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| Flag-officer Foote Here, riding at anchor, lies the flagship of Foote, which opened the attack on Fort Henry in the first movement to break the backbone of the Confederacy, and won a victory before the arrival of the army. This gunboat, the Cincinnati, was one of the seven flat-bottom ironclads built by Captain Eads at Carondelet, Missouri, and Mound City, Illinois, during the latter half of 1861. When Grant finally obtained permission from General Halleck to advance the attack upon Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, near the border of Kentucky, Flag Officer Foote started up the river, February 2, 1862, convoying the transports, loaded with the advance detachment of Grant's seventeen thousand troops. Arriving before Fort Henry on February 6th, the intrepid naval commander at once began the bombardment with a well-aimed shot from the Cincinnati. The eleven heavy guns of the Fort responded in chorus, and an iron rain began to fall with telling effect upon the Cincinnati, the Essex, the Carondelet, and the St. Louis, which were steaming forward half a mile in advance of the rear division of the squadron. At a range of 1,700 yards the Cincinnati opened the engagement. After a little over an hour of heavy firing the colors on Fort Henry were lowered and General Tilghman surrendered it to Flag-Officer Foote. When General Grant arrived an hour later, Foote turned over the Fort to him and returned to Cairo with his disabled gunboats. |
