Neutralizing the Valley

The Valley Campaigns of 1864 were operations and battles during the American Civil War, which occurred in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia from May to October 1864 (Wikipedia 2005). The opposing forces in these battles were the Union and the Confederates. The Union was led by then Lt General Ulysses S. Grant, Commander George G. Meade, and Benjamin Butler, while the Confederate was led by Robert Lee and his Lt General Jubal Early. The outcome of the campaigns shows that appropriate tactics and quality leadership determined victory in the particular terrain and physical conditions. Grant established a strategy that focused at the heart of the Confederacy from different directions according to the concept, which he shared with Abraham Lincoln and William Sherman, that only the utter defeat of the Confederate forces and their economic supply would win the War for the Union (Wikipedia).

The strategy pitted Grant,...
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