Western Theater of the American Civil War This article presents an overview of major military and naval operations in the Western Theater of the American Civil War . Theater of operations . The Western Theater was an area defined by both geography and the sequence of campaigning . It originally represented the area east of the Mississippi River and west of the Appalachian Mountains . It excluded operations against the Gulf Coast and the Eastern Seaboard , but as the war progressed and William Tecumseh Sherman ' s Union armies moved southeast from Chattanooga , Tennessee , in 1864 and 1865 , the definition of the theater expanded to encompass their operations in Georgia and the Carolinas . For operations west of the Mississippi River see Trans - Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War . The West was by some measures the most important theater of the war . The Confederacy was forced to defend with limited resources an enormous land mass , which was subject to Union thrusts along multiple avenues of approach , including major rivers that led directly to the agricultural heartland of the South . Capture of the Mississippi River was one of the key tenets of Union General Winfield Scott ' s Anaconda Plan . The Eastern Theater received considerably more attention than the Western , both at the time and in subsequent historical accounts . This is due to a number of factors , including the proximity of the opposing capitals , the concentration of newspapers in the major cities of the East , several unanticipated Confederate victories , and the fame of Eastern generals such as Robert E . Lee , George B . McClellan , and Stonewall Jackson . Because of this , the progress that Union forces made in defeating Confederate armies in the West and overtaking Confederate territory went nearly unnoticed . Military historian J . F . C . Fuller has described the Union invasion as an immense turning movement , a left wheel that started in Kentucky , headed south down the Mississippi River , and then east through Tennessee , Georgia , and the Carolinas . With the exception of the Battle of Chickamauga and some daring raids by cavalry or guerrilla forces , the four years in the West marked a string of almost continuous defeats for the Confederates ; or , at best , tactical draws that eventually turned out to be strategic reversals . And the arguably most successful Union generals of the war ( Grant , Thomas , Sherman , and Sheridan ) came from this theater , consistently outclassing most of their Confederate opponents ( with the possible exception of cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest ) . The campaign classification established by the United States National Park Service is more fine - grained than the one used in this article . Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and some have been combined into larger categories . Only a few of the 117 battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described . Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns associated with each section . Early operations ( June 1861 – January 1862 ) . The focus early in the war was on two critical states : Missouri and Kentucky . The loss of either would have been a crippling blow to the Union cause . Primarily because of the successes of Captain Nathaniel Lyon and his victory at Boonville in June , Missouri was held in the Union . The state of Kentucky , with a pro - Confederate governor and a pro - Union legislature , had declared neutrality between the opposing sides . This neutrality was first violated on September 3 , when Confederate Maj . Gen . Leonidas Polk occupied Columbus , considered key to controlling the Lower Mississippi , and two days later Union Brig . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant , displaying the personal initiative that would characterize his later career , seized Paducah . Henceforth , neither adversary respected the proclaimed neutrality of the state ; while the most of the state government remained loyal to the Union , the pro - Confederate elements of the legislature organized a separate government in Russellville that was admitted into the Confederate States . This sequence of events is considered a victory for the Union because Kentucky never formally sided with the Confederacy , and if the Union had been prevented from maneuvering within Kentucky , its later successful campaigns in Tennessee would have been more difficult . On the Confederate side , General Albert Sidney Johnston commanded all forces from Arkansas to the Cumberland Gap . He was faced with the problem of defending a broad front with numerically inferior forces , but he had an excellent system of lateral communications , permitting him to move troops rapidly where they were needed , and he had two able subordinates , Polk and Maj . Gen . William J . Hardee . Johnston also gained political support from secessionists in central and western counties of Kentucky via a new Confederate capital at Bowling Green , set up by the Russellville Convention . The alternative government was recognized by the Confederate government , which admitted Kentucky into the Confederacy in December 1861 . Using the rail system resources of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad , Polk was able to quickly fortify and equip the Confederate