In addition to its own Fort Defiance, the Union's strategic town of Cairo, Illinois was protected by two small nearby forts on the Mississippi River - Fort Holt, Kentucky, and Bird's Point, Missouri. Fort Holt was named in honor of the prominent Kentucky Unionist Democrat Joseph Holt who had been Postmaster General and Secretary of War under President James Buchanan. Two Union army regiments, two companies of cavalry, and one artillery battery made up the 1,700-man garrison at Fort Holt in December 1861.

At that time Fort Holt was the southernmost permanent Union position on the Kentucky side of the Mississippi River. Occasionally, Confederate gunboats moved up the river from Columbus to bombard the fort. Both sides sent out patrols that fought minor skirmishes in the "no man's land" between Fort Holt and Columbus.

Fort Holt consisted of two river bank redoubts connected by a small infantry trench on the land side. The two earthworks were similar in shape but somewhat larger than the redoubt beside the museum in Columbus-Belmont State Park.

The upper battery held four cannon -- three 32-pounders and one 24-pounder. The lower battery had one 64-pounder. Among the field cannon at Fort Holt were two captured during the Battle of Belmont. Fort Holt was abandoned after Columbus was occupied by the Union army in early March 1862.

This site has local significance because it is associated with military activities and events that achieved or affected important local objectives of the Vicksburg campaign.