Although often over-shadowed in Civil War literature by accounts of the Army of the Potomac's struggles against Robert E. Lee in Virginia and the bold Confederate invasion of the Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Western theatre of the Civil War was the scene of some of the most desperate, hard-fought and strategically important battles of the five year conflict. John Fiske's eloquent narrative begins with the seizure of the secessionist arsenal at Camp Jackson in St. Louis, MO, and follows the Union Army through its campaign to control the Mississippi River and its subsequent actions in Georgia and Tennessee. The text draws heavily on remembrances and personal journals of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman and examines in painstaking detail not just events on the field of battle but the logistical considerations and political maneuvering that helped shape these campaigns. The result is a fascinating, informative and engrossing account of the turning of the Confederacy's left flank and the resulting defeat of the Army of the Rebellion.