The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

The fighting

Struggle for the heartland

The Western Theater, delineated by the
Appalachian Mountains in the east and the
Mississippi River in the west, also included
the states of Missouri and Arkansas. The
states that were most perplexed about how to
proceed at the outbreak of war included
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. The fact
that the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, as well
as two significant tributaries, the Cumberland
and the Tennessee, flowed through this
region made it all the more significant as a
war zone. 'Whatever Nation gets ... control of
the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers,'
concluded Union General William
T. Sherman, 'will control the continent.'

This region was settled largely by

Southerners, but it was tied geographically and

economically to the Ohio and Mississippi river

valleys. This meant that economic exchanges

with Northern markets were commonplace

and thus a shared regional identity took shape

in the pre-Civil War decades. Nowhere were

loyalties more divided and the term a

'brother's war' more applicable than in the

west. John L. Crittenden, the Kentucky

politician who proposed the Crittenden

Compromise months before, would have two

sons who fought on opposite sides.

Volunteers came from all over the United

States and filled the ranks of both armies as

Note the maze of rivers and railroads that afforded

Union and Confederate armies strategic avenues to

campaign in the west.

The Western Theater of war