Favorite battle

The Fall of New Orleans. On the water and on land.
Definitely an underappreciated battle. Perryville is also a crucial battle and underappreciated.
With the fall of New Orleans the Confederacy can not export cotton from cotton plantations along the Mississippi River. From a European diplomatic perspective if the Confederacy can't even defend it's most critical port how can it win it's war for Independence.
Leftyhunter
 
I imagine most here will neither understand nor favor my favorite battle. This is partly because it is waaaay west of most of the big, pitched battles of the Eastern war. In addition, it is just purely difficult to understand. With that in mind, my favorite battle is the one waged in my home state of Missouri with home boys (plenty of them pretty rough and brutal) against the Kansas Jayhawker home boys (who were plenty rough and brutal in their own right.)

It is so complicated to figure out the war out here. Our ancestors were so busy just trying to survive. This overall theater of war (guerrilla versus jayhawker) is my favorite theater to study and discuss. I know I will have few followers in this matter.
Were not most of the counterinsurgency forces in Missouri composed of the Missouri State Militia along with more informal Missouri military with out of state regiments who rotated in and out if Missouri. Yes there were some Kansas regiments who did fight Confederate insurgents but they were not the majority of Union counterinsurgency forces.
Leftyhunter
 
I

I was in elemtary school when I got a DK kids book on the war.
3rd grade for me. I loved the American Heritage book with the maps. I especially loved the Antietam map and was fascinated by the men running over Burnside's Bridge. For a project in 4th grade I did my best to recreated the American Heritage map for an assignment in school. None of the other kids knew what I was talking about. Anyway, my 1st visit to Burnside's Bridge was especially memorable because of that.
 
I spend the most time studying the battles and engagements my Grandfathers were actually involved in with an emphasis on Chickamauga, 2nd Corinth/Davis Bridge and the Vicksburg campaign. I had Grandfathers at Mansfield/Pleasant Hill and Brice's Crossroads but have not had the opportunity to study these in depth though I look forward to it. Any battle where I actually had family involved I can't help but consider it my favorite.

I would have to say Shiloh overall is my favorite, especially after visiting the battlefield.

Of course I must temper this by saying I have not visited Gettysburg yet and most of my life I have been fascinated by Gettysburg as we all are. I didn't have family at any of the fighting in the east so the western battles as tragic as they were interest me the most.
 
Has anyone here ever met someone who met a civil war vet? I figure it’s possible because there’s still children alive of veterans even though they were born when their fathers were quite old.
 
I spend the most time studying the battles and engagements my Grandfathers were actually involved in

Like yourself, I tend to fall into this category when studying battles or campaigns. Not just grandfathers, but also collateral ancestors such as uncles and cousins.

Most favored, equally, Battles of:

The Trans-Mississippi and its battles are my normal focus because several of them offer a unique history not found in other battles:
Mansfield - The last major CSA victory of the war
Jenkins Ferry - Fought under horrific weather conditions in a flooded river bottom
Sabine Pass - An artillery company of forty men and six cannon led by an Irish Lieutenant defeated several Union gunboats and 5000 infantry
Palmito Ranch - This Confederate victory was the last battle of the CW. Also the only known battle where French national troops participated with the Confederates to defeat a Union force.
Galveston - Retaking of a major port on the Gulf Coast by Gen Magruder in a combined naval and land action. It remained a major port for blockade runners for the rest of the war.
 
In the Western Theater, if I had to choose one it would definitely be Franklin. There's something about the battle that makes it unique.... the tragedy of the whole affair and the ferocity of the battle.... kind of the symbolic death of the Army of Tennessee and the Confederacy.
Realized I shoulda said "if I had to choose ONLY one" here, as in there were too many other battles in the Western Theater that I wanted to name, so had to narrow it down to Franklin.

Although some might not consider it part of the Western Theater, I also really wanted to say the Atlanta Campaign and Allatoona Pass. The former was one of the most fascinating campaigns of the war in my opinion; really overlooked until recent years. Allatoona was a small but ferocious battle; also a very unique battle and battlefield, considering how it played out and the ground it was fought over.
 
