The Battle of Belmont is fought on November 7, 1861 in Mississippi County, Missouri.
It is the first combat test in the American Civil War for Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the future Union Army general in chief and eventual U.S. president, who is fighting Major General Leonidas Polk.
Grant's troops in this battle are the "nucleus" of the Union Army of the Tennessee.
On November 6, Grant moves by riverboat from Cairo, Illinois, to attack the Confederacy's small outpost near Belmont, Missouri across the Mississippi River from the Confederate stronghold at Columbus, Kentucky.
He lands his men on the Missouri side and marches to Belmont.
Grant's troops overrun the surprised Confederate camp and destroy it.
However, the scattered Confederate forces quickly reorganize and are reinforced from Columbus.
They counterattack, supported by heavy artillery fire from across the river.
Grant retreats to his riverboats and takes his men to Paducah, Kentucky.
The battle is relatively unimportant, but with little happening elsewhere at the time, it receives considerable attention in the press, with southerners praising it and northerners lamenting the Union defeat.
