Western theater of the American Civil War
The western theater of the
The western theater 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 (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, as opposed to east to west, making it difficult to send Confederate reinforcements and supplies to troops further from the more heavily populated and industrialized areas of the eastern Confederacy.
Union operations began with attempting to secure Kentucky in Union hands in September 1861, as more than half of Kentucky was under Confederate control by late 1861 into 1862. Maj. Gen.
The Western Theater typically receives less attention than the Eastern Theater. This has much to do with the greater proximity of action in the east to capitals and to major population centers. However, some historians consider it the war's most important theater. While the Eastern Theater essentially remained in stalemate until 1864, Union troops in the west, beginning in 1861, were able to steadily surround and drive back the Confederate troops, forcing them into eventual capitulation. This was done through a steady series of Union victories in major battles, interrupted by only a single defeat, which took place at Chickamauga.
Theater of operations
The Western Theater was an area defined by both geography and the sequence of campaigning. It originally represented the area east of the
The Virginia front was by far the more prestigious theater. ... Yet the war's outcome was decided not there but in the vast expanse that stretched west from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi and beyond. Here, in the West, the truly decisive battles were fought.
Steven E. Woodworth, Jefferson Davis and His Generals[2]
The West was by some measures the most important theater of the war. Capture of the Mississippi River has been one of the key tenets of Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan.[3] Military historian J. F. C. Fuller has described the Union invasion as an immense turning movement, a left wheel that started in Kentucky, headed south down the Mississippi River, and then east through Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas. With the exception of the Battle of Chickamauga and some daring raids by cavalry or guerrilla forces, the four years in the West marked a string of almost continuous defeats for the Confederates; or, at best, tactical draws that eventually turned out to be strategic reversals. Union generals consistently outclassed most of their Confederate opponents, with the exception of cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest.[4] Lacking the proximity to the opposing capitals and population centers (and the accompanying concentration of newspapers) of the East, the astounding Confederate victories, and the fame of Eastern generals such as Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, and Stonewall Jackson, the Western theater received considerably less attention than the Eastern, both at the time and in subsequent historical accounts. The near-steady progress that Union forces made in defeating Confederate armies in the West and overtaking Confederate territory went nearly unnoticed.[5]
The campaign classification established by the United States National Park Service[6] is more fine-grained than the one used in this article. Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and some have been combined into larger categories. Only a few of the 117 battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described. Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns associated with each section.
Principal commanders of the Western Theater
-
-
Maj. Gen.Henry W. Halleck,
USA -
Maj. Gen.William T. Sherman,
USA -
Maj. Gen.George H. Thomas,
USA -
-
-
-
-
Gen.P.G.T. Beauregard,
CSA -
-
-
-
-
Early operations (June 1861 – January 1862)
The focus early in the war was on two critical states:
On the Confederate side, General
The Union military command in the West, however, suffered from a lack of unified command, organized by November into three separate departments: the Department of Kansas, under Maj. Gen. David Hunter, the Department of the Missouri, under Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, and the Department of the Ohio, under Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell (who had replaced Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman). By January 1862, this disunity of command was apparent because no strategy for operations in the Western theater could be agreed upon. Buell, under political pressure to invade and hold pro-Union East Tennessee, moved slowly in the direction of Nashville, but achieved nothing more substantial toward his goal than minor victories at Middle Creek (January 10, 1862) under Col. James A. Garfield and Mill Springs (January 19) under Brig. Gen. George Henry Thomas. (Mill Springs was a significant victory in a strategic sense because it broke the end of the Confederate Western defensive line and opened the Cumberland Gap to East Tennessee, but it got Buell no closer to Nashville.) In Halleck's department, Grant demonstrated down the Mississippi River by attacking the Confederate camp at Belmont to divert attention from Buell's intended advance, which did not occur. On February 1, 1862, after repeated requests by Grant, Halleck authorized Grant to move against Fort Henry on the Tennessee.[9]
Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi Rivers (February–June 1862)
Grant moved swiftly, starting his troops up the Tennessee River toward
Johnston's forward defense was broken. As Grant had anticipated, Polk's position at Columbus was untenable, and he withdrew soon after Donelson fell. Grant had also cut the Memphis and Ohio Railroad that previously had allowed Confederate forces to move laterally in support of each other. General
The preparations for the Union campaign did not proceed smoothly. Halleck seemed more concerned with his standing in relation to General-in-Chief George B. McClellan than he did with understanding that the Confederate Army was divided and could be defeated in detail. Further, he could not agree with his peer, Buell, now in Nashville, on a joint course of action. He sent Grant up the Tennessee River while Buell remained in Nashville. On March 11, President Lincoln appointed Halleck the commander of all forces from the Missouri River to Knoxville, Tennessee, thus achieving the needed unity of command, and Halleck ordered Buell to join Grant's forces at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River.[13]
On April 6, the combined Confederate forces under Beauregard and Johnston surprised Grant's unprepared
Union control of the Mississippi River began to tighten. On April 7, while the Confederates were retreating from Shiloh, Union Maj. Gen.
