The Tennessee River was the backbone of the region's transportation system, and the fall of Fort Henry left it unprotected and opened the heartland of the Confederacy to the Federal navy. On February 6, 1862, Cdr. Seth L. Phelps of the lightly armored gunboat Champion led three timberclad gunboats from Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote's flotilla on an armed reconnaissance upstream past Mousetail Landing. Tyler stopped to disable the railroad bridge at Danville, while the other two pursued fleeing transports loaded with military stores; when escape proved futile, the Confederates blew up the transports. The next night, the gunboats found the large steamer Eastport being converted into a gunboat at Cerro Gordo landing in Hardin County, and Tyler's sailors seized it while the others continued on. They captured Sallie Wood and another steamer near the Mississippi state line and went on to Florence, Alabama, where three transports had been set on fire. As a token of good will, Phelps did not burn the railroad bridge at Florence, an error that allowed the Confederates to concentrate quickly at Corinth and attack the Union army at Shiloh two months later. The three gunboats then headed north with captured supplies, towing Eastport and Sallie Wood, and later returned. Mousetail Landing, a stopping place for steamboats on the Tennessee River, was associated with the tanning industry, and warehouses there stored hides that attracted vermin; during the Civil War, one of these buildings caught fire and sent thousands of rats and mice scattering, giving the landing its name.