Nowhere in the annals of United States military history is there a more tragic, yet valorous, story than that of the Army of Tennessee. Unlike its companion fighting unit, the Army of Northern Virginia which was commanded throughout the Civil War by one of the great military figures of all time, Robert E. Lee, the history of the Army of Tennessee is one of ever-changing commanders, of bickering and wrangling among its leaders, and a discouraging succession of disappointments and might-have-beens.

The Army of Tennessee was officially designated November 20, 1862. But that was not the beginning of the Confederate main fighting force in the Civil War's Western Theater. Before that date it was known as the Army of Mississippi (or the Army of the West), a command organized on March 5, with its area of operations between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. That army was formed of the Army of Central Kentucky, the Army of Louisiana and elements of the Army of Pensacola, following the Confederate disaster at Fort Donelson. The force was led by a succession of commoners--P.G.T. Beauregard, Albert Sydney Johnston and Braxton Bragg--and had a series of defeats, from Shiloh to Corinth to Perryville, before winning a spectacular victory at Chickamauga. Based on the Official Records, this book details the often neglected army's organization, strength and casualties during its three year history.

In Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee Larry Daniel offers a view from the trenches of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. his book is not the story of the commanders, but rather shows in intimate detail what the war in the western theater was like for the enlisted men. Daniel argues that the unity of the Army of Tennessee--unlike that of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--can be understood only by viewing the army from the bottom up rather than the top down. The western army had neither strong leadership nor battlefield victories to sustain it, yet it maintained its cohesiveness. The "glue" that kept the men in the ranks included fear of punishment, a well-timed religious revival that stressed commitment and sacrifice, and a sense of comradeship developed through the common experience of serving under losing generals. The soldiers here tell the story in their own rich words, for Daniel quotes from an impressive variety of sources, drawing upon his reading of the letters and diaries of more than 350 soldiers as well as scores of postwar memoirs. They write about rations, ordnance, medical care, punishments, the hardships of extensive campaigning, morale, and battle. While eastern and western soldiers were more alike than different, Daniel says, there were certain subtle variances. Western troops were less disciplined, a bit rougher, and less troubled by class divisions than their eastern counterparts. Daniel concludes that shared suffering and a belief in the ability to overcome adversity bonded the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee into a resilient fighting force.

The Army of Tennessee was officially designated November 20, 1862. But that was not the beginning of the Confederate main fighting force in the Civil War's Western Theater. Before that date it was known as the Army of Mississippi (or the Army of the West), a command organized on March 5, with its area of operations between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. That army was formed of the Army of Central Kentucky, the Army of Louisiana and elements of the Army of Pensacola, following the Confederate disaster at Fort Donelson. The force was led by a succession of commoners--P.G.T. Beauregard, Albert Sydney Johnston and Braxton Bragg--and had a series of defeats, from Shiloh to Corinth to Perryville, before winning a spectacular victory at Chickamauga. Based on the Official Records, this book details the often neglected army's organization, strength and casualties during its three year history.

Following the Battle of Nashville, Confederate General John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee was in full retreat, from the battle lines south of Nashville to the Tennessee River at the Alabama state line. Ferocious engagements broke out along the way as Hood's small rearguard, harried by Federal Cavalry brigades, fought a 10-day running battle over 100 miles of impoverished countryside during one of the worst winters on record.

This assessment of the performance of the southern soldiers in the American Civil War of 1861 deals with every aspect of an army from its senior officer to the lowliest private, following every process as the soldier tried to adapt to military life, train, and overcome the enemy.

In this first full consideration of the remarkable Union army that effectively won the Civil War, historian Steven Woodworth tells the engrossing story of its victory by drawing on letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts of the time. The Army of the Tennessee operated in the Mississippi River Valley through the first half of the Civil War, winning major victories at the Confederate strongholds of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg. The army was created at Cairo, Illinois, in the summer of 1861 and took shape under the firm hand of Ulysses S. Grant, who molded it into a hard-hitting, self-reliant fighting machine. Woodworth takes us to its winter 1863 encampment in the Louisiana swamps, where the soldiers suffered disease, hardship, and thousands of deaths. And we see how the force emerged from that experience even tougher and more aggressive than before. With the decisive victory at Vicksburg, the Army of the Tennessee had taken control of the Mississippi away from the Confederates and could swing east to aid other Union troops in a grand rolling up of Rebel defenses. It did so with a confidence born of repeated success, even against numerical odds, leading one of its soldiers to remark that he and his comrades expected “nothing but victory.” The Army of the Tennessee contributed to the Union triumph at Chattanooga in the fall of 1863 and then became part of William Tecumseh Sherman’s combined force in the following summer’s march to Atlanta. In the complicated maneuvering of that campaign, Sherman referred to the army as his whiplash and used it whenever fast marching and arduous fighting were especially needed. Just outside Atlanta, it absorbed the Confederacy’s heaviest counterblow and experienced its hardest single day of combat. Thereafter, it continued as part of Sherman’s corps in his March to the Sea and his campaign through the Carolinas. The story of this army is one of perseverance in the face of difficulty, courage amid severe trials, resolute lessons in fighting taught by equally courageous foes, and the determination of a generation of young men to see a righteous cause all the way through to victory. Nothing but Victoryis an important addition to the literature of the Civil War.

Confederate historiography of the Civil War is rich with stories of leaders and decision makers--oft-repeated names immortalized by their association with America's great trial of the 1860s. But while scholarship exploring the roles of Confederate generals and politicians abounds, a major part of the story remains untold: that of the ordinary people who became soldiers and turned the very pages of Civil War history. Part of the Voices of the Civil War series, Suffering in the Army of Tennessee doesn't just draw upon one single diary or letter collection, and it does not use brief quotations as a way to fill out a larger narrative. Rather, across eight chapters spanning the Atlanta Campaign to the Battle of Nashville in 1864, Thrasher draws upon a remarkably broad set of primary sources--newspapers, manuscripts, archives, diaries, and official documents--to tell a story that knits together accounts of senior officers, the final campaigns of the Western Theater, and the experiences of the civilians and rebel soldiers who found themselves deep in the trenches of a national reckoning. While volumes have been written on the Atlanta Campaign or the Battles of Nashville and Franklin, no previous historian has constructed what amounts to a sweeping social history of the Army of Tennessee--the daily details of soldiering and the toll it took on the men and boys who mustered into service foreseeing only a small skirmish among the states. While this volume will appeal to Civil War buffs and military history scholars, its accessible structure and engaging narrative style will likewise captivate American history enthusiasts, students, and general readers.