Feb 16 2008
“I Propose To Move Immediately Upon Your Works.”
Sir: Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of Commissioners, to settle terms of Capitulation is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am Sir: very respectfully
Your obt. sevt.
U.S. Grant
Brig. Gen.(Reply by U.S. Grant to Confederate Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's letter requesting surrender terms at Fort Donelson, February 16, 1862)
On February 16, 1862, somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 Confederate troops surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tennessee to a Union Army commanded by Ulysses S. Grant. A breakout attempt on the previous day had failed when Grant rallied the troops and pushed the Confederates back inside their besieged fort. The victory earned Grant a new nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant" and cost the Confederacy any hope of splitting Kentucky away from the Union. Most of Tennessee soon fell under Union Control.
Here's a history of the battle. Here's the Wikipedia article and here is the National Park Service website on the battlefiled park.
2 Responses to ““I Propose To Move Immediately Upon Your Works.””
Grant’s an interesting character: on the one hand, a great general, one of the few at the time who understood how warfare was changing (many elements of the Civil War foreshadowed WWI). On the other, he was a terrible president. It’s striking how his talent in one area didn’t translate to the other.
I’ve actually been to that battlefield. It amazed me how defensible the location was and how easy it would have been for the confederates to win if they had just worked together.