base at Columbus . The Union military command in the West , however , suffered from a lack of unified command , organized by November into three separate departments : the Department of Kansas , under Maj . Gen . David Hunter , the Department of Missouri , under Maj . Gen . Henry W . Halleck , and the Department of the Ohio , under Brig . Gen . Don Carlos Buell ( who had replaced Brig . Gen . William T . Sherman ) . By January 1862 , this disunity of command was apparent because no strategy for operations in the Western theater could be agreed upon . Buell , under political pressure to invade and hold pro - Union East Tennessee , moved slowly in the direction of Nashville , but achieved nothing more substantial toward his goal than minor victories at Middle Creek ( January 10 , 1862 ) under Col . James A . Garfield and Mill Springs ( January 19 ) under Brig . Gen . George H . Thomas . ( Mill Springs was a significant victory in a strategic sense because it broke the end of the Confederate Western defensive line and opened the Cumberland Gap to East Tennessee , but it got Buell no closer to Nashville . ) In Halleck ' s department , Grant demonstrated up the Tennessee River by attacking the Confederate camp at Belmont to divert attention from Buell ' s intended advance , which did not occur . On February 1 , 1862 , after repeated requests by Grant , Halleck authorized Grant to move against Fort Henry on the Tennessee . Tennessee , Cumberland , and Mississippi Rivers ( February – June 1862 ) . Grant moved swiftly , starting his troops up the Tennessee River toward Fort Henry on river transports on February 2 . His operations in the campaign were well coordinated with United States Navy Flag Officer Andrew H . Foote . The fort was poorly situated on a floodplain and virtually indefensible against gunboats , with many of its guns under water . Because of the previous neutrality of Kentucky , the Confederates could not build river defenses at a more strategic location inside the state , so they settled for a site just inside the border of Tennessee . Brig . Gen . Lloyd Tilghman withdrew almost all of his garrison on February 5 , moving them across country 11 miles ( 18 km ) to the east to Fort Donelson . With a reduced crew manning the cannons , Tilghman fought an artillery duel with the Union squadron for nearly three hours before he determined that further resistance was useless . The Tennessee River was then open for future Union operations into the South . Fort Donelson , on the Cumberland River , was more defensible than Henry , and Navy assaults on the fort were ineffective . Grant ' s army marched cross - country in pursuit of Tilghman ' s men and attempted immediate assaults on the fort from the rear , but they were unsuccessful . On February 15 , the Confederate forces under Brig . Gen . John B . Floyd attempted to escape and launched a surprise assault against the Union right flank ( commanded by Brig . Gen . John A . McClernand ) , driving McClernand ' s division back but not creating the opening they needed to slip away . Grant recovered from this temporary reversal and assaulted the weakened Confederate right . Trapped in the fort and the town of Dover , Tennessee , Confederate Brig . Gen . Simon B . Buckner surrendered his command of 11 , 500 men and many needed guns and supplies to Grant ' s demand for " unconditional surrender " . The combined victories at Henry and Donelson were the first significant Union victories in the war , and two major rivers became available for invasions into Tennessee . Johnston ' s forward defense was broken . As Grant had anticipated , Polk ' s position at Columbus was untenable , and he withdrew soon after Donelson fell . Grant had also cut the Memphis and Ohio Railroad that previously had allowed Confederate forces to move laterally in support of each other . General P . G . T . Beauregard had arrived from the East to report to Johnston in February , and he commanded all Confederate forces between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers , which effectively divided the unity of command so that Johnston controlled only a small force at Murfreesboro , Tennessee . Beauregard planned to concentrate his forces in the vicinity of Corinth , Mississippi , and prepare for an offensive . Johnston moved his force to concentrate with Beauregard ' s by late March . The preparations for the Union campaign did not proceed smoothly , and Halleck seemed more concerned with his standing in relation to General - in - Chief George B . McClellan than he did with understanding the Confederate Army was divided and could be defeated in detail . Further , he could not agree with his peer , Buell , now in Nashville , on a joint course of action . He sent Grant up the Tennessee River while Buell remained in Nashville . On March 11 , President Lincoln appointed Halleck the commander of all forces from the Missouri River to Knoxville , Tennessee , thus achieving the needed unity of command , and Halleck ordered Buell to join Grant ' s forces at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River . On April 6 , the combined Confederate forces under Beauregard and Johnston surprised Grant ' s unprepared Army of West Tennessee with a massive dawn assault at Pittsburg Landing in the Battle of Shiloh . In the first day of the battle , the Confederate onslaught drove Grant back against the Tennessee but could not defeat him . Johnston was mortally wounded leading an infantry charge that day ; he was considered by Jefferson Davis to be the most effective general in the Confederacy at that time . On the second day , April 7 , Grant received reinforcements from Buell and launched a counterattack that drove back the Confederates . Grant failed to pursue the retreating enemy and received enormous criticism for this and for the great loss of life — more casualties ( almost 24 , 000 ) than all previous American battles combined . Union control of the Mississippi River began to tighten . On April 7 , while the Confederates were retreating from Shiloh , Union Maj . Gen . John Pope defeated Beauregard ' s isolated force at Island Number 10 , opening the river almost as far south as Memphis . On May 18 , Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans , the South ' s most significant seaport . Army Maj . Gen . Benjamin Butler occupied the city with a strong military government that caused considerable resentment among the civilian population . Although Beauregard had little concentrated strength available to oppose a southward movement by Halleck , the Union general showed insufficient drive to take advantage of the situation . He waited until he assembled a large army , combining the forces of Buell ' s Army of the Ohio , Grant ' s Army of West Tennessee , and Pope ' s Army of the Mississippi , to converge at Pittsburg Landing . He moved slowly in the direction of the critical rail junction at Corinth , taking four weeks to cover the twenty miles ( 32 km ) from Shiloh , stopping nightly to entrench . By May 3 , Halleck was within ten miles of the city but took another three weeks to advance eight miles closer to Corinth , by which time Halleck was ready to start a massive bombardment of the Confederate defenses . At this time , Beauregard decided not to make a costly defensive stand and withdrew without hostilities during the night of May 29 . Grant did not command directly in the Corinth campaign . Halleck had reorganized his army , giving Grant the powerless position of second - in - command and shuffling divisions from the three armies into three " wings " . When Halleck moved east to replace McClellan as general - in - chief , Grant resumed his field command , now named the District of West Tennessee . But before he left , Halleck dispersed his forces , sending Buell towards Chattanooga , Sherman to Memphis , one division to Arkansas , and Rosecrans to hold a covering position around Corinth . Part of Halleck ' s reason for this was that Lincoln desired to capture eastern Tennessee and protect the Unionists in the region . Kentucky , Tennessee , and northern Mississippi ( June 1862 – January 1863 ) . While Halleck accomplished little following Corinth , Confederate Gen . Braxton Bragg succeeded Beauregard ( on June 27 , for health reasons ) in command of his 56 , 000 troops of the Army of Tennessee , in Tupelo , Mississippi , due south of Corinth . But he determined that an advance directly north from Tupelo was not practical . He left Maj . Gens . Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn to distract Grant and shifted 35 , 000 men by rail through Mobile , Alabama , to Chattanooga . Even though he did not leave Tupelo until July 21 , he was able to reach Chattanooga before Buell could . Bragg ' s general plan was to invade Kentucky in a joint operation with Maj . Gen . Edmund Kirby Smith , cut Buell ' s lines of communications , defeat him , and then turn back to defeat Grant . Kirby Smith left Knoxville on August 14 , forced the Union to evacuate Cumberland Gap , defeated a small Union force at the Battle of Richmond ( Kentucky ) , and reached Lexington on August 30 . Bragg departed Chattanooga just before Smith reached Lexington , while Buell moved north from Nashville to Bowling Green . But Bragg moved quickly and by September 14 had interposed his army on Buell ' s supply lines from Louisville . Bragg was reluctant to develop this situation because he was outnumbered by Buell ; if he had been able to combine with Kirby Smith , he would have been numerically equal , but Smith ' s command was separate , and Smith believed that Bragg could capture Louisville without his assistance . Buell , under pressure from the government to take aggressive action , was almost relieved of duty ( only the personal reluctance of George H . Thomas to assume command from his superior at the start of a campaign prevented it ) . As he approached Perryville , Kentucky , he began to concentrate his army in the face of Confederate forces there . Bragg was not initially present with his army , having decided to attend the inauguration ceremony of a Confederate governor of Kentucky in Frankfort . On October 8 , fighting began at Perryville over possession of water sources , and as the fighting escalated , Bragg ' s Army of Mississippi achieved some tactical success in an assault against a single corps of Buell ' s Army of the Ohio . That evening Bragg realized that he was facing Buell ' s entire army and ordered a retreat to Harrodsburg , where he was joined by Kirby Smith ' s Army of Kentucky on October 10 . Despite having a strong combined force , Bragg made no attempt to regain the initiative . Buell was equally passive . Bragg retreated through the Cumberland Gap and returned to Murfreesboro by way of Chattanooga . While Buell was facing Bragg ' s threat in Kentucky , Confederate operations in northern Mississippi were aimed at preventing Buell ' s reinforcement by Grant , who was preparing for his upcoming Vicksburg campaign . Halleck had departed for Washington , and Grant was left without interference as commander of the District of West Tennessee . On September 14 , Maj . Gen . Sterling Price moved his Confederate Army of the West to Iuka , 20 miles ( 32 km ) east of Corinth . He intended to link up with Maj . Gen . Earl Van Dorn ' s Army of West Tennessee and operate against Grant . But Grant sent forces under Maj . Gens . William S . Rosecrans and Edward Ord to attack Price ' s force at Iuka . Rosecrans won a minor victory at the Battle of Iuka ( September 19 ) , but poor coordination of forces and an acoustic shadow allowed Price to escape from the intended Union double envelopment . Price and Van Dorn decided to unite their forces and attack the concentration of Union troops at Corinth and then advance into West or Middle Tennessee . In the Second Battle of Corinth ( October 3 – 4 ) , they attacked the fortified Union troops but were repulsed with serious losses . Retreating to the northwest , they escaped pursuit by Rosecrans ' s exhausted army , but their objectives of threatening Middle Tennessee and supporting Bragg were foiled . As winter set in , the Union government replaced Buell with Rosecrans . After a period of resupplying and training his army in Nashville , Rosecrans moved against Bragg at Murfreesboro just after Christmas . In the Battle of Stones River , Bragg surprised Rosecrans with a powerful assault on December 31 , pushing the Union forces back to a small perimeter against the Tennessee River . But on January 2 , 1863 , further attempts to assault Rosecrans were beaten back decisively and Bragg withdrew his army southeast to Tullahoma . In proportion to the size of the armies , the casualties at Stones River ( about 12 , 000 on each side ) made it the bloodiest battle of the war . At the end of the campaign , Bragg ' s threat against Kentucky had been defeated , and he effectively yielded control of Middle Tennessee . Vicksburg Campaigns ( December 1862 – July 1863 ) . Abraham Lincoln believed that the river fortress city of Vicksburg , Mississippi , was a key to winning the war . Vicksburg and Port Hudson were the last remaining strongholds that prevented full Union control of the Mississippi River . Situated on high bluffs overlooking a sharp bend in the river and called the " Gibraltar of the Mississippi " , Vicksburg was nearly invulnerable to naval assault . Admiral David Farragut had found this directly in his failed operations of May 1862 . The overall plan to capture Vicksburg was for Ulysses S . Grant to move south from Memphis and Maj . Gen . Nathaniel P . Banks to move north from Baton Rouge . Banks ' s advance was slow to develop and bogged down at Port Hudson , offering little assistance to Grant . First campaign . Grant ' s first campaign was a two - pronged movement . William T . Sherman sailed down the Mississippi River with 32 , 000 men while Grant was to move in parallel through Mississippi by railroad with 40 , 000 . Grant advanced 80 miles ( 130 km ) , but his supply lines were cut by Confederate cavalry under Earl Van Dorn at Holly Springs , forcing him to fall back . Sherman reached the Yazoo River just north of the city of Vicksburg , but without support from Grant ' s half of the mission , he was repulsed in bloody assaults against Chickasaw Bayou in late December . Political considerations then intruded . Illinois politician and Maj . Gen . John A . McClernand obtained permission from Lincoln to recruit an army in southern Illinois and command it on a river - born expedition aimed at Vicksburg . He was able to get Sherman ' s corps assigned to him , but it departed Memphis before McClernand could arrive . When Sherman returned from the Yazoo , McClernand asserted control . He inexplicably detoured from his primary objective by capturing Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River , but before he could resume his main advance , Grant had reasserted control , and McClernand became a corps commander in Grant ' s army . For the rest of the winter , Grant attempted five separate projects to reach the city by moving through or reengineering , rivers , canals , and bayous to the north of Vicksburg . All five were unsuccessful ; Grant explained afterward that he had expected these setbacks and was simply attempting to keep his army busy and motivated , but many historians believe he really hoped that some would succeed and that they were too ambitious . Second campaign . The second campaign , beginning in the spring of 1863 , was successful and is considered Grant ' s greatest achievement of the war ( and a classic campaign of military history ) . He knew that he could not attack through Mississippi from the northwest because of the vulnerability of his supply line ; river - born approaches had failed repeatedly . So after movement became possible on dirt roads that were finally drying from the winter rains , Grant moved the bulk of his army down the western bank of the Mississippi . On April 