Although Beauregard had little concentrated strength available to oppose a southward movement by Halleck, the Union general showed insufficient drive to take advantage of the situation. He waited until he assembled a large army, combining the forces of Buell's Army of the Ohio, Grant's Army of West Tennessee, and Pope's Army of the Mississippi, to converge at Pittsburg Landing. He moved slowly in the direction of the critical rail junction at Corinth, taking four weeks to cover the twenty miles (32 km) from Shiloh, stopping nightly to entrench. By May 3, Halleck was within ten miles of the city but took another three weeks to advance eight miles closer to Corinth, by which time Halleck was ready to start a massive bombardment of the Confederate defenses. At this time, Beauregard decided not to make a costly defensive stand and withdrew without hostilities during the night of May 29.[16]
Grant did not command directly in the Corinth campaign. Halleck had reorganized his army, giving Grant the powerless position of second-in-command and shuffling divisions from the three armies into three "wings". When Halleck moved east to replace McClellan as general-in-chief, Grant resumed his field command, now named the District of West Tennessee. But before he left, Halleck dispersed his forces, sending Buell towards Chattanooga, Sherman to Memphis, one division to Arkansas, and Rosecrans to hold a covering position around Corinth. Part of Halleck's reason for this was that Lincoln desired to capture eastern Tennessee and protect the Unionists in the region.[17]
Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Mississippi (June 1862 – January 1863)
While Halleck accomplished little following Corinth, Confederate Gen.
Kirby Smith left Knoxville on August 14, forced the Union to evacuate Cumberland Gap, defeated a Union force at the Battle of Richmond (Kentucky) taking over 4,000 prisoners, and reached Lexington on August 30. Bragg departed Chattanooga just before Smith reached Lexington, while Buell moved north from Nashville to Bowling Green. But Bragg moved quickly and by September 14 had interposed his army on Buell's supply lines from Louisville. Bragg was reluctant to develop this situation because he was outnumbered by Buell; if he had been able to combine with Kirby Smith, he would have been numerically equal, but Smith's command was separate, and Smith believed that Bragg could capture Louisville without his assistance.[19]
Buell, under pressure from the government to take aggressive action, was almost relieved of duty (only the personal reluctance of George H. Thomas to assume command from his superior at the start of a campaign prevented it). As he approached
While Buell was facing Bragg's threat in Kentucky, Confederate operations in northern Mississippi were aimed at preventing Buell's reinforcement by Grant, who was preparing for his upcoming Vicksburg campaign. Halleck had departed for Washington, and Grant was left without interference as commander of the District of West Tennessee. On September 14, Maj. Gen.
