Western Theater

• Brigadier General Nathan Bedford ForrestMurfreesboro, Jackson, Parker's Cross Roads, Brentwood, Memphis, Johnsonville +8 more
• General John Bell HoodDecatur, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Columbia, Nashville, Kolb's Farm +4 more
• General Joseph E. JohnstonResaca, Dalton I, Rocky Face Ridge, Dallas, Marietta [Operations], Adairsville +4 more
• Major General Joseph WheelerMonroe's Cross, Dalton II, Griswoldville, Buck Head Creek, Waynesborough, Dover
• Brigadier General John Hunt MorganBuffington Island, Corydon, Cynthiana, Salineville, Hartsville, Vaught's Hill
• General Braxton BraggChickamauga, Munfordville, Perryville, Wyse Fork, Stones River, Chattanooga
• Lieutenant General James LongstreetCampbell's Station, Fort Sanders, Dandridge, Chickamauga, Bean's Station
• Major General John C. BreckinridgeDavis' Cross Roads, Marion, Saltville, Bull's Gap
• Major General Earl Van DornCorinth, Hatchie's Bridge, Thompson's Station, Franklin
• Lieutenant General John C. PembertonChickasaw Bayou, Champion Hill, Vicksburg
• Brigadier General John S. BowenPort Gibson, Big Black River Bridge, Grand Gulf
• Major General Thomas C. HindmanDavis' Cross Roads, Rowlett's Station
• Brigadier General John GreggRaymond, Jackson
• General P.G.T. BeauregardShiloh, Corinth
• Brigadier General John S. WilliamsBlue Springs, Ivy Mountain
• Major General William T. MartinFair Garden, Mossy Creek
• Major General Patrick R. CleburneRinggold Gap, Pickett's Mill
• Brigadier General James R. ChalmersMunfordville, Collierville
• Major General E. Kirby SmithRichmond, Chattanooga
• Major General John R. LiddellFort Blakely
• Colonel Joel A. BattleBarbourville
• Brigadier General Humphrey MarshallMiddle Creek
• Colonel Charles ColcockHoney Hill
• Brigadier General John P. McCownNew Madrid/Island No. 10
• Brigadier General William W. MackallNew Madrid/Island No. 10
• Major General Sterling PriceIuka
• Brigadier General Louis HebertSnyder's Bluff
• Lieutenant General Leonidas PolkMeridian
• Lieutenant General Wade HamptonMonroe's Cross
• Brigadier General Lloyd TilghmanFort Henry
• General Albert Sidney JohnstonShiloh
• Captain James E. MontgomeryMemphis
• Brigadier General M. Jeff ThompsonMemphis
• Major General Alexander P. StewartHoover's Gap
• Colonel James E. CarterBlountsville
• Admiral Franklin BuchananMobile Bay
• Brigadier General Richard L. PageMobile Bay
• Lieutenant Colonel Moses W. HannonAthens
• Brigadier General Randall L. GibsonSpanish Fort
• Brigadier General Thomas J. ChurchillArkansas Post
• Lieutenant General Theophilus H. HolmesHelena
• Brigadier General William H. JacksonLovejoy's Station
• Lieutenant General William J. HardeeJonesborough
• Major General Samuel G. FrenchAllatoona
• Major George A. AndersonFort McAllister II
• Brigadier General Pleasant J. PhilipsGriswoldville
• Brigadier General Felix ZollicofferCamp Wildcat
• Major General George B. CrittendenMill Springs
• Brigadier General Henry E. McCullochMilliken's Bend
• Colonel William H. ParsonsGoodrich's Landing
• Brigadier General Gideon J. PillowBelmont
• Lieutenant General Stephen D. LeeTupelo
• Lieutenant General William HardeeAverasborough
• Major General Lafayette McLawsRivers' Bridge
• Brigadier General John B. FloydFort Donelson
• Brigadier General Gideon PillowFort Donelson
• Brigadier General Simon B. BucknerFort Donelson
• Brigadier General Micah JenkinsWauhatchie
• Lieutenant General D. H. HillChattanooga
• Brigadier General Alfred E. JacksonSaltville

