Union Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote (1806 to 1863) came to national attention during the American Civil War following his naval victory over Confederate land forces at the Battle of Fort Henry (6 February 1862) in a joint mission with the army under Ulysses S. Grant. He continued with Grant for the Battle of Fort Donelson (11 to 16 February 1862) during which his fleet was badly damaged, and Foote was wounded. Still, Donelson was a Union victory, this time due to Grant. Foote won a second victory, though, at the Battle of Island Number Ten (28 February-8 April 1862) and was again hailed by the North as a national hero.

Foote is mainly remembered today for his victory at the Battle of Fort Henry, however, which became historically significant as the first-time ironclad ships were deployed in battle. Scholar Kendall D. Gott notes:

, with the army on the march, Flag Officer Foote commenced the gunboat attack – the first use of ironclads against earthen fortifications in naval history.
(93)

After the battle was won, Foote wrote a letter to his wife, Caroline Augusta Foote (née Street), describing the action. This letter has since become a significant primary source on the Battle of Fort Henry and Foote's command of the ironclad victory on the Tennessee River in February 1862.

Andrew Hull Foote was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1806. His father was Senator Samuel A. Foote, who was disappointed that his son was such a poor student and so, hoping to instill some semblance of academic discipline in the boy, arranged for his admittance to West Point Military Academy. Foote had no more interest in studies at West Point than he had in school earlier and dropped out in 1822, enlisting as a midshipman in the US Navy.

Between 1822 and 1858, Foote traveled the world, serving on ships in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Pacific, and commanding vessels off the shores of India and China. He rose through the ranks steadily, becoming a lieutenant in 1830, a commander in 1856, a captain in 1861, and a flag officer, then rear admiral in 1862. As a lieutenant, he organized a chapter of the Temperance Society aboard ship that eventually ended the long-held practice of supplying alcohol in the form of grog to naval personnel. Gott comments:

Foote insisted on total abstinence for the crews, mandatory religious services and observance of the Sabbath, and he himself rarely swore. By sheer will and personality, he enforced these unconventional rules without a mutiny…It was said that he could preach, fight, or pray with equal facility.
(31)

After his time off the coast of Africa (1849 to 1851), suppressing the slave trade, he became an ardent abolitionist, publishing his book Africa and the American Flag, a work on African cultures and US policies concerning slavery, in 1854. This work first brought Foote notoriety as a popular speaker on the abolitionist circuit.

When the American Civil War broke out at the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Foote was the executive officer of the Brooklyn Naval Yard in New York City. He was promoted to captain and assigned to a command in the Western theater of the war, where he would serve throughout 1862.

Foote was married twice. His first wife, Caroline Flagg, died in 1838. He married Caroline Augusta Street in 1842. In 1862, the couple lost three children, between the ages of seven and thirteen, in seven months. Foote's fame today, then, rests on three battles in the Western theater of the Civil War during one of the most trying times of his life.

The Battle of Fort Henry was a joint venture, proposed by Ulysses S. Grant, between the US Army and the US Navy against the Confederate position of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Grant's subordinates were generals John A. McClernand and Charles F. Smith. McClernand was sent against Fort Henry while Smith was to take the Confederate position on the other side of the river, Fort Heiman. Grant remained at the rear of the forces with the reserves.

Owing to bad weather, poor roads, skirmishes with Confederates, and other delays, McClernand arrived at Fort Henry after the battle was over. Smith arrived at Fort Heiman to find it abandoned. Grant did not arrive at the site until 3:00 in the afternoon. The victory at Fort Henry, then, was entirely Foote's.

The following letter is taken from the article Eyewitnesses at Fort Henry, Issue 3, April 1970, on the site Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. General Lloyd Tilghman was the Confederate commander of Fort Henry, who came aboard Foote's flagship, the Cincinnati, to surrender. William D. Porter was the Union commander of the ironclad Essex, whose boiler was struck by a shot from Fort Henry, scalding him and wounding or killing many of the crew.

Flag Steamer Cincinnati

Off Fort Henry Tennessee, February 6/62

My Dear Wife:

Bless the Lord who has given me the victory after a horrible fight, of an hour and fifteen minutes. I earnestly & almost agonized in prayer for victory this morning, and we have it and to me the Fort was unconditionally surrendered.

This morning at 11 o'clock, after having made signal & had all Captains aboard, and given them orders and referring to my written orders when I had planned the attack, two of which orders fortunately, as victory has crowned our arms, I have sent to the Secretary of the Navy, I then made signal to get underway and, when the Army moved on each side of the river, I moved with seven Gun Boats over the torpedoes in the channel where they were placed and where we hauled up five yesterday.

