GDG- Re: powder mills

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Jack writes,

Actually, most of the important stuff in the war was in the West until  
64-65. Then it was whatever Grant made happen.



Actually, it stayed the most important theater to the very end with  Sherman, 
James Wilson and other Union commanders eviscerating the supply,  food 
growing and industrial areas of the Confederacy.  Lee in early  1864 was quite 
correct when he stated, "without Georgia, Virginia cannot  hold."  Virtually all of 
his food was coming from Georgia by this time, an  event that began in the 
Spring of 1863 to the detriment of the Army of  Tennessee, whose own food area 
was shoved over to the Alabama-Mississippi border  along the Tombigbee River.  
The fall of Atlanta certainly provided a huge  boost to Lincoln's 1864 
election - he certainly thought so.  Add in Mobile  Bay and Cedar Creek and he had 
the hat trick he needed for Northern  morale.
 
The final collapse of Tennessee in late November, 1863 shut the door for  the 
primary sources for horses for the Confederacy (KY and TN were Numbers 1 and  
2 respectively) and 90 per cent of its copper supply for percussion caps and  
Napoleon cannons from the mine at Ducktown, east of Chattanooga.
 
Greg Biggs



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