16 , U . S . Navy gunboats and troop transports managed at great risk to slip past the Vicksburg defensive guns and were able to ferry Grant ' s army across the river to land south of Vicksburg at Bruinsburg . Grant employed two strategic diversions to mask his intentions : a feint by Sherman north of Vicksburg and a daring cavalry raid through central Mississippi by Colonel Benjamin Grierson , known as Grierson ' s Raid . The former was inconclusive , but the latter was a success . Grierson was able to draw out significant Confederate forces , dispersing them around the state . Grant faced two Confederate armies in his campaign : the Vicksburg garrison , commanded by Maj . Gen . John C . Pemberton , and forces in Jackson , commanded by Gen . Joseph E . Johnston , the overall theater commander . Rather than simply heading directly north to the city , Grant chose to cut the line of communications ( and reinforcement ) between the two Confederate armies . His army headed swiftly northeast toward Jackson . Meanwhile , Grant brought with him a limited supply line . The conventional history of the campaign indicates that he cut loose from " all " of his supplies , perplexing Pemberton , who attempted to interdict his nonexistent lines at Raymond on May 12 . In reality , Grant relied on the local economy to provide him only foodstuffs for men and animals , but there was a constant stream of wagons carrying ammunition , coffee , hardtack , salt , and other supplies for his army . Sherman ' s corps captured Jackson on May 14 . The entire army then turned west to confront Pemberton in front of Vicksburg . The decisive battle was at Champion Hill , the effective last stand for Pemberton before he withdrew into his entrenchments around the city . Grant ' s army assaulted the Confederate works twice at great cost at the start of the Siege of Vicksburg but then settled in for a lengthy siege . The soldiers and civilians in Vicksburg suffered greatly from Union bombardment and impending starvation . They clung to hope that General Johnston would arrive with reinforcements , but Johnston was both cut off and too cautious . On July 4 , Pemberton surrendered his army and the city to Grant . In conjunction with the defeat of Robert E . Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg the previous day , Vicksburg is widely considered one of the turning points of the war . By July 8 , after Banks captured Port Hudson , the entire Mississippi River was in Union hands , and the Confederacy was split in two . Tullahoma , Chickamauga , and Chattanooga ( June – December 1863 ) . After his victory at Stones River , Rosecrans occupied Murfreesboro for almost six months while Bragg rested in Tullahoma , establishing a long defensive line that was intended to block Union advances against the strategic city of Chattanooga in his rear . In April , Union cavalry under Col . Abel Streight moved against the railroad that supplied Bragg ' s army in Middle Tennessee , hoping it would cause them to withdraw to Georgia . Streight ' s brigade raided through Mississippi and Alabama , fighting against Nathan Bedford Forrest . Streight ' s Raid ended when his exhausted men surrendered near Rome , Georgia , on May 3 . In June , Rosecrans finally advanced against Bragg in a brilliant , almost bloodless , campaign of maneuver , the Tullahoma Campaign , and drove Bragg from Middle Tennessee . During this period , Brig . Gen . John Hunt Morgan and his 2 , 460 Confederate cavalrymen rode west from Sparta in middle Tennessee on June 11 , intending to divert the attention of Ambrose Burnside ' s Army of the Ohio , which was moving toward Knoxville , from Southern forces in the state . At the start of the Tullahoma Campaign , Morgan moved northward . For 46 days as they rode over 1 , 000 miles ( 1 , 600 km ) , Morgan ’ s cavalrymen terrorized a region from Tennessee to northern Ohio , destroying bridges , railroads , and government stores before being captured ; in November they made a daring escape from the Ohio Penitentiary , at Columbus , Ohio , and returned to the South . After delaying for several weeks in Tullahoma , Rosecrans planned to flush Bragg out of Chattanooga by crossing the Tennessee River , heading south , and interdicting the Confederate supply lines from Georgia . He began operations on August 18 and used a two - week bombardment of Chattanooga as a diversion . The Confederate high command reinforced Bragg with a division from Mississippi and a corps ( Longstreet ' s ) from Virginia . Rosecrans pursued Bragg into the rugged mountains of northwestern Georgia , only to find that a trap had been set . Bragg started the Battle of Chickamauga ( September 19 – 20 , 1863 ) when he launched a three - division assault against the corps of George H . Thomas . A command misunderstanding allowed a major gap to appear in the Union line as reinforcements arrived , and Longstreet was able to drive his corps into that gap and send the Union Army into retreat . If not for the defensive stand by a portion of the line led by Thomas ( " The Rock of Chickamauga " ) , the Union Army would have been completely routed . Rosecrans , devastated by his defeat , withdrew his army to Chattanooga , where Bragg besieged it , occupying the high ground dominating the city . Back in Vicksburg , Grant was resting his army