The Western Theater of the Civil War: The History and Legacy of the Most Important Battles Fought across the West

While the Lincoln Administration and most Northerners were preoccupied with trying to capture Richmond in the summer of 1861, it would be the little known Ulysses S. Grant who delivered the Union’s first major victories, over a thousand miles away from Washington. Grant’s new commission led to his command of the District of Southeast Missouri, headquartered at Cairo, after he was appointed by “The Pathfinder”, John C. Fremont, a national celebrity who had run for President in 1856. Fremont ...