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Unread 04-12-2011, 10:40 PM
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KG_Jag KG_Jag is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New Braunfels, TX & Reno, NV
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Default 150 Years Ago Today...What was the Most Important Battle of the War?

The Civil War was won and lost in the west. Until 1865 when the South had been ravaged and was bleeding to death, the war was more or less a stalemate.

Shiloh is the battle where the South lost any realistic hope of gaining the initiative in the west, Chickamauga and the failure of the South to exploit it not withstanding.

Shiloh occurred less than a year after the war started, on April 6-7, 1862 just outside Mississippi in Tennessee. During that battle the South lost its best general at that time--and clearly the best in the west, Albert Sidney Johnston. A Rebel attack started the battle that swung its way on the first day and Grant's on the second. Never again would the South truly be on the offense in the west and rarely would it be successful in a major battle or campaign.

Shiloh lead to Grant taking Vicksburg and complete control of the Mississippi in 1863 and Sherman's march to the sea and then on to South and North Carolina. New Orleans, the biggest city in the South, fell less than a month after Shiloh.
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