We were in sight of the Fort for 2 miles. I opened the fire with rifle guns and soon they were returned by the Fort. I ran up rapidly to the distance of 700 yards, taking with me the "Essex," "Cin." "Carondelet" and "St. Louis," ordering them to keep abreast of me in the Flag ship . I ordered the three Boats not iron clad to keep one mile astern. We are cut all to pieces & only the steam machinery has escaped. Other Boats except the Essex not hurt.

The fire from the Fort, as the General said, was directed upon me to sink or cripple the Flag ship, and we were struck with rifle & heavy shot & shells 30 times. I had the breath, for several seconds, knocked out of me, as a shot struck opposite my chest, in the iron clad pilot house on deck.

Porter, in the Essex, received a shot in his boilers which scalded to death his two Pilots and I don't know how many men & dropped out of the action–receiving as I saw, two other plunging shots as he went.

The fire now had become terrific, and I had to signalize the two other iron plated Boats to run abreast of me, and I was constantly going ahead all this time. It was a fearful struggle, but I felt it must be victory or death. This ship was then in less than 700 yards & we began to get a beautiful range & poured shell in upon them fearfully. I all the time going ahead.

One killed and nine wounded men were lying on deck groaning horribly. At length, and at a moment, when it seemed as if we must be killed or sunk, the big Secession flag was hauled down & victory was ours. A cheer ran up from this ship, a yell in fact & I had to run among the men & knock them on the head to restore order.

The Surgeon hollered & bawled I told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, he said it was coming from death to life, he expected to be killed for the last half hour & to hear the cheer he could not help roaring with all his might. Officers ran up & congratulated me, while the captains of the other Gun Boats came up & rushed aboard.

A boat came off with the Adjt. Genl. & Captain of Engineers and asked if I would see their General. I told them yes, but he must come aboard. Soon afterwards, Genl. Lloyd Tilghman, an elegant gentle man and a West Point graduate, came aboard, & said he wanted to treat. I had in the meantime taken possession & hoisted our flag in place of the Secession. I told the General he was a prisoner of war, with 17 Guns & all the effects in the Fort.

He soon struck up an intimacy as he is a great admirer of Dr. Mason in Easton. He said he well knew me by reputation. He said that I showered shells upon him & nothing could stand it, but I do admire your course so much towards me. I let him write to his wife & friends & told him to tell them that he defended his fort with determined gallantry. He says that in 50 minutes seven of the eleven guns bearing on us were dismounted or burst.

About this time, General Smith took quiet possession of the Fort opposite which, did not have its guns mounted and he marched in his troops without opposition. General Grant also came aboard, and his 10,000 men marched into the Fort which now had the American flag flying. We got ahead of the Army all to pieces.

I am now running back to Cairo, to work in getting Mortar & Gun Boats ready, and we have made the narrowest escape possible with our Boats & our lives. I have sent Phelps up the river in chase of the rebel Gun Boats and let the Army swell with its 15000 men. I suppose they will go over to the Cumberland and try and take Dover . The Army is rather chop fallen .

Porter I am sorry for, but he has made too much of his little skirmishes. This vessel did the brunt of the work, & I will pay Stemble by getting his son into West Point, who acted as my aid.

A good day's work & I mean always to thank God for it. I never again will go into a fight half-prepared. Men were not experienced & perfectly green. The rifle shots hissed like snakes. Tilghman said he would have cut us all to pieces, had his best rifle not burst, & his 128 pounder been stopped in the vent.

Now you may read this to your parents & friends. It is of course written in a great hurry. God bless you, children & friends

Ever Affly, A H FOOTE

The Essex had been disabled during the battle, and the other three ironclads had been damaged, but none of them sank. The Battle of Fort Henry proved that ironclads could successfully reduce a fortification without support from land-based infantry, as Grant's forces arrived at the site after Tilghman had already surrendered to Foote. Gott writes:

The success on the Tennessee was a purely naval victory and catapulted Flag Officer Foote to national acclaim.
(101)

The day after the battle, on the morning of 7 February 1862, Foote and his ironclads steamed into Cairo, Illinois, blowing their whistles and flying the Confederate flags taken from Fort Henry upside down. He was enthusiastically greeted as a war hero. As noted, following Fort Henry, Foote served in two other engagements in the Western theater, securing a hard-fought victory at Island Number Ten on the Mississippi.

There was no doubt that Foote's contributions to the Union cause would continue – but he died from Bright's disease (kidney disease) on 26 June 1863 at the Astor Hotel in New York City. Caroline Augusta Foote died two months later, on 27 August 1863, at her father's house in New Haven, Connecticut, from unknown (or, at least, unrecorded) causes. Foote and his wife are buried side by side at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.