In the year and a half following Shiloh, Union armies made significant advances across the western theater, dealing serious military blows to the Confederacy. Author Steven E. Woodworth’s chapter on the West focuses particularly on the role played by Ulysses S. Grant, the war’s foremost general. He pays particular attention to Grant’s successes at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, seizing control of the Mississippi River and western Tennessee, victories that elevated him to overall command of Union armies. Woodworth also examines the struggles of Confederate command as they battled one another as much as they did the Union.
This chapter includes:
- Detailed battle animations of Grant’s victory at Chattanooga, his persistent campaigns against Vicksburg, and the failed Confederate invasion of Kentucky;
- An animated chapter timeline showing the development of military and political events across time and space;
- Tactics widget discussing the role of a Civil War commander, from sources of information to the challenges in communicating orders;
- Interactive illustration that examines the activity and influence of guerrilla warfare in the western theater;
- Richly colored still maps depicting other important military actions, including the Battles of Stones River and Chickamauga; and
- Biographies of key military leaders such as Ulysses Grant, David Dixon Porter, and Braxton Bragg.
