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Often relegated to a backseat by action in the Eastern Theater, the
Western Theater is actually where the Federal armies won the Civil
War. In the West, General Ulysses S. Grant strung together a series
of victories that ultimately led him to oversee Robert E. Lee's
surrender at Appomattox Court House and, eventually, two terms in
the White House. In the West, the fall of Atlanta secured Lincoln's
reelection for his own second term. In the West, Federal armies
split the Confederacy in two - and then split it in two again. In
the West, Federal armies inexorably advanced, gobbling up huge
swaths of territory in the face of ineffective Confederate
opposition. By war's end, General William T. Sherman had marched
the "Western Theater" all the way into central North Carolina. In
the Eastern Theater, the principal armies fought largely within a
100-mile corridor between the capitals of Washington, D.C., and
Richmond, Virginia, with a few ill-fated Confederate invasions
north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The Western Theater, in contrast,
included the entire area between the Appalachian Mountains and the
Mississippi River, from Kentucky in the north to the Gulf of Mexico
in the south - a vast geographic expanse that, even today, can be
challenging to understand. The Western Theater of War: Favorite
Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging
Civil War revisits some of the Civil War's most legendary
battlefields: Shiloh, Chickamauga, Franklin, the March to the Sea,
and more.
"May God forgive me for the order," Confederate Maj. Gen. John C.
Breckinridge remarked as he ordered young cadets from Virginia
Military Institute into the battle lines at New Market, just days
after calling them from their academic studies to assist in a
crucial defense. Virginia's Shenandoah Valley had seen years of
fighting. In the spring of 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel
prepared to lead a new invasion force into the Valley, operating on
the far right flank of Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign.
Breckinridge scrambled to organize the Confederate defense. When
the opposing divisions clashed near the small crossroads town of
New Market on May 15, 1864, new legends of courage were born. Local
civilians witnessed the combat unfold in their streets,
churchyards, and fields and aided the fallen. The young cadets
rushed into the battle when ordered-an opportunity for an hour of
glory and tragedy. A Union soldier saved the national colors and a
comrade, later receiving a Medal of Honor. The battle of New
Market, though a smaller conflict in the grand scheme of that
blood-soaked summer, came at a crucial moment in the Union's
offensive movements that spring and also became the last major
Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results in the
muddy fields reverberated across the North and South, altering
campaign plans-as well as the lives of those who witnessed or
fought. Some never left the fields alive; others retreated with
excuses or shame. Some survived, haunted or glorified by their
deeds. In Call Out the Cadets, Sarah Kay Bierle traces the history
of this important, yet smaller battle. While covering the military
aspects of the battle, the book also follows the history of
individuals whose lives or military careers were changed because of
the fight. New Market shined for its accounts of youth in battle,
immigrant generals, and a desperate, muddy fight. Youth and
veterans, generals and privates, farmers and teachers-all were
called into the conflict or its aftermath of the battle, an event
that changed a community, a military institute, and the very fate
of the Shenandoah Valley.
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