I picked up a new book, Blood, Tears, & Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War by James H. Blissland at Barnes & Noble the other day. It looks quite interesting, at least if you have Ohio ancestors. The book follows Ohioans--common soldiers, generals, future presidents, Copperheads, and the folks at home--from before the war until long after. It seems well-written and easy to read. Lots of primary and secondary sources and annotations. Lots of illustrations from the National Archives, Battles and Leaders, and other sources. Each chapter ends with Web resources. 600 pages, but the text is large and well-spaced, so it's not a dense book.

There's a Web site for the book, http://www.bloodtearsandglory.com and another for the small Ohio publisher, http://www.orangefrazer.com, where they have this to say:

"For 150 years, the battlefields of Virginia, Gettysburg, and Antietam were what Americans thought of first when they thought of the Civil War. Wrong. While Easterners were battling to a bloody stalemate, Midwestern farmers, shopkeepers, and country lawyers fighting elsewhere were shaping the war's outcome. Dismissed by haughty Easterners as 'armed rabble' or 'drunkards,' these citizen-soldiers, white and black, often were poorly trained and poorly equipped--but they were tough, confident, and supported by strong women who found their own ways to get into the fight. And the Midwesterners included most of the Union's top generals. From brilliant, if flawed, commanders to feisty enlisted men who were hard to discipline but hard to scare, Blood, Tears, & Glory tells powerful stories of the war, many for the first time, and all from a new point of view."

Either CWTI or ACW magazine recently did a comparison between the East and West Theaters.  They showed that while in the East most fights took place in a small area between Washington and Richmond (couple of exceptions), that out West the armies moved long distances and covered more ground.  

It was a neat comparison and how it impacted the outcome of the war.

Quote :

they were tough, confident, and supported by strong women who found their own ways to get into the fight.

I think this is stretching the truth a little bit.  If you look at any battle that had untrained or poorly trained troops they usually performed very poorly.   I'm not trying to take away from what the western armies accomplished, but the tougher western soldier and the ragged confederate soldier are just images to make them look better then Easter Federal soldiers in my opinion.   Remember the Western Confederate soldiers had numerous losses and they were also “Westerners.”  I believe both Western and Eastern armies were just as important in ultimately defeating of the CSA.   The real problems were usually not the soldiers but the decisions of Army, Corp and Division leader’s that won or lost the battles.

"Ham sammiches to the front!"

While not a presidential election slogan, it's a heck of a fine thing, and Holly_Mule thinks the statue relating to this feat of front line culinary support is the very best on the Antietam battlefield. In some quarters, of course, we all know it was Rhode Island that won the war.    

Back to you, Chet.

Hogwash!

The truth of the matter is that the war was really won in the Far West when the California Column, with a big assist from some boys come down from Colorado, prevented that sneak thief Sibley from getting to California. Plus the rest of the approximated 12,000 California Volunteers who helped keep California in the Union, by suppressing Secessionist agitators within the state, and the gold and silver flowing safely out of the Western Sierra foothills and the Comstock and into the Union's coffers...

... Not to mention the occasional tussle with heathen red savages.

Yes, Virginia, history also occured west of the 100th meridian.

"This Union has been made possible by a Grant from Ohio."

Linda.