The Main Civil War Generals Who Helped Define the War

By Roy Morris, Jr. Mr. Morris is the author of seven well-received books on 19th Century American history and literature. He has served as a consultant for A&E, the History Channel, and edited a three-book series for Purdue University Press on American Civil War and post-Civil War history, journalism and literature. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review of Books and New Leader, as well as many leading newspapers across the country and abroad. In addition to the Smithsonian Institution, he has also spoken at the National Portrait Gallery, the National Arts Club in New York City, the Atlanta History Center, the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach and the Northern Trust in Miami. Ulysses S. Grant Not only did Grant win the first major turning-point battle of the war, at Fort Donelson, he also prevented the South’s first and best attempt at reversing that turning point, at Shiloh. He then captured Vicksburg, clearing the way for Union control of the Mississippi; broke the Confederate siege at Chattanooga; and appointed strong and capable subordinates in William T. Sherman and Phil Sheridan. He fought Robert E. Lee to a standstill in the Battle of the Wilderness, bottled up Lee’s army at Petersburg, and caught up with it at the Battle of Appomattox, winning the Civil War in the process. Nathan Bedford Forrest No less a ju