My favorite Battles are Gettysburg, South Mountain and Antietam in the Eastern Theatre and Chattanooga and Shiloh in the Western Theatre. I was first interested in the civil war when I read my first book from our public library which was the Children's Library History of Abraham Lincoln at the age of 5. My maternal grandfather and mother always encouraged me to read a portion of a book everyday which I have carried on this tradition now for some 49 years. My first visit to a battlefield was at Gettysburg at the age of 8 on a family vacation with a family friend who was a real civil war expert. He would give me his old Civil War Times Illustrated magazines and was the most knowledgeable civil war person I ever met in my life. His encyclopedic knowledge of all aspects of the Civil War and military history in general was extraordinary. David.
 
On a side note, I’m curious to know how everyone got interested in the Civil War and how old you where when you started to study it seriously and read more intensively about it.

19-year old JRT died almost three years ago to the day, had a heart attack, needed a diversion, bllood & guts did the job - an interest in the ACW was born ...the rest is history, as they say.
 
A general interest in the western theatre, but especially Shiloh, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta and Bentonville. Unusually - and at odds with most Civil War buffs I know, I have zero interest in Gettysburg. Mention it and my eyes start to glaze over ... :sleep:
 
I'm still too new to have acquired a favorite battle or campaign to study. I began studying the ACW about a year ago, and right now, I'm reading about Gettysburg (am on Day 3; Culp's Hill already under attack while Pickett's still getting ready for his charge).

From what I've read so far, though, I'm most interested in reading more about Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville; so far, I've studied both battles mostly from the Confederates' perspective, but I want to know more about the Union perspective. That'll have to wait, however; I need to finish studying the Eastern Theater or my visit to Virginia next summer won't be very effective when I'm still lacking fundamental knowledge.
 
On a side note, I’m curious to know how everyone got interested in the Civil War and how old you where when you started to study it seriously and read more intensively about it.
I got interested at a young age because I grew up in a neighborhood that had literally been a battlefield (a little known one) in the war. I started reading lighter things about the war in high school. I started reading, studying and collecting books seriously in the run up to the 150th anniversary.
 
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About 7-ish? when I got the American Heritage book on the ACW.
That was the first CW book that I really pored over. It had just come out. I've still got it. I was always artistic so I was particularly drawn to the illustrated battle maps.
 
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Likewise. Personally the Tate House fight is my favorite.
Yes, that's an interesting fight, and I think the guerrillas learned a lot from it. I couldn't pick just one incident as a personal favorite. I see that a lot of respondents are having trouble picking one big battle, too. Lots of folks are listing several, and I understand why. It's so hard to choose.
 
You got me on #1. On #2, that would be one of Gen Jo Shelby's post war adventures in Mexico.

I must admit, I'm genuinely surprised at your guess on #2, dead on. And other than Shelby's highly doubtable biographer's account I've had great difficulty finding info on it, such is the story with any serious research into the French Intervention/2nd Mexican Empire era of Mexico's history, which any connection between that and our great disagreement gets me to reading.

Number one was worded in a tricky way, with the word "Treasury" omitted, Shelby's biographer Edwards hijacked the story of the raid by claiming Shelby and his glorious Missourians were the hero's at that. Truth is the only Confederates there to oppose the thieving "raiders" was the local Home Guard, who did well all things considered, and Shelby and his men weren't there to come to the rescue, in fact there has been speculation that Shelby's men performed the deed themselves, which isn't unbelievable considering the often poor relations between the Confederate State Governments of Texas and Missouri. Such is the main occasional problem with Confederacies, the occasional saber rattling between Texas and Missouri has always given me laughs, especially since Texas was hospitable to Missouri allowing their secessionist government to set up their capitol-in-exile here.
 
I imagine most here will neither understand nor favor my favorite battle. This is partly because it is waaaay west of most of the big, pitched battles of the Eastern war. In addition, it is just purely difficult to understand. With that in mind, my favorite battle is the one waged in my home state of Missouri with home boys (plenty of them pretty rough and brutal) against the Kansas Jayhawker home boys (who were plenty rough and brutal in their own right.)

It is so complicated to figure out the war out here. Our ancestors were so busy just trying to survive. This overall theater of war (guerrilla versus jayhawker) is my favorite theater to study and discuss. I know I will have few followers in this matter.
Agreed, guerrilla v jayhawker is a fascinating subject to study, both before, during and after the war. The better known big battles of the CW are interesting enough but I prefer reading up on the bleeding Kansas era, id advise anyone that has overlooked the border wars to take a deeper look into the subject, you wont be disappointed.
 
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