Retired just last spring from uva where he represents Civil War History from 1999 until 2018. He is the author and editor of at least 39 books, including the union war, the american war, and most recently, coedited, civil war places, a beautiful book, his son took the photograph, and this is an absolute treasure if you have not had a chance to see it yet. With that, i would like to welcome gary gallagher. [applause] dr. Gallagher thank you, carrie. We are on a very tight schedule, which all of us are aware of, especially steve cushman. [laughter] dr. Gallagher steve asked me to say he would be signing autographs in the back after his talk. So just keep that in mind. I am delighted to be back for this years signature conference, and i would like to start by thanking carrie and liz for inviting me. This is redundant, will, but will sees to all the details and seamlessly, with amazing good humor. I really appreciate that. Its also fun to see so many friends here. It is like a homecoming, and that is very nice. It is also a reminder, i have been at the Huntington Library in california for seven months, and getting off the plane in dulles reminded me that you have what might be called weather, which i havent been used to dealing with so my feet are back on the ground in my charge this morning is to present an overview of theaters during the civil war. I have 30 minutes to accomplish that, then 10 minutes for lectures. We will each reinforce the time constraints as we go along. I have divided my lecture into two parts. The first will describe each major theater and key characteristics about each. In the second part of my talk, i will share my thoughts on the comparative importance of the theaters, and that is guaranteed to offend, i am sure, a number of people in the audience, i am sure. Im am ready for that. In fact, i welcome it. You should have a handout that shows the theaters that i am going to be talking about, and it has the title civil war military theaters, just in case you wonder what it is. Theater is a term that can be defined in many ways. As this conference makes clear, as you look at the roster of talks you will hear, it is entirely proper to explore the theater of emancipation, the theater of occupation by Union Military forces, the guerrilla war theater, theaters of naval warfare, riverines, blockading, commerce raiding, and on and on. There are many ways to approach the war under the rubric of theaters. I am going to focus on the three theaters most often used to discuss the theaters most often discussed by the people to experience the war, as well as by historians and others who have written about the conflict in the past 150 years. The military story of the civil war played out in three principal geographical theaters. They are the ones marked on your map. The first of those is the Eastern Theater, and you will have to pardon me if some of this seems so rudimentary. I am going to go through this anyway, so bear with me. The Eastern Theater embraces most of virginia, parts of western maryland, the lower tier of counties in central pennsylvania. That theater experienced, by far, the most concentrated combat of the war. Eight of the 10 costliest battles for the United States army took place in the Eastern Theater. More casualties took place within 20 miles of fredericksburg, virginia than in any other state in the confederacy. 19 of the 20 Union Regiments that suffered the highest percentage of Union Casualties during the war fought in the Eastern Theater, as did 10 of the 15 confederate regiments and 8 of the 10 confederate brigades that earned that grisly distinction. Several factors conspired to focus attention on the east, in the United States, in the confederacy, and in europe, and by europe, i mean in london and paris. The rest of it did not matter. [laughter] dr. Gallagher the Eastern Theater, among these factors, contained the two national capitals, they are only 100 miles apart. They also contain the wars two most famous armies, the army of the potomac and the army of Northern Virginia. It was the theater closest to the most large cities in the loyal state, and thus, the newspapers with the largest circulations in the United States. British and french observers habitually gauged the progress of the war by what was happening in the Eastern Theater. They had a view of the United States that is very similar to the view that new yorkers have of the United States. When they looked at the United States from london, in paris, they can see everything to the appalachians, and then it is just sort of indistinct beyond there, like everybody in new york can see all the way to the hudson. And then beyond there, it is indistinct. Then something out there, it might be los angeles. [laughter] a final factor that brought greater attention to the theater is the presence of r. E. Lee. Whose emergence gave way to what happened in this theater. It was a measure of the predominance of the Eastern Theater in the minds of people in the United States, and in the confederacy, that appomattox was believed to surrender to Ulysses S Grant in 1864 marks the end of the war despite thousands of confederate soldiers after april 9, 1865. And appomattox, as everyone in this room knows, after more than 150 years, remains a wildly understood moment as which the war came to a close. The second theater is the western theater, which sprawled across many states and offered a portable feast of military action as u. S. Army