Grant believed in the cause of the American Civil War, and so he offered his services. Since Grant had the most military training and experience in Galena, Illinois, he held a town meeting in regards to enlistment and the beginning of training recruits. Afterwards, Grant was “appointed colonel and charged with commanding the Twenty-first Volunteer Infantry Regiment by Illinois governor Richard Yates.” He was even later promoted to brigadier general when “President Abraham Lincoln expanded the Union army in August 1861.” Grant successfully led his troops in campaigns in Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. One such campaign was the Battle of Fort Henry, which was the first important victory not only for Ulysses S. Grant, but also the Union. On February 6, 1862, “seventeen thousand Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant, supported by gunboats under Commodore Andrew Foote, moved by water against Fort Henry on the Tennessee