Western theater of the American Civil War

• 1. Defining The Western Theater

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  The western theater of the American Civil War encompassed major military operations in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee. It also included Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. Operations on the coasts of these states were considered part of the lower seaboard theater except for Mobile Bay. Most other operations east of the Appalachian Mountains belonged to the eastern theater. Operations west of the Mississippi River took place in the trans-Mississippi theater. This area served as an avenue of military operations by Union armies directly into the agricultural heartland of the South via the major rivers of the region. These rivers included the Mississippi, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland. The Confederacy was forced to defend an enormous area with limited resources. Most railroads ran from north to south rather than east to west. This made it difficult to send Confederate reinforcements and supplies to troops further from the more heavily populated and industrialized areas of the eastern Confederacy.

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• 2. Early Campaigns In Kentucky And Tennessee

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  Union operations began in September 1861 with attempts to secure Kentucky. More than half of the state was under Confederate control by late 1861 into 1862. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee had early successes in Kentucky and western Tennessee in 1861 and 1862. He captured the important strategic locations of Forts Henry and Donelson. The Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio defeated the Confederate Army of Mississippi at the Battle of Shiloh. General Albert Sidney Johnston commanded this Confederate force. The battle drove it out of western Tennessee and subsequently marching into Mississippi. They captured Corinth. Grant's troops marched towards and captured Vicksburg in 1862, 1863. Meanwhile, the Army of the Ohio experienced success blocking a Confederate invasion of Kentucky. They gained control over large amounts of Tennessee through the Battle of Stones River and the 1863 Tullahoma Campaign. These forces fought against the Confederate Army of Tennessee whose commander Braxton Bragg was often criticized for a perceived lack of military skill.

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• 3. The Siege Of Vicksburg

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  Abraham Lincoln believed that the river fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was a key to winning the war. Vicksburg and Port Hudson were the last remaining strongholds preventing full Union control of the Mississippi River. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a sharp bend in the river, Vicksburg was called the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. It was nearly invulnerable to naval assault. Admiral David Farragut had found this directly in his failed operations of May 1862. The overall plan to capture Vicksburg involved Ulysses S. Grant moving south from Memphis while Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks moved north from Baton Rouge. Banks's advance was slow to develop and bogged down at Port Hudson offering little assistance to Grant. Grant's first campaign was a two-pronged movement involving William T. Sherman sailing down the Mississippi River with 32,000 men. Grant advanced but his supply lines were cut by Confederate cavalry under Earl Van Dorn at Holly Springs forcing him to fall back. Sherman reached the Yazoo River just north of the city of Vicksburg but without support from Grant's half of the mission he was repulsed in bloody assaults against Chickasaw Bayou in late December.

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• 4. Turning Points At Chattanooga

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  After his victory at Stones River Rosecrans occupied Murfreesboro for almost six months while Bragg rested in Tullahoma establishing a long defensive line intended to block Union advances against the strategic city of Chattanooga in his rear. In June Rosecrans finally advanced against Bragg in a brilliant almost bloodless campaign of maneuver called the Tullahoma Campaign. He drove Bragg from Middle Tennessee. During this period Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan and his 2,460 Confederate cavalrymen rode west from Sparta in middle Tennessee on June 11 intending to divert attention from Southern forces in the state. For 46 days as they rode over miles Morgan's cavalrymen terrorized a region from Tennessee to northern Ohio destroying bridges railroads and government stores before being captured. Back in Vicksburg Grant was resting his army and planning for a campaign that would capture Mobile and push east. When news of the dire straits of Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland reached Washington Grant was ordered to rescue them. On October 17 he was given command of the Military Division of the Mississippi controlling all of the armies in the western theater. He replaced Rosecrans with Thomas and traveled to Chattanooga where he approved a plan to open a new supply line known as the Cracker Line allowing supplies and reinforcements to reach the city.

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• 5. The Atlanta Campaign And March To The Sea

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  In March 1864 Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and went east to assume command of all the Union armies. Sherman succeeded him in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Grant devised a strategy for simultaneous advances across the Confederacy intended to destroy or fix Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia while capturing Mobile and destroying Johnston's army while driving toward Atlanta. Most of the initiatives failed but Sherman's Atlanta campaign on the other hand was an unqualified success. At the start of the campaign Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi consisted of three armies: James B. McPherson's Army of the Tennessee John M. Schofield's Army of the Ohio and George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland. Opposing him was the Confederate Army of Tennessee commanded by Joseph E. Johnston. Sherman outnumbered Johnston 98,000 to 50,000 but his ranks were depleted by many furloughed soldiers and Johnston received 15,000 reinforcements from Alabama in April. The campaign opened with several battles in May and June 1864 as Sherman pressed Johnston southeast through mountainous terrain. Sherman avoided frontal assaults against most of Johnston's positions instead maneuvering in flanking marches around the Confederate defenses.

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• 6. The Final Campaigns And Surrender

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  After Sherman captured Savannah he was ordered by Grant to embark his army on ships to reinforce the Union armies in Virginia where Grant was bogged down in the Siege of Petersburg against Robert E. Lee. Sherman proposed an alternative strategy persuading Grant that he should march north through the Carolinas instead destroying everything of military value along the way similar to his march to the sea through Georgia. He was particularly interested in targeting South Carolina the first state to secede from the Union for the effect it would have on Southern morale. On February 17 Columbia surrendered to Sherman. Fires began in the city and most of the central city was destroyed. The burning of Columbia has engendered controversy ever since with some claiming the fires were accidental others a deliberate act of vengeance. When Confederate President Jefferson Davis and general-in-chief Robert E. Lee felt that Beauregard could not properly handle the Union threat they appointed Johnston to command the Confederate forces in the Carolinas including the remnants of the Army of Tennessee. Concentrating his forces which he named the Army of the South Johnston attacked at the Battle of Bentonville the 19th of March 21 unsuccessfully attempting to defeat one wing of Sherman's army before it could reach Goldsboro or reunite with the other wing under Oliver O. Howard.

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