Price and Van Dorn decided to unite their forces and attack the concentration of Union troops at Corinth and then advance into West or Middle Tennessee. In the Second Battle of Corinth (October 3–4), they attacked the fortified Union troops but were repulsed with serious losses. Retreating to the northwest, they escaped pursuit by Rosecrans's exhausted army, but their objectives of threatening Middle Tennessee and supporting Bragg were foiled.[22]
On October 24, the Union government replaced Buell with Rosecrans, who renamed his force the Army of the Cumberland. After a period of resupplying and training his army in Nashville, Rosecrans moved against Bragg at Murfreesboro just after Christmas. In the Battle of Stones River, Bragg surprised Rosecrans with a powerful assault on December 31, pushing the Union forces back to a small perimeter against the Stones River. But on January 2, 1863, further attempts to assault Rosecrans were beaten back decisively and Bragg withdrew his army southeast to Tullahoma. In proportion to the size of the armies, the casualties at Stones River (about 12,000 on each side) made it the bloodiest battle of the war. At the end of the campaign, Bragg's threat against Kentucky had been defeated, and he effectively yielded control of Middle Tennessee.[23]
Vicksburg Campaigns (December 1862 – July 1863)
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 that prevented full Union control of the Mississippi River. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a sharp bend in the river and called the "Gibraltar of the Mississippi", Vicksburg was nearly invulnerable to naval assault. Admiral David Farragut had found this directly in his failed operations of May 1862.[24]
The overall plan to capture Vicksburg was for Ulysses S. Grant to move south from Memphis and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks to move north from Baton Rouge. Banks's advance was slow to develop and bogged down at Port Hudson, offering little assistance to Grant.[25]
First campaign
Grant's first campaign was a two-pronged movement. William T. Sherman sailed down the Mississippi River with 32,000 men while Grant was to move in parallel through Mississippi by railroad with 40,000. Grant advanced 80 miles (130 km), 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.[26]
Political considerations then intruded. Illinois politician and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand obtained permission from Lincoln to recruit an army in southern Illinois and command it on a river-born expedition aimed at Vicksburg. He was able to get Sherman's corps assigned to him, but it departed Memphis before McClernand could arrive. When Sherman returned from the Yazoo, McClernand asserted control. He inexplicably detoured from his primary objective by capturing Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River, but before he could resume his main advance, Grant had reasserted control, and McClernand became a corps commander in Grant's army. For the rest of the winter, Grant attempted five separate projects to reach the city by moving through or reengineering, rivers, canals, and bayous to the north of Vicksburg. All five were unsuccessful; Grant explained afterward that he had expected these setbacks and was simply attempting to keep his army busy and motivated, but many historians believe he really hoped that some would succeed and that they were too ambitious.[27]
Second campaign
The second campaign, beginning in the spring of 1863, was successful and is considered Grant's greatest achievement of the war (and a classic campaign of military history). He knew that he could not attack through Mississippi from the northwest because of the vulnerability of his supply line; river-born approaches had failed repeatedly. So, after movement became possible on dirt roads that were finally drying from the winter rains, Grant moved the bulk of his army down the western bank of the Mississippi. On April 16, U.S. Navy gunboats and troop transports managed at great risk to slip past the Vicksburg defensive guns and were able to ferry Grant's army across the river to land south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg. Grant employed two strategic diversions to mask his intentions: a feint by Sherman north of Vicksburg and a daring cavalry raid through central Mississippi by Colonel Benjamin Grierson, known as Grierson's Raid. The former was inconclusive, but the latter was a success. Grierson was able to draw out significant Confederate forces, dispersing them around the state.[28]
Grant faced two Confederate armies in his campaign: the Vicksburg garrison, commanded by Maj. Gen. John C. Pemberton, and forces in Jackson, commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, the overall theater commander. Rather than simply heading directly north to the city, Grant chose to cut the line of communications (and reinforcement) between the two Confederate armies. His army headed swiftly northeast toward Jackson. Meanwhile, Grant brought with him a limited supply line. The conventional history of the campaign indicates that he cut loose from all of his supplies, perplexing Pemberton, who attempted to interdict his nonexistent lines at Raymond on May 12. In reality, Grant relied on the local economy to provide him only foodstuffs for men and animals, but there was a constant stream of wagons carrying ammunition, coffee, hardtack, salt, and other supplies for his army.[29]
Sherman's corps
The soldiers and civilians in Vicksburg suffered greatly from Union bombardment and impending starvation. They clung to the hope that General Johnston would arrive with reinforcements, but Johnston was both cut off and too cautious. On July 4, Pemberton surrendered his army and the city to Grant. In conjunction with the defeat of Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg the previous day, Vicksburg is widely considered one of the turning points of the war. By July 8, after Banks captured Port Hudson, the entire Mississippi River was in Union hands, and the Confederacy was split in two.[31]
Tullahoma, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga (June–December 1863)
After his victory at Stones River, Rosecrans occupied Murfreesboro for almost six months while Bragg rested in Tullahoma, establishing a long defensive line that was intended to block Union advances against the strategic city of Chattanooga in his rear. In April, Union cavalry under Col.