and planning for a campaign that would capture Mobile and push east . But when news of the dire straits of Rosecrans ' s Army of the Cumberland reached Washington , Grant was ordered to rescue them . On October 17 , he was given command of the Military Division of the Mississippi , controlling all of the armies in the Western Theater . He replaced Rosecrans with Thomas and traveled to Chattanooga , where he approved a plan to open a new supply line ( the " Cracker Line " ) , allowing supplies and reinforcements to reach the city . Soon the troops were joined by 40 , 000 more , from the Army of the Tennessee under Sherman and from the Army of the Potomac under Joseph Hooker . While the Union army expanded , the Confederate army contracted ; Bragg dispatched Longstreet ' s corps to Knoxville to hold off an advance by Burnside . The Battles for Chattanooga began in earnest on November 24 , 1863 , as Hooker took Lookout Mountain , which is one of two dominant peaks over the city . The next day , Grant planned a double envelopment of Bragg ' s position on the other mountain , Missionary Ridge . Sherman was to attack from the north , Hooker from the south , and Thomas was to hold the center . But Sherman ' s attack bogged down in confusion , and Grant ordered Thomas to launch a minor attack as a diversion to relieve pressure on Sherman . Thomas ' s troops , caught up in enthusiasm and anxious to redeem themselves after their humiliation at Chickamauga , continued their initial attack by charging up the imposing ridge , breaking the Confederate line and causing them to retreat . Chattanooga was saved ; along with the failure of Longstreet ' s Knoxville Campaign against Burnside , politically sensitive eastern Tennessee was free of Confederate control . An avenue of invasion pointed directly to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy . Bragg , whose personal friendship with Confederate President Jefferson Davis saved his command following his defeats at Perryville and Stones River , was finally relieved of duty and replaced by General Joseph E . Johnston . Atlanta Campaign ( May – September 1864 ) . In March 1864 , Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and went east to assume command of all the Union armies . Sherman succeeded him in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi . Grant devised a strategy for simultaneous advances across the Confederacy . It was intended to destroy or fix Robert E . Lee ' s army in Virginia with three major thrusts ( under Meade , Butler , and Sigel ) launched in the direction of Richmond and in the Shenandoah Valley ; capture Mobile with an army under Nathaniel Banks ; and destroy Johnston ' s army while driving toward Atlanta . Most of the initiatives failed : Butler became bogged down in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign ; Sigel was quickly defeated in the valley ; Banks became occupied in the ill - fated Red River Campaign ; Meade and Grant experienced many setbacks and much bloodshed in the Overland Campaign before finally settling down to a siege of Petersburg . Sherman ' s Atlanta Campaign was more successful . At the start of the campaign , Sherman ' s Military Division of the Mississippi consisted of three armies : James B . McPherson ' s Army of the Tennessee ( Sherman ' s old army under Grant ) , John M . Schofield ' s Army of the Ohio , and George H . Thomas ' s Army of the Cumberland . Opposing him was the Confederate Army of Tennessee , commanded by Joseph E . Johnston . Sherman outnumbered Johnston 98 , 000 to 50 , 000 , but his ranks were depleted by many furloughed soldiers , and Johnston received 15 , 000 reinforcements from Alabama in April . The campaign opened with several battles in May and June 1864 as Sherman pressed Johnston southeast through mountainous terrain . Sherman avoided frontal assaults against most of Johnston ' s positions , instead maneuvering in flanking marches around the Confederate defenses . When Sherman flanked the defensive lines ( almost exclusively around Johnston ' s left flank ) , Johnston would retreat to another prepared position . The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain ( June 27 ) was a notable exception , in which Sherman attempted a frontal assault , against the advice of his subordinates , and suffered significant losses , losing 7 , 000 men versus 700 for Johnston . Both armies took advantage of the railroads as supply lines , with Johnston shortening his supply lines as he drew closer to Atlanta , and Sherman lengthening his own . However , Davis was becoming frustrated with Johnston , who he viewed was needlessly losing territory and was refusing to counterattack or even discuss his plans with Davis . Just before the Battle of Peachtree Creek ( July 20 ) in the outskirts of Atlanta , Jefferson Davis lost patience with Johnston ' s strategy and , fearing that Johnston would give up Atlanta without a battle , replaced him with the more aggressive Lt . Gen . John Bell Hood . Over the next six weeks , Hood would repeatedly attempt to attack a portion of Sherman ' s force which seemed isolated from the main body ; each attack failed , often with heavy casualties for the Confederate army . Sherman eventually cut Hood ' s supply lines from the south . Knowing that he was trapped , Hood evacuated Atlanta on