Built between 1851 and 1853, the Dover Hotel accommodated riverboat travelers before and after the Civil War. General Buckner and his staff used the hotel as their headquarters during the battle. It also served as a Union hospital after the surrender. After Buckner accepted Grant's surrender terms, the two generals met here to work out the details. Lew Wallace, the first Union general to reach the hotel following the surrender, did not want his men to gloat over the Confederate situation and instructed Capt. Frederick Knefler, one of his officers, to tell the brigade commanders "to move the whole line forward, and take possession of persons and property . . . [but] not a word of taunt—no cheering." An estimated 13,000 Confederate soldiers loaded into transports began their journey to Northern prisoner-of-war camps. Neither the Union nor Confederate governments were prepared to care for the large influx of prisoners. The prisoners from Fort Donelson were incarcerated in hastily converted and ill-prepared sites in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and as far away as Boston, Massachusetts, "and they suffered greatly from the harsh weather." In September 1862 most of the prisoners were exchanged.
On two occasions, once in mid-1862 and again in February 1863, Confederate forces tried to drive the Federal troops from the area. Both attempts failed; but the second, led by soldiers under the command of Generals Joseph Wheeler and Nathan Bedford Forrest, cost the town its future. That skirmish, known as the Battle of Dover, resulted in the destruction of all but four of the town's buildings. One of those to survive was the Dover Hotel, which remained in business until the 1930s. It has been reconstructed through the efforts of the Fort Donelson House Historical Association and the National Park Service. The exterior looks much the same as it did when the surrender took place.
