Forts Henry and Donelson were not the only Confederate strongholds under assault in the early days of February. On the east coast, General Ambrose Burnside took the fight and delivered a severe blow to the Confederacy ambitions at Roanoke Island. Jefferson Davis’s rebels could only hope to hold the island with a great struggle. The complete failure at Roanoke stemmed directly from increasing power of the Union military on land and sea, while the Confederacy merely delayed. The result was the loss of a huge stretch fo coastline, and an ongoing threat to Richmond’s strategic rear.
