The Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland
Rivers that had served the people of old Columbus
so faithfully became their greatest danger during the Civil War.
At first a badly divided Kentucky tried to stay out of the war. This
was impossible because a neutral Kentucky was both a shield
to prevent any invasion southward and a huge hole in the Northern blockade of the South.
The most militarily important places to hold in western Kentucky were where the Tennessee River joined the Ohio River at Paducah,
where the Cumberland River joined the Ohio River at nearby Smithland, and at Colu
mbus on the Mississippi River.
The small Mississippi river port of Columbus sat on a plain in front of
a semicircular chain of 180 foot tall bluffs. Many believed that cannon mounted
on these bluffs would be able to stop any fleet that tried to come up or down the Mississippi River.
Worried that the Union would act first to seize these places,
Episcopal Bishop and Confederate Major General Leonidas Polk ordered the occupation of Columbus
in September 1861. The then unknown General Ulysses S. Grant quickly seized Paducah and Smithland to prevent Polk from taking them also.
On November 7, 1861, Grant decided
to raid the small Confederate Camp Johnston at Belmont, Missouri,
across the river from Columbus. The Union Army soon drove off the Confederate soldiers and occupied the camp.
Polk was waiting at Columbus
for a Union attack that never came. After Polk saw the Confederate defense of
Belmont fall apart, he sent more Confederate soldiers across
the river to attack the Union Army. Grant led his now outnumbered army in a fighting
retreat back to his boats. Both sides claimed to have won the fight. The Battle of Belmont was Grant's first Civil War battle.
By early 1862 Polk had Columbus ready for any Union attack. On the
Iron Banks bluff a large earthwork named Fort DeRussy and two smaller forts were surrounded by miles of infantry trenches. The river was also covered by cannon that had been mounted on three shelves cut into the side of the Iron
Banks bluff. Two small earthwork forts and more infantry trenches protected the
town itself. Polk had more than 17,000 soldiers, about 90 large cannon, 50 smaller
field cannon, and dozens of electrically fired land mines in and around Columbus.
River mines had been placed in front of a mile long chain of twenty pound links,
supported by barges, that stretched across the river from Belmont to a six ton sea anchor buried
inside Fort DeRussy. Any Union ships that survived the river mines and long range rifled cannon would be
stopped by the chain barrier and finished off by powerful short range smoothbore cannon.
The Confederate Navy was also at Columbus with a half dozen wooden gunboats, the floating
artillery battery NEW ORLEANS carrying twenty cannon, and the cigar shaped ironclad ram MANASSAS. No wonder the
Confederates proudly called Columbus the "Gibraltar of the
West."
Grant must have agreed. In February 1862 Grant went around Columbus by capturing the much weaker
Forts Henry and Donelson on the Cumberland and Tennessee
Rivers. Outflanked and now
useless, Columbus was abandoned by Polk in March 1862. Columbus was immediately
occupied by the Union Army and became a very important military river and railroad supply depot.
The Civil
War left the small river port of Columbus
devastated. Many buildings had been ruined, the local people impoverished, and
the Mobile and Ohio Railroad wreaked. Recovery was also slow because steamboats were no longer as important for transportation as they had been.