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 the attention of Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Ohio, which was moving toward Knoxville, from Southern forces in the state. At the start of the Tullahoma Campaign, Morgan moved northward. For 46 days as they rode over 1,000 miles (1,600 km), Morgan's cavalrymen terrorized a region from Tennessee to northern Ohio, destroying bridges, railroads, and government stores before being captured; in November they made a daring escape from the Ohio Penitentiary, at Columbus, Ohio, and returned to the South.[33]
After delaying for several weeks in Tullahoma, Rosecrans planned to flush Bragg out of Chattanooga by crossing the Tennessee River, heading south, and interdicting the Confederate supply lines from Georgia. He began operations on August 18 and used a two-week
Back in Vicksburg, Grant was resting his army and planning for a campaign that would capture Mobile and push east. But 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 (the "Cracker Line"), allowing supplies and reinforcements to reach the city. Soon the troops were joined by 40,000 more, from the Army of the Tennessee under Sherman and from the Army of the Potomac under Joseph Hooker. While the Union army expanded, the Confederate army contracted; Bragg dispatched Longstreet's corps to Knoxville to hold off an advance by Burnside.[35]
The
Atlanta Campaign (May–September 1864)
In March 1864, Grant was promoted to
At the start of the campaign, Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi consisted of three armies:
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. When Sherman flanked the defensive lines (almost exclusively around Johnston's left flank), Johnston would retreat to another prepared position. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (June 27) was a notable exception, in which Sherman attempted a frontal assault, against the advice of his subordinates, and suffered significant losses, losing 3,000 men versus 1,000 for Johnston. Both armies took advantage of the railroads as supply lines, with Johnston shortening his supply lines as he drew closer to Atlanta, and Sherman lengthening his own. However, Davis was becoming frustrated with Johnston, who he viewed was needlessly losing territory and was refusing to counterattack or even discuss his plans with Davis.[39]
Just before the Battle of Peachtree Creek (July 20) in the outskirts of Atlanta, Jefferson Davis lost patience with Johnston's strategy and, fearing that Johnston would give up Atlanta without a battle, replaced him with the more aggressive Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood. Over the next six weeks, Hood would repeatedly attempt to attack a portion of Sherman's force which seemed isolated from the main body; each attack failed, often with heavy casualties for the Confederate army. Sherman eventually cut Hood's supply lines from the south. Knowing that he was trapped, Hood evacuated Atlanta on the night of September 1, burning military supplies and installations, causing a great conflagration in the city.[40]
Coincident with Sherman's triumph in Atlanta, Admiral
Franklin-Nashville Campaign (September–December 1864)
While Sherman rested his army in preparation for offensive operations to the east, Hood embarked on a campaign to defeat Sherman by interfering with his lines of communications from Chattanooga. He drove west through Alabama and turned north toward Tennessee, hoping that Sherman would follow him and do battle. This was partially effective because his movements, and raids by Nathan Bedford Forrest, were causing considerable consternation to Sherman. Sherman thought Hood's strategy to be folly. Even stating “If Hood takes his army to the Ohio River I’d give him rations”. The confederate western army was already greatly reduced and The Federal Western Command had more than enough men in reserve to deal with Hood's invasion. Leaving Sherman virtually unopposed taking 65,000 men and marching through Georgia to the Sea. He sent Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas with portions of the Army of the Cumberland and most of the cavalry corps to Nashville to coordinate a defense against Hood, while taking the remainder of his army in the direction of Savannah, Georgia.[42]
Thomas's forces were divided: half were with him in Nashville and the other half with
Sherman's March to the Sea (November–December 1864)
