Legend:
Maroon = Confederate States of America and territories
Red = Areas occupied by Confederate forces
Pink = Gains for that Day
Dark Blue = United States of America and territories
Blue = Areas occupied by Union forces.
Light blue = Gains for that day
Yellow = Border states / disputed areas.
That's actually a pretty helpful map. It would help students realize that, until May 1862, the situation was mostly working out for the Confederacy. It's only with the salient dividing the Mississippi river that things start to fall apart. And even then, of course, the 1864 election nearly went to the peace candidate.
ReplyDeleteI noticed something similar—that the Union forces were successively partitioning the Confederate territory into smaller pieces. Starting with the split at the Mississippi, of course.
ReplyDeleteEven if not much territory is taken by such a strategy, It renders the remaining territory much more vulnerable: it can be attacked from a number of directions (not just from the north), and of course it makes it harder for the various pieces to cooperate militarily, communicate, get shipments to each other, and so on. Sort of a land-based analog to a blockade, but internal.
Well worth the watching.It gives a good illustration of Scott's successful Anaconda strategy. Bit of irony there that a native Virginian designed the successful Union strategy. Surround, isolate, and strangle.
ReplyDeleteIn looking at the video,I noticed that the succession of Union control in Tennessee progressed so that the most pro-Union part of Tennessee, the mountainous eastern part, was the last part of Tennessee to fall under Union control.
My Tennessee ancestors were from the western part and definitely Confederate in sympathy. Counterbalanced by my ancestors from the Midwest.
That's actually a pretty helpful map. It would help students realize that, until May 1862, the situation was mostly working out for the Confederacy. It's only with the salient dividing the Mississippi river that things start to fall apart.
ReplyDeleteAnd that comment has interesting implications for the evolving state of our public education. My grade school and junior high American history lessons, if they didn't hammer on exactly that, certainly made it very clear.
Eric Hines
He's got some other interesting stuff as well, like the entire history of Europe year-by-year, the history of Poland, etc.
ReplyDeletePretty static for the most part, too. Interesting to see.
ReplyDelete