Western Theater

Civil War Artillery

By John D. Gresham

For much of its history, artillery has been a weapon of mass destruction and attrition, a force designed to cause casualties, destroy fortifications, and wear an enemy down with its noise, explosions, and shrapnel. Read more

Western Theater

Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler’s 1863 Sequatchie Valley Raid

By Arnold Blumberg

During the evening of September 20,1863, the following message reached Washington and was given to the president of the United States: “We have met with a serious disaster; extent not yet ascertained. Read more

Western Theater

Bloody Assault on Knoxville

By Mike Phifer

At midnight on November 13, 1863, two companies of the Palmetto (South Carolina) Sharpshooters Regiment led by Captain Alfred Foster slipped down to the south bank of the Tennessee River at Huff’s Ferry. Read more

Western Theater

Disaster at Fort Donelson

By Mike Phifer

A signal rocket set off by Confederate pickets streaked skyward in the damp early morning of February 4, 1862. Read more

Western Theater

Ulysses S. Grant: Union War Hero

by Mike Haskew

Born in Ohio in 1822, Ulysses S. Grant graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1843. Read more

Western Theater

John Bell Hood at the Battle of Gettysburg

By Don Williams

Ward’s Union Brigade faced some of the most formidable troops in General Robert E. Lee’s army on the afternoon of July 2. Read more

Western Theater

At Shiloh, the Civil War Took a Turn

By Roy Morris, Jr.

No one expected this—not the fiercest “fire-eater” in South Carolina or the flintiest abolitionist in New England. Read more

Western Theater

The Civil War’s Western Territories As Leadership Dumping Grounds

By Mark N. Lardas

Strategically isolated from the South, geographically isolated from the Far West, and separated from the Union plains states by the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), Texas was a backwater whose ultimate fate depended on the success of the Confederacy. Read more

Western Theater

Union General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea

 

By Mike Haskew

Union General William T. Sherman was a friend and trusted subordinate of General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of all Union armies in the field during the Civil War. Read more

Western Theater

The Disastrous Red River Campaign

By Michael E. Haskew

Nathaniel Banks was a political creature, and with his country in the throes of civil war, he now held the politically obtained rank of major general in the Union Army. Read more

Western Theater

Grierson’s Raid: Wrecking the Railroad With the Butternut Guerrillas

By Mike Phifer

Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson stuck his left foot into the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. Orders were quickly given, and soon a column of 1,700 blue-jacketed troopers of Grierson’s 1st Brigade, along with a battery of artillery, trampled southeast from La Grange, Tennessee, in the early dawn of April 17, 1863. Read more

Western Theater

The Battle of Perryville: Death on a Dry River

By Joshua Shepherd

For Union Lieutenant Harrison Millard, it was an unsettling development. An aide on the staff of Brig. Gen. Read more

Western Theater

The Battle of Champion’s Hill: Prelude to Vicksburg

By Lawrence Weber

The Battle of Champion’s Hill was a pivotal event in the American Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant would pursue the retreating Confederate army to an area 20 miles east of Vicksburg, bringing about the Siege of Vicksburg and the Confederates’ surrender. Read more

Western Theater

Visiting the Battle of Shiloh National Military Park

by William E. Welsh

To say the Confederates had the perfect chance at the Battle of Shiloh to evict Maj. Gen. Read more