 The fort was christened Fort DeRussey, after an engineer supervising construction of fortifications, but Polk referred it as the "Gibraltar of the West".He had equipped it with a massive chain that was stretched across the Mississippi to Belmont, Missouri, to block the passage of Union gunboats and supply vessels to and from Southern destinations in .Equipped also with 143 cannons, Columbus was the Northern-most Confederate base along the Mississippi, protecting Memphis, Vicksburg, and other key Southern holdings.