In Mississippi County, Missouri, Brigadier General Grant and his men overrun a Confederate camp at Belmont

Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant sailed the day before with two brigades in six transports, escorted by U.S. Naval gunboats, from Cairo, Illinois to attack Confederate concentrations around Columbus, Kentucky.  He found that Confederate troops under Gideon Pillow had crossed into Missouri at Belmont and attacked their camp.  In the first combat of a distinguished Civil War career, Grant overran Pillow before he could be reinforced, burned his equipment, returned to the transports, and moved on to the Union base at Paducah, Kentucky. (By John Osborne)