Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to the 205th episode of our Civil War.

This is the Civil War podcast. My name is Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast. As promised with this show for the first time in quite a while, we're going to head back out to the Western Theatre of the war and see what's been happening out there.

Yeah, it was kind of amazing to us when we realized this, but we were last out in the Western Theatre in episode number 125 when we were finishing up the Shylot of Story arc.

And that was back in September 2015. So that's just shy of two years ago since as we record this show this weekend, it's August 2017.

But after we wrapped up Shylot, we shifted our focus to the Eastern Theatre and covered the peninsula and Jackson's Valley campaign.

And the seven days and then second monasses. And then we jumped right into the Antietam Story arc and well two years have passed here in real life.

So yes, it's definitely time we head back out West, especially since late 1862 was a critical period for the Army's fighting in the Western Theatre.

The Confederates had abandoned Kentucky and much of Tennessee earlier in the year and by the summer had given up Corinth, a valuable railroad junction in northeastern Mississippi.

The three major campaigns that we'll be discussing in upcoming episodes represent desperate rebel efforts to reverse the strategic course of the war in the West.

Those Confederate efforts to regain the strategic initiative in the West involved a mighty struggle for control of the upper south, that is Tennessee and Kentucky, with that region's sizeable population, rich agricultural resources and strategic importance.

Control of this region would put rebel armies on the north doorstep, while loss of it would place federal troops on the verge of invading the deep south.

The events of late 1862 therefore represented a critical phase of the Western War.

As we'll see though by the end of 1862 the rebels had lost more than they gained. Confederate General Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky failed to bring the Bluegrass State under Confederate control but saved Chattanooga and much of middle Tennessee.

That action however set the stage for Union General William Rosecrane Stoned River Campaign, which placed a bit more of the upper south under federal control.

And Confederate General Earl van Dorn not only failed in his attempt to retake Corinth, Mississippi, but he also inadvertently prepared the way for a major union offensive against Vicksburg.

And so as was true of Robert E. Lee's crossing of the Potomac into Maryland, which took place back east in this same time period, the Confederate movements in the West in the summer and fall of 1862 seemed full of marvelous potential.

But like Lee's Maryland campaign, in the end they also bore relatively little strategic fruit. Since by the time these campaigns in the east and west concluded the rebel armies would again be on the defensive.

As y'all recall, the first half of 1862 was a disaster for the Confederates in the West. Beginning with Fort Henry and Donaldson in February, the rebels suffered one defeat after another.

At Shiloh, the Confederates attempted to halt the seemingly unstoppable federal advance southward. And Albert Sidney Johnston did manage to surprise Ulysses S. Grant at Pittsburgh Landing on the Tennessee River on April 6th.

But in the fierce and bloody fighting that day, Johnston was killed and the Federals managed to rally and hang on.

That night, Grant's battered force was reinforced by the timely arrival of fresh union troops led by Don Carlos Buehl.

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