On this date 150 years ago, Edwin Stanton received the Senate's approval and became President Lincoln's Secretary of War. Stanton was an anti-slavery man and was a personal friend of General McClellan.

General Grant moved into the Kentucky-Tennessee area as gunboats on the Tennessee River approached Fort Henry. Both the naval and land forces worked in tandem for a period of ten days, pressing further into Confederate territory, and gathering information about enemy positions.