Hard War

CHAPTER 8 · SEP 1863–SEP 1864 · The American Civil War, 1861–1865

The West finishes first. At Chickamauga (September 1863) the Confederacy wins its last great battle and then besieges the loser in Chattanooga — whereupon Grant arrives, reopens the supply line in five days, and in November his armies storm Missionary Ridge, the center taken by soldiers who charged up the mountain without orders. The gateway city falls (watch the grey-tan spread over East Tennessee), and in March 1864 Lincoln does what no president had done since Washington: gives one man, Grant, command of all the armies. Grant brings a theory, not a route: the Union’s advantage is simultaneo

The turn: The Brock Road crossroads, 7 May 1864.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.