The Civil War was fought in the East but won in the West—so the story goes. There is, though, considerable justification for this assessment. Rich in agricultural resources, home to millions of slaves and abundant manpower, the western theater stretched south from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico and west from the Appalachians to the Mississippi. It was in this region that the Union won—and the Confederacy lost— the Civil War. What did each side do (or fail to do) to win America’s heartland, and what did it mean to those living through the Reconstruction period after the battles had ended?
9:30 to 10:45 a.m. People and Place in the Civil War Heartland
The roles of geography and terrain; war’s changes to economics, daily life, and politics; the conflict in the West as a two-pronged war
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Politics and Planning in War and Reconstruction
Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, the capture of Nashville, and the fall of New Orleans; Reconstruction and the Northern occupation of Southern soil
12:15 to 1:30 p.m. Lunch (Participants provide their own lunch.)
1:30 to 2:45 p.m. From Limited to Unlimited Warfare
The destructive and devastating Battle of Shiloh (“The American Waterloo”) forces North and South to confront the birth of total war; the impact of the Union capture of Corinth, Mississippi
3 to 4:15 p.m. Vicksburg: Beginning of the End
The Union’s 1862 push to Vicksburg, considered by many more critical to quickly ending the war than the defeat of the Confederate army.
Presenter Stephen D. Engle is a professor of history and director of the Alan B. Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency at Florida Atlantic University.
Smithsonian Connections
Learn more about the Civil War in the Museum of American History’s online exhibition The Price of Freedom: Americans at War.
To learn more about the Civil War, listen to clips from Smithsonian Folkways>>