• Brigadier General Robert S. GrangerDecatur
• Major General E. R. S. CanbyFort Blakely, Spanish Fort
• Major General James NegleyDavis' Cross Roads, Chattanooga
• Major General William T. ShermanResaca, Atlanta, Chickasaw Bayou, Snyder's Bluff, Meridian, Rocky Face Ridge +7 more
• Major General George H. ThomasPeachtree Creek, Hoover's Gap, Nashville, Chickamauga, Dalton I, Mill Springs
• Captain Isaac J. BlackBarbourville
• Colonel James GarfieldMiddle Creek
• Major General John HatchHoney Hill
• Brigadier General John PopeNew Madrid/Island No. 10
• Flag Officer Andrew H. FooteNew Madrid/Island No. 10, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson
• Major General William S. RosecransIuka, Corinth, Chickamauga, Stones River
• Major General Ulysses S. GrantPort Gibson, Fort Henry, Shiloh, Belmont, Champion Hill, Vicksburg +3 more
• Major General James B. McPhersonRaymond
• Major General John A. McClernandBig Black River Bridge, Arkansas Post
• Brigadier General H. Judson KilpatrickMonroe's Cross, Lovejoy's Station, Buck Head Creek, Waynesborough
• Brigadier General Edward H. HobsonBuffington Island
• Major General Don Carlos BuellShiloh, Perryville
• Flag Officer Charles H. DavisMemphis
• Colonel Charles ElletMemphis
• Brigadier General Thomas T. CrittendenMurfreesboro
• Colonel Adolph EnglemannJackson
• Brigadier General Jeremiah C. SullivanParker's Cross Roads
• Lieutenant Colonel Edward BloodgoodBrentwood
• Colonel John W. FosterBlountsville
• Major General Ambrose E. BurnsideBlue Springs, Campbell's Station, Fort Sanders
• Brigadier General Samuel D. SturgisDandridge, Fair Garden, Brice's Cross Roads, Mossy Creek
• Colonel Edward M. McCookFair Garden
• Major General C.C. WashburnMemphis
• Colonel C.R. ThompsonJohnsonville
• Lieutenant Commander Edward M. KingJohnsonville
• Major General John M. SchofieldColumbia, Kolb's Farm, Utoy Creek, Wyse Fork, Spring Hill, Franklin
• Major General Lovell H. RousseauMurfreesboro
• Brigadier General Robert MilroyMurfreesboro
• Major General George StonemanMarion, Saltville
• Colonel Abel StreightDay's Gap
• Rear Admiral David G. FarragutMobile Bay
• Major General Gordon GrangerMobile Bay, Franklin
• Captain Emil AdamsAthens
• Major General James H. WilsonSelma
• Acting Rear Admiral David D. PorterArkansas Post, Grand Gulf
• Major General Benjamin M. PrentissHelena
• Major General Joseph HookerRinggold Gap, New Hope Church, Kolb's Farm, Wauhatchie
• Major General Oliver O. HowardPickett's Mill, Ezra Church
• Major General James B. SteedmanDalton II
• Brigadier General John M. CorseAllatoona
• Brigadier General William B. HazenFort McAllister II
• Brigadier General Charles C. WalcuttGriswoldville
• Brevet Colonel Lewis JordanCorydon
• Brigadier General Albin F. SchoepfCamp Wildcat
• Colonel August WillichRowlett's Station
• Colonel Cyrus L. DunhamMunfordville
• Colonel John T. WilderMunfordville, Chattanooga
• Brigadier General William NelsonIvy Mountain, Richmond
• Colonel Joshua W. SillIvy Mountain
• Colonel Stephen G. HicksPaducah
• Lieutenant Commander James W. ShirkPaducah
• Brigadier General Stephen Gano BurbridgeCynthiana
• Colonel Hermann LiebMilliken's Bend
• Brigadier General Alfred W. ElletGoodrich's Landing
• Brigadier General William Sooy SmithOkolona
• Major General A.J. SmithTupelo
• Major General Henry W. HalleckCorinth
• Major General Henry SlocumBentonville, Averasborough
• Brigadier General James ShackelfordSalineville, Bean's Station
• Major General Francis P. BlairRivers' Bridge
• Major General Edward O.C. OrdHatchie's Bridge
• Major General Stephen A. HurlbutHatchie's Bridge
• Colonel Absalom B. MooreHartsville
• Colonel A.C. HardingDover
• Colonel John CoburnThompson's Station
• Colonel Albert S. HallVaught's Hill
• Colonel Edward HatchCollierville
• Major Lionel F. BoothFort Pillow
• Major William F. BradfordFort Pillow
• Brigadier General Alvan C. GillemBull's Gap
• Brigadier General Stephen BurbridgeSaltville

Fighting in the western theater of the Civil War stretched across Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and it also touched the part of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi River. Coastal actions in these states fell under the lower seaboard theater instead, with Mobile Bay being the lone exception. Nearly everything else fought east of the Appalachian Mountains belonged to the eastern theater, while campaigns west of the Mississippi River made up the trans-Mississippi theater.

Because the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland rivers cut straight into the South's farming heartland, this region gave Union forces a natural corridor for advancing deep into Confederate territory. The Confederacy, meanwhile, had to stretch thin resources across a vast expanse. Its railroads ran mostly north to south rather than east to west, a layout that made it hard to move reinforcements and supplies westward from the more industrial and densely populated eastern Confederacy.

Union efforts got underway in September 1861, aimed at wresting Kentucky from Confederate control, since more than half the state remained in Southern hands through late 1861 and into 1862. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, leading the Army of the Tennessee, notched early wins in Kentucky and western Tennessee during this period, seizing Forts Henry and Donelson. His army, joined by the Army of the Ohio, then broke the Confederate Army of Mississippi under General Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, pushing Confederate forces out of western Tennessee. From there Union troops pressed into Mississippi and took Corinth. Grant's campaign against Vicksburg followed, ending in its capture during 1862 and 1863. At the same time, the Army of the Ohio managed to stop a Confederate push into Kentucky and seized large stretches of Tennessee through victory at Stones River and the Tullahoma Campaign of 1863, battling all the while against the Confederate Army of Tennessee. That army's commander, Braxton Bragg, frequently drew criticism for what many saw as weak generalship.

