This was a great strategic victory for the Union forces, and part of Grant's campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River.

Bushrod Johnson of the Confederate Corps of Engineers had approved the build site and supervised construction completed in early 1862.

To the north flows Hickman River, a backwater channel that was impassable except by boat or bridge,[2] and to the east a small tributary named Indian Creek enters the Cumberland.

The fort, which was intended to house troops and protect the water batteries from sorties, had a few acres of log huts.

Engineers began improving defensive positions by digging rifle pits along a ridgeline and breastworks were built in "a three-mile arc which inclosed [sic] the bluff on the north, and the county seat hamlet of Dover on the south, the main supply base.

The fort was captured by Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his army during a winter offensive to control of the Mississippi River.

After the front line shifted away from Fort Donelson, it became of little strategic importance, but continued to hold a garrison of Union troops.