Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 383 of our Civil War Podcast.

My name is Rich.

And I'm Tracy.

Hello y'all.

Thanks for tuning into the podcast.

With this episode, we're going to shift gears and head back out west of the Appalachians.

I know.

It's been a while, right?

But with this show, we'll start in on another major story arc that will take us right through

Chica Maga and Chattanooga.

And just FYI, but while we're in the midst of this story arc with the regular episodes,

we'll be using the members episodes over on Patreon to cover other stuff that happened

in 1863.

For example, with the most recent members episodes, we covered the Battle of Helena

Arkansas and the Marmaduc Guacardule.

Other upcoming topics on the members episodes will be John Hunt Morgan's raid up into

Indiana and Ohio.

And also the New York City draft riots, both of which happened in July 1863.

Here on the regular episodes, as we've seen and we'll see, the summer of 1863 was a critical

time for the armies fighting in the war's three major theaters.

That is along the Mississippi River and in Tennessee and then in Virginia.

It was an especially critical phase of the Western War, which was by and large a contest

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