page_title: Western Theater of the American Civil War
section_title: Early operations (June 1861 – January 1862)
hierarchical_section_title: Western Theater of the American Civil War / Early operations (June 1861 – January 1862)
caption_attribution_description: English: Map 2 of 5 of the Map of the Western theater of the American Civil War. Drawn by Hal Jespersen in Adobe Illustrator CS5. Graphic source file is available at http://cwmaps.com/
context_page_description: The Western Theater of the American Civil War encompassed major military operations in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Louisiana east of the Mississippi River. Operations on the coasts of these states, except for Mobile Bay, are considered part of the Lower Seaboard Theater. Most other operations east of the Mississippi are part of the Eastern Theater. Operations west of the Mississippi River took place in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
  The Western Theater served as an avenue of military operations by Union armies directly into the agricultural heartland of the South via the major rivers of the region. The Confederacy was forced to defend an enormous area with limited resources. Most railroads ran north to south, as opposed to east to west, making it difficult to send Confederate troops and supplies to troops further from the more heavily populated and industrialized areas of the eastern Confederacy.
  Union operations began with securing Kentucky in Union hands in September 1861. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S.
context_section_description: 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. 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 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 the Missouri, under Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, and the Department of the Ohio, under Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell (who had replaced Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh 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 Henry 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.
caption: From Belmont (November 1861) to Shiloh (April 1862)
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