Columbus Belmont State Park

Columbus-Belmont State Park, above the shore of the Mississippi River in Hickman County, near Columbus, Kentucky, is the site of a Confederate fortification built during the American Civil War.   The site was considered by both North and South to be strategically significant in gaining and keeping control of the Mississippi River.   It commemorates military actions in Columbus, Kentucky, and across the river in Belmont, Missouri.   Confederate General Leonidas Polk fortified the area now occupied by the park beginning September 3rd 1861.   The fort at Columbus was built upon a bluff along the cutside of the river.   The fort was christened Fort De Russey, after an engineer supervising the construction of fortifications, but Polk referred to it as the "Gibraltar of the West".   He had equipped it with a massive chain that stretched across the Mississippi River to block the passage of U.S. gunboats and supply vessels to and from destinations in the western theaters of the war.   Equipped also with 143 cannons, Columbus was the northernmost Confederate base along the Mississippi, protecting Memphis, Tennessee and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and other critical Conferate held territory.   As the northern terminus of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, Columbus was logistically tied to Confederate supply lines.




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