Fort Donelson National Battlefield 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 . History . The most vulnerable area in the Confederate defensive line in the Western Theater was the state of Kentucky . The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were potential avenues for a Union invasion of the South through Kentucky and into Tennessee and beyond . Since Kentucky had declared neutrality , the Confederacy could not build defensive works within the state without risking alienating the local population . The local population in western Kentucky was pro - Confederate . Kentucky ' s westernmost ( First ) congressional district elected a secessionist and Lincoln proclaimed it to be in rebellion . Adna Anderson and William F . Foster , two engineers detached from the Confederate 1st Tennessee Infantry , set to work on May 10 , 1861 , to find suitable ground just inside the Tennessee border to cover the two strategic rivers . They surveyed possible sites along the Cumberland River , noting the high ridges and deep hollows near the Kentucky border . In mid - May , on the west bank of the river not far below Dover , Anderson laid out the water battery of Fort Donelson , twelve miles ( 19 km ) from the Kentucky line . The new fort was named in honor of the Confederate General Daniel S . Donelson who , along with Colonel Bushrod Johnson of the Corps of Engineers , approved of the site . Construction was begun by a large force of men brought from the nearby Cumberland Iron Works . Administrative history of the park . The site was established as Fort Donelson National Military Park on March 26 , 1928 . The national military park and national cemetery were transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10 , 1933 . The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15 , 1966 . It was redesignated a national battlefield on August 16 , 1985 . Public Law 108 - 367 ( October 25 , 2004 ) increased the authorized boundary of the national battlefield from 551 . 69 acres ( 2 . 23 km ) to 2 , 000 acres ( 8 . 09 km ) . On October 30 , 2006 , Calloway County transferred the Fort Heiman site to the Park Service . Fort Heiman had been listed on the National Register Register of Historic Places on December 12 , 1976 . Park today . 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 . Cemetery . Fort Donelson National Cemetery , at 15 . 34 acres ( 62 , 080 m ) , contains 670 Union dead , reinterred in 1867 . There are numerous veterans from later wars . The cemetery is presently unavailable for additional burials .