page_title: Fort Donelson National Battlefield
section_title: Park today
hierarchical_section_title: Fort Donelson National Battlefield / Park today
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographed by Hal Jespersen at Fort Donelson, February 2006.
context_page_description: Fort Donelson National Battlefield preserves Fort Donelson and Fort Heiman, two sites of the American Civil War Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign, in which Union Army Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote captured three Confederate forts and opened two rivers, the Tennessee River and the Cumberland River, to control by the Union Navy. The commanders received national recognition for their victories in February 1862, as they were the first major Union successes of the war. The capture of Fort Donelson and its garrison by the Union led to the capture of Tennessee's capital and industrial center, Nashville, which remained in Union hands from February 25, 1862 until the end of the war, and gave the Union effective control over much of Tennessee. This struck a major blow to the Confederacy early in the war.
  The main portion of the park, in Dover, Tennessee, commemorates the Battle of Fort Donelson. Fort Heiman, in nearby Calloway County, Kentucky, was a Confederate battery in the Battle of Fort Henry.
context_section_description: The park preserves much of the original battle site, including the river batteries and the eroded remains of the fort, but the area in which the Confederate States Army attacked on February 15, 1862, is largely in private hands and occupied by residential development. The Cumberland River was dammed in the 1960s; this area is currently referred to as Lake Barkley. It covers an area roughly similar to the original river while at flood stage, as it was during the battle. The Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved 368 acres (1.49 km²) of the battlefield, most of which has been conveyed to the NPS and incorporated into the battlefield park.
caption: A portion of Fort Donelson National Cemetery
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