A large portion of the waters brought down by the Ohio come from its
two great affluents flowing in almost alongside each other on the
southern bank, just above Paducah, the Cumberland and Tennessee
Rivers. The Cumberland has its sources in the Cumberland Mountains,
the eastern boundary of Kentucky, and flows for six hundred and fifty
miles, the whole length of that State, making a wide, sweeping circuit
down into Tennessee, where it passes Nashville, at the head of
steamboat navigation, two hundred miles from its mouth. For twenty
miles above their mouths, in their lower courses, these two great
rivers are rarely more than three miles apart. The Tennessee is twelve
hundred miles long from its head stream, the Holston River, rising in
the mountains east of Kentucky and Tennessee. It comes through East
Tennessee, makes a great bend down into Alabama, and then coming up
northward flows through Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio. It is
navigable for nearly three hundred miles to the Mussel Shoals at
Florence, Alabama, where canals and locks have improved the navigation
for twenty miles past the shoals, and it can also be navigated for
eight hundred miles above, excepting at very low stages of water. Its
name signifies "the river of the Great Bend," and it was also called
in early times the "river of the Cherokees."
It was by the capture of Fort Donelson, near the mouth of the
Cumberland River, that General Grant gained his early fame in the
Civil War. The Confederates erected strong defensive works on the two
rivers in order to prevent an invasion of Western Kentucky and
Tennessee. The places selected were about forty miles south of the
Ohio--Fort Henry being built on the eastern bank of the Tennessee
River and Fort Donelson on the western bank of the Cumberland, twelve
miles apart, and connected by a direct road. A combined land and naval
attack was made on these forts in February, 1862, under command of
General Grant and Commodore Foote. Fort Henry was easily captured by
Foote's gunboats on February 6th after an hour's action, most of the
garrison retreating across the neck of land to Fort Donelson. Grant
then invested Fort Donelson, being reinforced until he had
twenty-seven thousand men, and he attacked so vigorously that after a
severe battle on the 15th he effected a lodgement in the Confederate
lines and severely crippled them. Part of the garrison escaped
southward during the night, and in the morning General Buckner,
commanding, asked for an armistice and commissioners to arrange a
capitulation. To this Grant made his noted reply, "No terms except
unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted; I propose to
move immediately upon your works." Having no alternative, Buckner
surrendered. The Union army captured fourteen thousand prisoners, a
vast amount of small arms and stores, and sixty-five cannon. Almost
immediately afterwards the Confederates practically abandoned Western
Kentucky and Tennessee, and Grant moved his army up the Tennessee
River, and by the middle of March it was encamped to the westward and
along the banks, near the southern Tennessee border, the lines
extending several miles from Shiloh Church to Pittsburg Landing. The
Confederates under A. S. Johnston and Beauregard were at Corinth,
Mississippi, about twenty miles to the southwest. The Union plan was
that General Buell, who was coming southwestward from Nashville,
should join Grant, and then an advance southward be made. The
Confederates, having learned of the plan, early in April decided to
attack Grant before Buell could join him, and on the morning of the
6th the onslaught began, the Union army being surprised. This was the
great battle of Shiloh, in which the Union forces were pushed back
with heavy loss on the first day. Buell arrived, however, crossing the
Tennessee that night and joining, so that next day, after a stubborn
battle, Grant recovered his position, and the Confederates retreated
to Corinth. In this battle the losses were about twenty-five thousand
killed, wounded and missing, including three thousand Union prisoners
taken.
The Cumberland Mountains, dividing Virginia from Kentucky, and
extending farther southwest to separate East from Middle Tennessee,
are the main watershed between the upper waters and sources of the two
great rivers. This range is an elevated plateau rising about a
thousand feet above the neighboring country and two thousand feet
above the sea, the flat top being in some parts fifty miles across. On
both sides the cliffs are precipitous, being much notched on the
western declivities. Pioneer hunters coming out of Virginia discovered
these mountains and the river in 1748, giving them the name of the
Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, then the prominent military
leader of England. These explorers came through the remarkable notch
cut part way down in the range on the Kentucky-Tennessee boundary,
just at the western extremity of Virginia,--the Cumberland Gap. This
cleft, five hundred feet deep, is in some places only wide enough for
a road, and extends for six miles through the ridge. It was for over a
century the highway from southwestern Virginia into East Tennessee and
southeastern Kentucky, being previously the trail followed by the
Cherokees and other Indians in their movements east and west of the
mountains. Through it came Daniel Boone and his companions from North
Carolina into Kentucky, and the pass naturally became a great
battleground of the Civil War. It is now utilized as the route for a
branch of the Southern Railway from East Tennessee into Kentucky,
traversing the Gap at about sixteen hundred feet elevation. In one
place this road passes through a tunnel of over a half-mile, beginning
in Tennessee, going under the corner of Virginia, and coming out in
Kentucky. Iron is in abundance all about the Gap. During the war it
was fortified by the Confederates, but in June, 1862, they were
compelled to abandon it, and the Union troops took possession, being
in turn forced out the following September. In September, 1863, the
Union armies besieged and captured it, holding the Gap till the end of
the war. The great curiosity of Cumberland Gap was the Pinnacle Rock,
overhanging the narrow pass in a commanding position. This huge rock,
weighing hundreds of tons, fell on Christmas night, 1899, awakening
the village at the Gap as if by an earthquake, though no one was
injured.