Sherman's Savannah Campaign is more popularly known as the March to the Sea. He and Grant believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological capacity for warfare were decisively broken. Sherman therefore applied the principles of scorched earth, ordering his troops to burn crops, kill livestock, consume supplies, and destroy civilian infrastructure along their path. This policy is one of the key tenets of a strategy of total war.[46]
Sherman's army left Atlanta on November 15, 1864, and was conducted in two columns separated by about 60 miles (97 km), the right under Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard and the left under Maj. Gen. Henry Warner Slocum. Between these columns, the destruction was significant and spawned hatred for generations. Most of the resistance to Sherman's armies was from Georgia militia and home guards, although Joseph Wheeler's cavalry corps from the Army of Tennessee and some troops from the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida were also present but scattered. At Savannah on December 17, Sherman encountered about 10,000 defending troops under Maj. Gen. William J. Hardee. Following lengthy artillery bombardments, Hardee abandoned the city and Sherman entered on December 22, 1864. He telegraphed to President Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah ...."[47]
Carolinas Campaign and Johnston's surrender (February–April 1865)
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. He persuaded 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.[48]
Sherman's plan was to bypass the minor Confederate troop concentrations at
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 (March 19–21), where he unsuccessfully attempted to defeat one wing of Sherman's army (under Henry W. Slocum) before it could reach Goldsboro or reunite with the other wing under Oliver O. Howard. While the initial Confederate attack overwhelmed the first Union line, Slocum was able to rally enough men to resist Johnston until Howard arrived at the battlefield overnight. Johnston remained on the battlefield for two more days, hoping for another Confederate victory similar to the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, then retreated back to Raleigh, pursued by Sherman.[50]
On April 11, Johnston received word that General
Wilson's Raid, Mobile Campaign, and Forrest's surrender (March–May 1865)
Following the victory in Nashville, Maj. Gen. Thomas dispatched Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson to destroy the last remaining industrial infrastructure in the Confederate heartlands of Alabama and Georgia and Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby to finally capture Mobile, which had remained in Confederate hands despite Admiral's Farragut's victory in Mobile Bay.
Wilson, commanding the cavalry corps of the
Canby, commanding the Military Division of West Mississippi, landed In mid-March near the entrance of Mobile Bay and advanced along the eastern shore to Spanish Fort, where the Union forces started a siege on March 27. On April 1, Union forces command by Frederick Steele arrived from an overland route from Pensacola and started besieging Fort Blakely. On April 8, Union forces opened an artillery bombardment on Spanish fort with ninety field pieces, followed by an infantry attack that captured a foothold in the Confederate entrenchments known as Fort McDermott. The Confederate garrison, commanded by Brigadier General Randall Gibson, managed to hold off the Union forces until nightfall, when they were then evacuated by a treadway that had been constructed across the swamps to a nearby island from which they could continue the retreat, thereby saving their garrison from the fate that awaited the troops holding Fort Blakely the next day,as most of them were captured. [53]These battles forced the Confederate commander of Mobile, Maj. Gen. Dabney H. Maury, to evacuate the city.[54]
When he received word of Lee's and Johnston's surrenders, Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, commander of the Confederate Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, surrendered his forces to Canby on May 4, while Forrest formally surrendered his force on May 9. Wilson's cavalry officially took control of Tallahassee, Florida, on May 20, the last Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi to be captured, completing the Western Theater operations. A detachment of Wilson's cavalry captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis on May 10 near Irwinville, Georgia.[55]