penetrated ever deeper into the confederacy. Early in the conflict, it stretched from the ohio river on the north to the gulf of mexico on the south. With eastern and western limits defined by the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. By the end of the conflict, western armies had fought through kentucky, and tennessee, and georgia, into the carolinas, setting up a final scene at durham station, where general William Tecumseh sherman presided over the capitulation of the last significant confederate field army commanded by Joseph Edelson johnson in late april, 1865. The army of tennessee, initially called the army of the mississippi, carried the burden of confederate defense in the west, while on the union side, three armies named after the most prominent rivers the river of the tennessee, the cumberland, and the ohio projected into the rebellious states. They carried out the third part of the overall Strategic Plan that Winfield Scott had offered in april of 1861. Blockade the coast, seize control the Mississippi River, and if that is not enough power, project the United States military power into the confederate heartland. That is what these armies in the western theaters did. They contained crucial logistical sources as well as new orleans. The confederacys largest city and most important port, nashville, memphis, atlanta, and other Vital Centers of commerce and communication. The third and largest theater was descriptively named transmississippi which extended north and south between the border with canada and the republic of mexico, and east to west from the Mississippi River to california and the pacific ocean. Although it accrued some attention in Strategic Planning by both sides, operations west of the mississippi never rivaled in scale or importance, those in either the eastern or the western theater. The most consequential military and political events in the transmississippi occurred in arkansas, missouri, western louisiana, texas, and indian territory. Of course, in indian territory, there was an active role played by the five socalled civilized tribes who were removed there in the 1830s and 1840s. There is one native American General in the conspiracy. In presentday oklahoma, that is in presentday oklahoma, that is an active arena in that part of the transmississippi. U. S. Armies gained early control in portions of this region, especially those closest to the Mississippi River. While other places, most notably texas, experienced almost no federal incursions. The long border between texas and mexico allowed movement of goods into the confederacy and french intervention in mexico added a diplomatic dimension to affairs in the the transmississippi. On may 12 or may 13th, 1865, near brownsville, texas, a heavy skirmish marked a final significant in quotation marks, clash of the war. The Mississippi River that lay west of the 100th meridian, and that is marked on your map, embraced everything from western kansas, nebraska territory, and the dakotas, to the pacific coast. And from the texas panhandle across modernday new mexico and arizona to california. That area, beyond the 100th meridian, remained peripheral to the civil war. This sprawling and lightly populated region witnessed very little military action between the United States and the confederacy, none that had any appreciable effect on the outcome. A rebel force of less than 2500 men under Henry Hopkins sibley, moved up the rio grande from el paso and reached the vicinity of santa fe, new mexico territory, before retreating back to texas in the spring, that spring. In 2017, i wrote a piece for civil war times that suggested sibleys campaign and other even smaller opperations, and i will quote myself here, i learned to do this from steve [laughter] dr. Gallagher scarcely rise to the level of inconsequential. [laughter] dr. Gallagher thats bird a that statements heard that statement spurred a rather dramatic action from some people, and i think some of them probably need counseling, but i will stand by that statement, and i love that part of the world. That is where i grew up. That is my part of the world. It is where my heart lies. It just did not matter. Let me offer some more details, comparative thoughts about which theater looms largest in terms of impact on the conduct and course of the war. I was convinced by the age of 12, as a young civil war nerd living on a farm in southern colorado, that military that advance in the Eastern Theater far exceeded in importance with of anything west of the Appalachian Mountains. I reach this conclusion, study of command, r. E. Lee a biography, and biographies and memoirs devoted to generals in the army of Northern Virginia and the army of the potomac. However interesting, the sad records of defeat, forged by the army of defeat, forged by the the army of tennessee and other rebel forces in the west, or the series of triumph, crafted by ulysses s. Grant and William Tecumseh sherman, george h. Thomas, other Union Commanders from donaldson through vicksburg, and elsewhere, however important those, however sad that was going on with the confederates, in my mind, operations in the western theater simply seemed less decisive than the bloody eastern battles that included the seven days of antietam, chancellorsville, gettysburg, and the Overland Campaign. More than 50 years of Additional Reading and research it is painful to speak those words have brought me to a more considered, but not