Dover Under Fire

Dover Under Fire. Fort Donelson National Battlefield. , This reproduction pre-Civil War cannon stands near the site of a 32-pounder smoothbore cannon that helped Col. Abner Harding's Union infantry repel Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler's Confederate cavalry attack on Dover on February 3, 1863., Wheeler, accompanied by the cavalry brigades of Brig. Gens. Nathan Bedford Forrest and John C. Wharton, had been ordered to disrupt Union shipping on the Cumberland River. When the Federals learned of Wheeler's mission and suspended shipping, Wheeler attacked Harding's 800-man garrison at Dover. His attempts to dislodge the Federals from their riflepits, however, were repulsed, with heavy losses., By nightfall, with ammunition running low and the approach of Union reinforcements and gunboats, Wheeler ordered his forces to withdraw. Forrest, who had protested against the attack and suffered heavy casualties, bitterly denounced Wheeler and swore he would never again serve under him. Wheeler's attack prompted Union forces to build Union Fort Donelson where the national cemetery stands today. , Dover - February 1863 , This map shows Dover during the 1863 Wheeler attack that destroyed all but four of the town's buildings. The town was heavily damaged once before, on August 25, 1862, when it was attacked by Col. Tom Woodward's Confederate partisans. That attack also failed, but the Union commander ordered many of the town's buildings set on fire “to prevent the enemy's taking cover behind them or in then."