Union momentum toward Georgia stalled temporarily at Chickamauga, and Union forces soon found themselves under siege at Chattanooga. Grant then took charge of the newly formed Military Division of the Mississippi, bringing in reinforcements from both the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Potomac in the east. By November 1863 the siege at Chattanooga had been broken. Once Lincoln named Grant General-in-Chief, Grant handed command of the combined armies to Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. From Chattanooga, Sherman launched his drive on Atlanta, the Confederacy's vital rail center, and afterward marched onward to the Atlantic coast, dealing the South a severe blow both in supply lines and in morale. Reaching the sea, he then turned his forces into the Carolinas. Fighting in this theater came to a close in May 1865, when Confederate troops surrendered to Union forces in North Carolina and Florida, not long after Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Historians and the public alike tend to focus less on the western theater than on the eastern one, largely because eastern battles unfolded closer to capital cities and major population centers. Yet some scholars argue that the war was actually decided in the west. Whereas the eastern theater sat largely deadlocked until 1864, Union armies in the west had, from 1861 onward, steadily encircled and pushed back Confederate forces until they were finally compelled to surrender. This progress came through an almost unbroken string of Union victories, marred by just one setback, suffered at Chickamauga.

Theater of operations

Geography and the rhythm of campaigning together defined this region of conflict. In its original sense it covered the land east of the Mississippi River and west of the Appalachian Mountains, leaving out actions along the Gulf Coast and the Eastern Seaboard. That boundary shifted, however, once William Tecumseh Sherman's Union armies pushed southeast out of Chattanooga, Tennessee during 1864 and 1865, pulling Georgia and the Carolinas into the theater's scope.

By several measures, this western zone carried the greatest weight of any theater in the conflict. Seizing control of the Mississippi River stood among the central goals of Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan, devised by the Union's General-in-Chief. Military historian J. F. C. Fuller characterized the Union advance here as a vast wheeling maneuver, one that pivoted through Kentucky, ran south along the Mississippi, and then swung east across Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Apart from the Battle of Chickamauga and a handful of bold cavalry or guerrilla raids, the Confederacy endured four years of near-unbroken setbacks in this region, and even its occasional tactical standoffs tended to unravel into strategic losses. Union commanders generally proved superior to their Confederate counterparts, with cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest standing as the notable exception. As fighting dragged on, numerous Union officers serving in the West came to see emancipation less as an ideal and more as a tool of war, one that could strip the Confederacy of its labor supply while swelling Union ranks with formerly enslaved men. This practical view of emancipation shaped Union military policy across the region in meaningful ways. Because it lacked the closeness to enemy capitals and major population centers, and the newspaper attention that came with them, that characterized fighting in the East, and because it produced none of the stunning Confederate triumphs or celebrated figures like Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, and Stonewall Jackson, this theater drew far less notice than its eastern counterpart, whether from contemporaries or later historians. The steady erosion of Confederate armies and territory that Union forces achieved in the West largely escaped public recognition. The theater's story extended past ordinary clashes between Union and Confederate forces to include conflicts with Native American nations, federal attempts to regulate slavery in western territories, and disputes over loyalty in the border regions.

The system the United States National Park Service uses to classify campaigns offers finer distinctions than what appears here. Several minor NPS-designated campaigns have been left out, and others folded into broader groupings. Of the 117 battles the NPS attributes to this theater, only a portion receive discussion in this account. Boxed text set in the right margin identifies the NPS campaigns tied to each section.

Principal Union commanders of the western theater

The list that follows identifies the leading Confederate generals who directed operations in the western theater.

Early operations (June 1861 - January 1862)

In the war's opening months, attention centered on two states whose fate could determine much: Missouri and Kentucky. Losing either one threatened serious damage to the Union effort. Missouri stayed within Union control largely thanks to Captain Nathaniel Lyon, whose June victory at Boonville secured the state. Kentucky presented a trickier situation: its governor favored the Confederacy while its legislature leaned Union, and the state had declared itself neutral in the conflict. That neutrality broke down on September 3, when Confederate Major General Leonidas Polk marched into Columbus, a town vital for controlling the lower Mississippi. Just two days afterward, Union Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant took Paducah on his own initiative, a foreshadowing of the boldness he would later become known for. From that point forward, both sides ignored Kentucky's claimed neutrality entirely. Although the bulk of the state government stayed loyal to the Union, Confederate sympathizers within the legislature broke away and formed their own government at Russellville, which the Confederacy then admitted as a member state. Historians view this outcome as a Union success overall, since Kentucky never officially joined the Confederacy, and had the Union been shut out of the state, its subsequent campaigns into Tennessee would have faced far greater obstacles.

Confederate forces stretching from Arkansas to the Cumberland Gap fell under the command of General