General Simon Bolivar Buckner occupied Bowling Green on September 18, 1861. General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Confederate Army of the West, moved his headquarters to Bowling Green on October 28, 1861, and began the erection of the fort. General Johnston evacuated Bowling Green on February 14, 1862, and started for Nashville, ending Confederate control there. General Ormsby M. Mitchell of the Union Army occupied Bowling Green on February 15, 1862. Colonel Benjamin Harrison, later President, was among the Union officers in command there. Union forces held the fort to the end of the war.