The Battle (also known as the Siege) of Island Number Ten was an engagement at the New Madrid or Kentucky Bend on the Mississippi River during the American Civil War, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. The position, an island at the base of a tight double turn in the course of the river, was held by the Confederates from the early days of the war. It was an excellent site to impede Union efforts to invade the South along the river, as vessels would have to approach the island bows on and then slow down to make the turns. Unfortunately for the defenders, it also had an innate weakness in that it depended on a single road for supplies and reinforcements, so that if an enemy force could cut that road, the garrison would be trapped. Union forces began the siege shortly after the Confederate Army abandoned their position at Columbus, Kentucky, in early March 1862. The first probes were made by the Union Army of the Mississippi under Brigadier General John Pope, which came overland through Missouri and occupied the town of Point Pleasant, Missouri, almost directly west of the island and south of New Madrid.