Brigadier General Charles F. Smith led the charge. Smith was an old regular, white-haired and iron-backed. Iowa troops were part of his column, including the Second Iowa Infantry, commanded by Colonel James M. Tuttle.

 

What happened next became legend. Smith rode to the front and shouted, “I will take Fort Donelson.” The Second Iowa surged forward with him, scrambling over frozen ground toward the Confederate rifle pits. A correspondent said they advanced “with a cheer that rang above the roar of battle.”

 

Tuttle said his men charged “up a steep hill, through abatis and fallen timber,” under heavy fire. “The men went forward with a steadiness that would have done credit to veteran troops.” The Davenport Gazette said the Second Iowa “climbed works thought impregnable and made them their own,” while the Dubuque Times declared, “The Second Iowa has written its name where history cannot erase it.”

 

The Confederate line broke. Rifle pits fell one after another. Flags went up. Prisoners came pouring out. One Confederate officer admitted that Smith’s assault “sealed the fate of the fort.” Grant agreed. “This was the decisive attack.”

 

That night, the Confederates held a council of war. Floyd and Pillow fled. Buckner stayed.

 

The next morning, Buckner sent a note asking for terms. Grant’s reply was short and brutal: “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.”

 

Iowa papers seized on it instantly. The Iowa State Register printed the words in full and said they “ring like steel on steel.” The Keokuk Gate City praised them as “the language of a commander who knows victory when he sees it,” while the Muscatine Journal noted there was “no flourish, no boasting—only resolve.”

 

When the fort surrendered, over 12,000 Confederate soldiers laid down their arms. It was the largest capture of enemy forces in American history up to that point. Iowa men marched into the works they had fought to take.

 

The cost had been heavy. The Second Iowa alone lost dozens killed and wounded in the assault. Colonel Tuttle praised his officers and men, writing that “all behaved with the utmost gallantry.” The Seventh and Twelfth Iowa reported similar losses from the fighting on the right. The Davenport Democrat warned readers that Fort Donelson “was paid for in blood,” and that every cheer “must stand beside a household’s grief.”

 

Yet the tone back home was unmistakable.

 

“The sons of Iowa have covered themselves with glory,” wrote the Burlington Hawk-Eye. Another editor said Fort Donelson had proven Iowa troops “equal to any soldiers in the field.” Letters from the ranks echoed the pride. One soldier wrote, “We have learned what we can do, and so has the enemy.”

 

Grant never forgot it either. In his memoirs, he praised the raw Western regiments who stood when things went wrong. “They had learned their trade,” he wrote, “and they did not forget it.”

 

Fort Donelson changed the war in the West. It opened Tennessee. It shattered Confederate confidence, and it made Grant a household name.

 

For Iowa, it did something just as important. It proved that Wilson’s Creek and Belmont hadn’t been flukes. Iowa men could attack fortified ground. They could recover from defeat. They could stand in snow, charge into fire, and keep going when the line broke.

 

The Iowa City Republican said the war had “passed its schooling phase,” adding, “We now know that it will be long, hard, and costly—and that Iowa will be in it to the end.” The Dubuque Herald put it more starkly: “The war has ceased to be an idea. It is now a fact written in frozen ground and open graves.”