the night of September 1 , burning military supplies and installations , causing a great conflagration in the city . Coincident with Sherman ' s triumph in Atlanta , Admiral David Farragut won the decisive naval Battle of Mobile Bay on August 24 . Steaming past the forts guarding the mouth of the bay , Farragut engaged and forced the surrender of the Confederate fleet defending the city , capturing Admiral Franklin Buchanan . The city itself , long a desired target of Grant ' s , would remain in Confederate hands until 1865 , but the last seaport east of the Mississippi on the Gulf Coast was closed , further tightening the Union blockade . The capture of Atlanta and Mobile Bay together boosted Northern morale and made an enormous contribution to the re - election of Abraham Lincoln . Franklin - Nashville Campaign ( September – December 1864 ) . While Sherman rested his army in preparation for offensive operations to the east , Hood embarked on a campaign to defeat Sherman by interfering with his lines of communications from Chattanooga . He drove west through Alabama and turned north toward Tennessee , hoping that Sherman would follow him and do battle . This was partially effective because his movements , and raids by Nathan Bedford Forrest , were causing considerable consternation to Sherman . However , the Union general did not fully engage . He sent Maj . Gen . George H . Thomas with portions of the Army of the Cumberland and most of the cavalry corps to Nashville to coordinate a defense against Hood , while taking the remainder of his army in the direction of Savannah , Georgia . Thomas ' s forces were divided : half were with him in Nashville and the other half with John M . Schofield , moving in pursuit from Atlanta , with other troops due to arrive from the Red River Campaign . Hood hoped to defeat Schofield before he could join forces with Thomas and before the reinforcements from Louisiana arrived . He had the chance at the Battle of Spring Hill in Tennessee ( November 29 , 1864 ) , but the Union troops were able to slip through the trap , due to the Confederate failure to cut the Columbia - to - Franklin turnpike in the Union rear . At the Battle of Franklin the following day , Hood launched repeated massive frontal assaults against strong entrenchments and suffered severe casualties . David J . Eicher wrote that Hood mortally wounded his army at Franklin but killed it at the Battle of Nashville ( December 15 – 16 ) . At Nashville , facing the combined force of Schofield and Thomas , he dug in a few miles south of the city and waited , hoping that Thomas would wreck his army on the Confederate fortifications . After a two - week preparation period in winter weather , during which he received great pressure from Grant and the Union government to attack , Thomas unleashed an overwhelming assault that sent Hood and his survivors in retreat to Franklin and then to Mississippi , never to recover as a fighting force . By his own request , Hood was relieved of command of the Army of Tennessee and Lt . Gen . Richard Taylor was appointed temporary commander of the army . Sherman ' s March to the Sea ( November – December 1864 ) . Sherman ' s Savannah Campaign is more popularly known as the March to the Sea . He and Grant believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy ' s strategic , economic , and psychological capacity for warfare were decisively broken . Sherman therefore applied the principles of scorched earth , ordering his troops to burn crops , kill livestock , consume supplies , and destroy civilian infrastructure along their path . This policy is one of the key tenets of a strategy of total war . Sherman ' s army left Atlanta on November 15 , 1864 , and was conducted in two columns separated by about 60 miles ( 100 km ) , the right under Maj . Gen . Oliver O . Howard and the left under Maj . Gen . Henry W . Slocum . Between these columns , the destruction was significant and spawned hatred for generations . Most of the resistance to Sherman ' s armies was from Georgia militia and home guards , although Joseph Wheeler ' s cavalry corps from the Army of Tennessee and some troops from the Department of South Carolina , Georgia , and Florida were also present but scattered . At Savannah on December 17 , Sherman encountered about 10 , 000 defending troops under Maj . Gen . William J . Hardee . Following lengthy artillery bombardments , Hardee abandoned the city and Sherman entered on December 22 , 1864 . He telegraphed to President Lincoln , " I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah . . . " Carolinas Campaign and the end of the war ( February – April 1865 ) . After Sherman captured Savannah , he was ordered by Grant to embark his army on ships to reinforce the Union armies in Virginia , where Grant was bogged down in the Siege of Petersburg against Robert E . Lee . Sherman proposed an alternative strategy . He persuaded Grant that he should march north through the Carolinas instead , destroying everything of military value along the way , similar to his march to the sea through Georgia . He was particularly interested in targeting South Carolina , the first state to secede from the Union , for the effect it would have on Southern morale . Sherman ' s plan was to bypass the minor Confederate troop concentrations at Augusta , Georgia , and Charleston , South Carolina , and reach Goldsboro , North Carolina , by March 15 , 1865 , where he would unite with Union forces commanded by John M . Schofield and Alfred H . Terry . As with his Georgia operations , he marched his armies in multiple directions simultaneously , confusing the scattered Confederate defenders as to his first true objective , which was the state capital Columbia . He faced the smaller and battered Army of Tennessee , again under the command of Gen . Joseph E . Johnston . On February 17 , Columbia surrendered to Sherman . Fires began in the city , and most of the central city was destroyed . The burning of Columbia has engendered controversy ever since , with some claiming the fires were accidental , others a deliberate act of vengeance . On that same day , the Confederates evacuated Charleston . On February 18 , Sherman ' s forces destroyed virtually anything of military value in Columbia . The last significant Confederate seaport , Wilmington , surrendered on February 22 . When Confederate President Jefferson Davis and general - in - chief Robert E . Lee felt that Beauregard could not properly handle the Union threat , they appointed Johnston to command the Confederate forces in the Carolinas , including the remnants of the Army of Tennessee . Concentrating his forces , which he named the Army of the South , Johnston attacked at the Battle of Bentonville ( March 19 – 21 ) , where he unsuccessfully attempted to defeat one wing of Sherman ' s army ( under Henry W . Slocum ) before it could reach Goldsboro or reunite with the other wing under Oliver O . Howard . While the initial Confederate attack overwhelmed the first Union line , Slocum was able to rally enough men to resist Johnston until Howard arrived at the battlefield overnight . Johnston remained on the battlefield for two more days , hoping for another Confederate victory similar to the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain , then retreated back to Raleigh , pursued by Sherman . On April 11 , Johnston received word that General Robert E . Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House ; this induced him to send a message to Sherman requesting terms for surrender . On April 18 , three days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln , Johnston signed an armistice with Sherman at Bennett Place , a farmhouse near Durham Station . Sherman got himself into political trouble by offering terms of surrender to Johnston that encompassed political issues as well as military , without authorization from Grant or the United States government . This created confusion on this issue , which lasted until April 26 , when Johnston agreed to purely military terms , similar to the terms offered to Lee at Appomattox Court House , and formally surrendered his army and all Confederate forces in the Carolinas , Georgia , and Florida . There were other battles during this time : Maj . Gen . James H . Wilson , commanding the cavalry corps of the Military Division of the Mississippi , launched a raid in late March into central Alabama with orders to destroy the remaining Confederate industry in the region , especially at Elyton and Selma . The only force remaining to resist Wilson was Nathan B . Forrest ' s cavalry force . Elyton fell to Union forces on March 29 , before Forrest had time to concentrate his troops ; Selma was captured on April 2 following a battle , which was Forrest ' s final battle and defeat . After destroying Selma ' s factories and railroads , Wilson continued eastward towards Georgia . He had to capture the bridge across the Chattahoochee River at Columbus , Georgia , with a battle , then he continued on to Macon ; here on April 21 , he received word from Sherman to " desist from further acts of war and devastation until your hear that hostilities are renewed " . In mid - March , Maj . Gen . Edward R . S . Canby , commanding the Military Division of West Mississippi , landed near the entrance of Mobile Bay and advanced along the eastern shore to Spanish Fort , where the Union forces started a siege on March 27 . On April 1 , Union forces command by Frederick Steele arrived from an overland route from Pensacola and started besieging Fort Blakely . On April 8 , Union forces opened an artillery bombardment on Spanish fort with ninety field pieces , followed by an infantry attack which overwhelmed the Confederate defenders . Canby then moved against Fort Blakely the next day , overrunning that fort as well . These battles forced the Confederate commander of Mobile , Maj . Gen . Dabney H . Maury , to evacuate the city . When he received word of Lee ' s and Johnston ' s surrenders , Lt . Gen . Richard Taylor , commander of the Confederate Department of Alabama , Mississippi , and East Louisiana , surrendered his forces to Canby on May 4 , while Forrest formally surrendered his force on May 9 . Wilson ' s cavalry officially took control of Tallahassee , Florida , on May 20 , the last Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi to be captured . A detachment of Wilson ' s cavalry captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis on May 10 near Irwinville , Georgia . Major land battles . The costliest land battles in the western theater , measured by casualties ( killed , wounded , captured , and missing ) , were :