With the collapse of the Confederate defenses at Forts Henry and Donelson, the entire Tennessee Valley was open to Union invasion and control.

In February 1862, after defeats at Bull Run and at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, the Union army was desperate for victory on the eve of its first offensive of the

Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies we

Faced with failing health and financial ruin, the Civil War's greatest general and former president wrote his personal memoirs to secure his family's future - a