Major land battles
The costliest land battles in the western theater, measured by casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing), were:[56]
Battle | State | Date | Union |
Confederacy |
Total | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Strength | Commander | Casualties | |||||||
Siege of Vicksburg | Mississippi | May 18–July 4, 1863 | 77,000 | 33,000 | Ulysses S. Grant | John C. Pemberton | 4,835 | 32,697 | 37,532[57] |
Battle of Chickamauga | Georgia | September 19–20, 1863 | 60,000 | 65,000 | William S. Rosecrans
|
Braxton Bragg | 16,170 | 18,454 | 34,624 |
Battle of Stones River | Tennessee | December 31, 1862 – January 2, 1863 | 41,400 | 35,000 | William S. Rosecrans
|
Braxton Bragg | 12,906 | 11,739 | 24,645 |
Battle of Shiloh | Tennessee | April 6–7, 1862 | 63,000 | 44,699 | Ulysses S. Grant | Albert Sidney Johnston | 13,047 | 10,699 | 23,746 |
Siege of Port Hudson | Louisiana | May 22 – July 9, 1863 | 35,000 | 7,500 | Nathaniel P. Banks | Franklin Gardner | 10,000 | 7,500 | 17,500 |
Battle of Missionary Ridge | Tennessee | November 25, 1863 | 56,359 | 44,010 | Ulysses S. Grant | Braxton Bragg | 5,824 | 6,667 | 12,491 |
Battle of Atlanta | Georgia | July 22, 1864 | 34,863 | 40,438 | William T. Sherman
|
John Bell Hood | 3,641 | 8,499 | 12,140 |
Battle of Nashville | Tennessee | December 15–16, 1864 | 55,000 | 30,000 | George H. Thomas
|
John Bell Hood | 3,061 | 6,000 | 9,061 |
Battle of Franklin
|
Tennessee | November 30, 1864 | 27,000 | 27,000 | John M. Schofield
|
John Bell Hood | 2,326 | 6,252 | 8,578 |
Battle of Perryville | Kentucky | October 8, 1862 | 22,000 | 16,000 | Don Carlos Buell | Braxton Bragg | 4,276 | 3,401 | 7,677 |
2nd Battle of Corinth | Mississippi | October 3–4, 1862 | 23,000 | 22,000 | William S. Rosecrans
|
Earl Van Dorn | 2,520 | 4,233 | 6,753 |
Battle of Peachtree Creek | Georgia | July 20, 1864 | 21,655 | 20,250 | George H. Thomas
|
John Bell Hood | 1,710 | 4,796 | 6,506 |
Battle of Champion Hill | Mississippi | May 16, 1863 | 32,000 | 22,000 | Ulysses S. Grant | John C. Pemberton | 2,457 | 3,840 | 6,297 |
Battle of Richmond, Kentucky | Kentucky | August 29–30, 1862 | 6,500 | 6,850 | William "Bull" Nelson | Edmund K. Smith
|
5,353 | 451 | 5,804 |
See also
Notes
- ^ "Civil War Battle Summaries by Campaign". Civil War Sites Advisory Committee, American Battlefield Protection Program. National Park Service. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
- ^ Woodworth, Jefferson Davis, pp. xi-xii.
- ^ Woodworth, pp. 21–22.
- ^ Fuller (1956), pp. 49–81.
- ^ Woodworth, pp. 18–19.
- ^ U.S. National Park Service, Civil War Battle Summaries by Campaign
- ^ Foote, vol. 1, pp. 86–89.
- ^ Mulligan, William H., "Interpreting the Civil War at Columbus-Belmont State Park and Sacramento, Kentucky: Two Case Studies", paper presented at "International, Multicultural, Interdisciplinary: Public History Policy and Practice", the 20th Annual Conference of the National Council on Public History, April 16–19, 1998, Austin, Texas.
- ^ Foote, vol. 1, pp. 144–52, 178–79.
- ^ Cunningham, pp. 44–45, 48–50.
- ^ Cunningham, pp. 57–66.
- ^ Cunningham, pp. 83, 94–95.
- ^ Cunningham, pp. 72–73, 88–89.
- ^ Kennedy, pp. 48–52.
- ^ Kennedy, pp. 56–59.
- ^ Cunningham, pp. 384–95.
- ^ Cozzens (1997), pp. 32, 35–36.
- ^ Noe, pp. 22, 26–27, 30.
- ^ Noe, pp. 37–39, 72.
- ^ Noe, pp. 313, 336–38.
- ^ Cozzens (1997), pp. 43, 86–114.
- ^ Cozzens (1997), pp. 135–37, 315–17.
- ^ Kennedy, pp. 151–54.
- ^ Groom, p. 132.
- ^ Kennedy, pp. 157, 181.
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 70–71, 75–77.
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 64, 133–38.
- ^ Groom, pp. 281–87.
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 358–59, 384–86.
- ^ Groom, pp. 311–14, 323–25, 342–45.
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 606–14
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 102, 184–86, 670–75.
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 678–83.
- ^ Foote, vol. 2, pp. 687–88, 715–48.
- ^ Cozzens (1994), pp. 7, 61–65.
- ^ Cozzens (1994), pp. 173–90, 205–43, 273–95, 397.
- ^ Castel, pp. 63, 66.
- ^ Castel, pp. 78–79, 83–87, 127.
- ^ Castel, pp. 303–304, 319–20.
- ^ Castel, pp. 360–61, 522–24.
- ^ Castel, p. 543; Kennedy, p. 374–76.
- ^ Sword, pp. 46–51, 59–62.
