Retaliatory Union artillery fire destroyed a large block of the Confederate-occupied town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia.  In the early morning, a boat from the Union side, responding to a flag of truce shown from the town's riverside, was reportedly fired on and one person killed.  Union commanders immediately ordered an artillery response that destroyed, among other buildings, the Wager Hotel and the Railroad Depot.  (By John Osborne)

The combined Union operation was well under way when Andrew Hull Foote's gunboats attacked Fort Henry on the Tennessee River in western Tennessee.  Confederate forces had abandoned nearby Fort Heiman and two Union divisions were advancing overland.  Poor drainage along the river banks hampered both Union land forces and the defenders at Henry and a sharp morning naval bombardment lasting around ninety minutes was enough to force a surrender.  Union infantry did not reach the area till after the fort's capitulation.  (By John Osborne)  

Confederate Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman learned of the impending Union operations against the Tennessee River forts he commanded, and was acutely aware of his inability to hold off such an attack.  Consequently, he abandoned his weakest fortification, Fort Heiman in Calloway County, Kentucky, and concentrated his forces at Fort Henry, Tennessee.  Fort Henry was to fall two days later after a sustained Union naval bombardment from the Tennessee River. (By John Osborne)  

Union theater commander Henry W. Halleck had given Brigadier General U.S. Grant permission the previous week for a joint land and river assault on the Confederate Tennessee River forts in western Tennessee.  Two Union divisions began boarding transports on February 3, 1862 and two days later were on the ground near Fort Henry, Tennessee.  Meanwhile, naval commander Andrew Hull Foote gathered his gunboats to attack from the water.  (By John Osborne)

During late 1861 at the height of the Trent Crisis, the British Government had placed several prohibitions by royal proclamation on the exports of munitions and munitions materials such as powder, saltpeter and other nitrates, and lead.  British India was an important Union source of saltpeter.  All these restrictions were lifted as of February 5, 1862, also by royal proclamation. (By John Osborne)