a different conclusion on this much disputed topic. [laughter] dr. Gallagher this fact leaves many people to look at me as a kind of hopeless fossil, a kind of relic from the past to read something when he was 11 and then never really understood anything else. [laughter] dr. Gallagher and i think it is fine that they think that, because, as my girlfriend, jane austen, would say, what do we live for but to provide support for our friends and to look at them and laugh in our turn . Here is my conclusion, after all of these years. In terms of political impact, effect on morale behind the lines in the United States and the confederacy, perceptions in london and paris, and many other ways that the Eastern Theater predominated, my assessment goes against much historical writing of the past 40 years, a good deal of which criticizes the degree to which lee and his army, the battle gettysburg, the surrender at appomattox, and other elements of the war in the east have shaped popular americans understanding of the war. And many people in the room know this, i have no patience with people who think that gettysburg was the turning point over the civil war or was that important. It simply was not. That upsets all the gettysburg i will call them aficionados who just wait by their mailbox every day just hoping a new 500 page book about the first 15 minutes on the railroad arrives. Because the 300 pages we have just is not enough. [laughter] dr. Gallagher thomas l. Connelly, whose two volumes on the army of tennessee remain the standard of treatment, complained of what he called the virginia pattern of interpretation. Begun by lost cause writers as early in the 1870s and most notably continued by freeman, that pattern, connelly asserted, that it is synonymous with the battlefield of virginia. Two authors reminded readers in their book, how the north won, which is a splendid onevolume treatment, 700 pages, but it is a good place to go i made my graduate students you may have been in my class, where you had to read Herman Hattaway and archer jones, and i think you actually did. [laughter] dr. Gallagher that is a very important book that argues that henry w. Halleck, who presided over the first period of Union Success in the western theater and later served as general in chief and chief of staff, wielded great influence on the entire course of the conflict. Not only a western outlook, but hallecks western generalwrote hattaway and jones, dominated the war. When the war concluded, hallecks general, only george e. Meade did not belong to hallecks original command. Among the most Effective Advocates of the west, richard m mcmurray insisted that the war was actually lost in the western theater between 1861 and 1863. By the time lee took command of the army in Northern Virginia on june 1, 1862, suggests mcmurray, union armies had dealt their opponents a series of serious, arguably mortal blows along the western rivers, continues mcmurray, with a touch of welcome humor, rebel support continues to slide downhill, and it became less and less likely that the confederates would avoid defeat by not losing since they were, in fact, losing. [laughter] dr. Gallagher richard is a very droll fellow. A great deal of firstrate scholarship over the past quarter century has deepened our understanding of the armies, leaders, and battles in the western theater, including a brandnew and by the university of North Carolina press that arrived at my house larry j. Daniels conquered why the army of tennessee failed. Seriously challenged by recent scholarship. Unlike richard mcmurray, whose work i admire a great deal, i believe the war was far from decided in the summer of 1863 or in the summer of 1864. The key for the confederacy lay in convincing the majority of the citizens in the United States that subduing the rebellion would be too costly. Three times, the confederates came close to doing just that. In each case, largely because of what what lee had accomplished in the Eastern Theater. The first came in the late summer and early autumn, following the second bull run campaigns and lees subsequent invasion of the United States, a period in which british leaders came closest to getting involved in the conflict to mediate an end to the war, to use their language. The second moment came in 1863 in the late spring and early and in the late spring and early summer as conscription and emancipation roiled the political situation in the United States, and lee won his victories at fredericksburg and chancellorsville, and took his army across the National Frontier for a second time in june. The third and most important of the crises of this type came in the summer of 1864, the incomprehensibly bloody summer of 1864, when the casualty of the Overland Campaign and grants inability to capture richmond together with other union stalemates, since civilian morale in the north spiraling downward to its wartime neighbors. Nadir. As all of you know well, on august 23, 1864, lincoln had his cabinet sign his famous blind memorandum that said, we will not be reelected to. We, the republicans, are not going to be reelected this year. We have to win the war before the democrats take over next year, because we know they will not win it. If the democrats had won, Everybody Knows this, not only would Union Success have been placed in jeopardy, but emancipation, it would have been over if democrats were in charge. Evidence abounds on how people on both sides thought abo