- ^ Sword, pp. 81, 152–55, 261–63.
- ^ Eicher, p. 774.
- ^ Sword, pp. 290–93, 386, 430–33.
- ^ Foote, vol. 3, pp. 614, 622–23.
- ^ Foote, vol. 3, pp. 642–54, 711–14.
- ^ Hughes, pp. 1–3.
- ^ Hughes, pp. 2–3, 21.
- ^ Hughes, pp. 21–24,89–91, 168.
- ^ Trudeau, pp. 213, 237–42.
- ^ Trudeau, pp. 12, 159–68, 252–59.
- ^ Brueske, The Last Seige, pgs.98-109 and pgs.110-127
- ^ Trudeau, pp. 6–8, 176–84.
- ^ Trudeau, pp. 259–62, 293–94.
- ^ All strengths and casualties are cited in the named articles. The Siege of Vicksburg (37,532 total casualties), the Battle of Fort Donelson (16,537), and the Battle of Island Number Ten (7,108) have been omitted from this list because the casualty figures include very high percentages of Confederate soldiers surrendered.
- ^ Included 29,495 Confederates surrendered (and paroled).
References
- Castel, Albert. Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. ISBN 0-7006-0562-2.
- Cozzens, Peter. The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8078-2320-1.
- Cozzens, Peter. The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. ISBN 0-252-01922-9.
- Cunningham, O. Edward. Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, edited by Gary D. Joiner and Timothy B. Smith. New York: Savas Beatie, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932714-27-2.
- ISBN 0-684-84944-5.
- Esposito, Vincent J. West Point Atlas of American Wars. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1959. OCLC 5890637. The collection of maps (without explanatory text) is available online at the West Point website.
- ISBN 0-394-74623-6.
- ISBN 0-394-49517-9.
- Foote, Shelby. ISBN 0-394-74913-8.
- ISBN 0-306-80450-6.
- Fuller, Maj. Gen. J. F. C. A Military History of the Western World. Vol. 3, From the Seven Days Battle, 1862, to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, 1944. New York: Minerva Press, 1956. OCLC 741433623.
- Groom, Winston. Vicksburg 1863. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-26425-1.
- Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. ISBN 0-252-00918-5.
- Hughes, Nathaniel Cheairs, Jr. Bentonville: The Final Battle of Sherman & Johnston. Chapel Hill: ISBN 0-8078-2281-7
- Kennedy, Frances H., ed. The Civil War Battlefield Guide. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998. ISBN 0-395-74012-6.
- Noe, Kenneth W. Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. ISBN 0-8131-2209-0.
- Sword, Wiley. The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, & Nashville. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992. ISBN 0-7006-0650-5.
- Trudeau, Noah Andre. Out of the Storm: The End of the Civil War, April–June 1865. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994. ISBN 0-316-85328-3.
- ISBN 0-7006-0461-8.
- National Park Service battle descriptions of the Western Theater
Further reading
- Bush, Bryan S. The Civil War Battles of the Western Theatre. Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Co., 1998. ISBN 1-56311-434-8.
- Cozzens, Peter. No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. ISBN 0-252-06229-9.
- Cozzens, Peter. This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. ISBN 0-252-01703-X.
- ISBN 0-914427-67-9.
- Jones, Evan C., and Wiley Sword, eds. Gateway to the Confederacy: New Perspectives on the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns, 1862–1863. Baton Rouge: ISBN 978-0-8071-5509-7.
- ISBN 0-940450-65-8. First published 1889 by D. Appleton & Co.
- Smith, Timothy B. Grant Invades Tennessee: The 1862 Battles for Forts Henry and Donelson. Lawrence: ISBN 978-0-7006-2313-6.
- Smith, Timothy B. Shiloh: Conquer or Perish. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014. ISBN 978-0-7006-1995-5.
- Welcher, Frank J. The Union Army, 1861–1865 Organization and Operations. Vol. 2, The Western Theater. Bloomington: ISBN 0-253-36454-X.
- ISBN 0-375-41218-2.
Historiography
- Smith, Stacey L. "Beyond North and South: Putting the West in the Civil War and Reconstruction," Journal of the Civil War Era (Dec 2016) 6#4 pp. 566–591. DOI:10.1353/cwe.2016.0073 excerpt