Geography was Confederacy's enemy
Even with its flaws, 'Struggle for the Heartland' offers an excellent account of the early Civil War in the West
Date published: 9/11/2004
STRUGGLE FOR THE HEARTLAND: THE CAMPAIGNS FROM FORT HENRY TO CORINTH, by Stephen D. Engle. University of Nebraska Press, 2001. 275 pp. Illustrations, maps, endnotes, bibliographical essay, index. $34.95.
LOOKING AT KNOWN EVENTS from a different perspective can often provide new insights into the past. Such is the case with Stephen D. Engle's "Struggle for the Heartland: The Campaigns from Fort Henry to Corinth," a volume in the excellent "Great Campaigns of the Civil War" series published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Engle has chosen to view the campaigns of 1861 and early 1862 west of the Alleghenies and east of the Mississippi, in large part, in terms of their effect upon the states of that region.
To be sure, he does not ignore the orders and comments that reached Union and Confederate commanders from Washington and Richmond, respectively.
However, he focuses primarily upon the situations that confronted the commanders in their own theaters and upon how they coped with developing events there. The resulting narrative gives the reader new insight into a struggle whose outcome would contribute greatly to eventual Union victory.
The geography of the region was heavily stacked against the Confederacy. The Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers, which together drain much of Kentucky, Tennessee and northern Mississippi and Alabama, flow into the Ohio River opposite the Illinois shore. In prewar years, river traffic had fostered trade between the Midwest and the Southern states in question, in the process creating communities in both regions that would contain large minorities (Unionists, Copperheads) sympathetic to the enemy in time of war. When secession progressed into military conflict, the two rivers became natural invasion routes for the Union armies.
Tennessee was one of the last Southern states to leave the Union, and providing for its defense was complicated by Kentucky's decision to remain neutral in the conflict. Confederate forces consequently erected forts just inside the Tennessee state line on both the Tennessee and the Cumberland. Unfortunately, the position selected for Fort Henry on the Tennessee was subject to flooding, which would contribute significantly to its capture on Feb. 6, 1862.
Date published: 9/11/2004
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