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| Origins of the Civil War |
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| War in the East |
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| Fort Monroe |
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| Peninsula Campaign |
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| The Seven Days |
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| Cedar Mountain, VA |
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| Grant's Overland Campaign |
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| Shiloh, TN |
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| James R Anthony Letters |
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| W.H. Brinlee's Letter |
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| Vicksburg Campaign |
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| Monitor vs. the Merrimac |
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|  CIVIL WAR SITES AND BATTLEFIELDS
Who do you think was the best Civil War General? What was the most significant Civil War theater of operations? Why indeed, does anybody care? I am leaving on another cross country photography trip from Virginia to Oregon by way of South Padre Island, TX and the Rio Grande. Details at the bottom this page. Use the blue buttons on the left to navigate to any page from any page. Campaign pages are nested and will appear when their parent is clicked. There are also direct links at the bottom of this page and on the theater pages. There are more than 100 pages on this site covering events from the East Coast to the West Coast and on byond. There are four pages dedicated to the Revolutionary War. Shiloh This site is dedicated to photos and descriptions of Civil War sites and battlefields served with a heavy dose of my own opinion. Sources for historical pictures and clip art are listed at the bottom of the page and on the links pages. To my knowledge all of the historical pictures are in the public domain. If you know of any that are not please let me know and I’ll take them down. All modern pictures are mine unless otherwise specified and are free for the taking. 
I am interested in letters written during the Civil War. On the Trans Mississippi pages I am including sections of letters written by Private James Anthony who served with the Twentieth Iowa, from Clinton, Iowa to Texas to Mobile, Alabama. 
Little Roundtop, Gettysburg. Just so there is no misunderstanding, everyone who is seriously interesting the Civil War has picked a side: and my side is the North. My explanations of battles are meant to be factually accurate, but my commentary is pro Union. I grew up on the West Coast so I have no Confederate axe to grind and I see the existence of the United States as having an overall positive effect on the world over the last hundred and fifty years. Had the U.S. been split into two hostile countries I think that world history would have been significantly changed and not for the better. +  Phelps & Watson's Historical and Military Map of the Border & Southern States Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library
University of Georgia Libraries
Athens, GA 30602-1641 What are you looking for? Help me improve my site. | |
| My Civil War Pages
Eastern Theater - Anything east of the Appalachian Mountains Western Theater - Everything West of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River Direct links to Battlefield Pages Up So Far Most pages contain a link to a discussion of the site or battle in question. Scroll down the pages for photos. | | Why I said Grant 
In 2008, while on a cross-country Civil War driving trip, Fort Monroe to Oregon, 5000 miles in two weeks, a pair of Mississippi gentlemen asked me who I thought the greatest Civil War general was. This question gave me a long moments pause, I know the answer that you are suppose to give, when asked this particular question, is Lee; or the acceptable alternative, Forest. But, after a semi brief period of internal struggle I answered Grant.
Grant you say, why Grant? Well I have my reasons. First, I discovered the Civil War as a child while messing around in the school library, I came across a book about Shiloh. I didn’t really understand it much, I knew the Union won, sort of, and that there was a terrible struggle at someplace called the Hornet’s Nest, but I really didn’t get the significance of what happened there; but, I remembered it seemed to be about someone named Grant.
As I read more over the years, I naturally heard a great deal about the war in the East: Virginia and Lee. Reading so much of what’s been written, because it’s about the East, gives the impression that the South was winning, right up until they lost. I found it all very confusing, but I kept reading, and this Grant fellow kept popping up.
For a while I became really enamored with Chamberlain, and his accomplishments certainly deserve a great deal of respect, but while he saved the day at Little Roundtop, he didn’t win the war. That fellow Grant seemed to have had something more to do with that.
As I got older and less fascinated with the brutal slaughter of it all, I became more interested just what exactly it was that happened during the period of 1861-5. I realized that it was Grant, and his good buddy Sherman, who figured out first, long before anybody else, just what that war was going to require to be won.
While Lee was running around Northern Virginia winning stunning victories against really bad Union Generals, Grant and Sherman were sitting around campfires in the west talking all night about how to end the thing. Lee, while winning battles, was repeatedly fighting over the same ground: his victories never really gained any advantage or advanced the Confederate position, they just protected Richmond. Grant on the other hand defeated the Confederates at Fort Donelson, pushing them out of central Tennessee, and then he whipped them at Shiloh and knocked them right out of western Tennessee altogether for the remainder of the war. The strategic rail center at Corinth fell shortly after, severely impacting the Confederacies transportation system and established a Union presense in Mississippi for the remainder of the war. Grant took Vicksburg and cut the South in half, took charge at Chattanooga, setting the stage for the fall of Atlanta and Sherman's march to the sea. Finally Grant became the Union supreme commander and for the first time, on either side, the war was fought as a whole: not just a string of battles. The dominant military theories of the day held that wars were won by defeating the enemies biggest army decisively, forcing him to surrender. Armies were to be concentrated so that maximum force could be brought to bear on a single point and that a decicive victory would force the loser to surrender. This therory held that fighting on multiple fronts would only weaken the main punch, and therefore was to be avoided. Everything Lee did was to try and bring about such an effect. It didn’t work though; both sides suffered some devastating defeats, but did not surrender. Lee should have realized after Chancellorsville that the war was going to require more than a single devastating victory to win, but he never seemed to figure it out despite the evidence at hand.
That was the genius of Grant; he realized that a sudden stunning victory was not going to do it for either side, it was going to take a united, concerted action on many fronts at once, and that victory would require the defeat of the southern civilians as much as a defeat of their armies in the field. Grant and his good buddy Sherman were developing the concepts of modern total war while their counterparts were still imatating Napoleon. The war in the west was not a sideshow; it was the key to stopping the South’s ability to make war. In this realization, Grant had stumbled across not just the solution to the Civil War but the future of warfare itself.
Hence my answer to those two gentlemen at Pea Ridge: Grant. Or maybe Forrest. If you are looking for information concerning a relative who served in the Civil War go to: There you can get a copy of you relatives service record. There is a small charge but it will answer all your questions. Sources for art and historic pictures Some other links, see the links page for the full list  If you have any disagreement with my facts on any particular battle please contact me and let me know what you think is wrong, I change it if you can show me your right. If you have differences of opinion about something send that, too. You’ll get a personnel response, and I love hearing other peoples ideas even while I might not agree with them. Feel free to copy and use any of my personal photos, I would appreciate it if you gave me credit for the picture and include a link back to my website if you use it on yours. if you need a higher quality image contact me, I have them. 2010 Civil War Photo Trip 19-Jun Cape Hatters, NC 20-Jun New Bern, NC 21-Jun Charleston, SC 23-Jun Savannah, GA 24-Jun Atlanta, GA 27-Jun Mobile, AL 28-Jun Hattiesburg/Soso, MS 29-Jun Vicksburg,MS 30-Jun Yazoo, City, MS 1-Jul Port Gibson, LA 2-Jul Sabine Pass, TX 3-Jul Mustang Island, TX 4-Jul South Padre Island, TX 5-Jul Corpus Christi, TX 7-Jul Eagle Pass, TX 9-Jul Van Horn, TX 11-Jul Las Cruces, NM 14-Jul Benson, AZ 16-Jul Stanwicks Station, AZ 16-Jul Yuma, AZ If anyone is interested in showing me the sights in your area please click here to contact me. I love to get the local color and places of interest. | |
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