East vs West: Determining the War's Most Important Theater - Part II

As we can see, there is merit in both arguments. So how do we decide which one is right? Which theater ranks as the most important of the war? Perhaps a better way to phrase the question is this - what was the impact of each theater on the course and outcome of the war?

In order to answer that question, it is first necessary to briefly look at what the two sections hoped to accomplish in the war. We can then use that information to examine how the fighting in the various theaters either helped or hindered each side's chance of attaining its primary goal.

Fortunately, the primary goal for each side is easily surmised -

The Confederacy - Simply put, the goal of the Confederacy was survival. Survival would mean one thing above all else - independence. Anything during the war that tended to prolong Confederate survival also tended to bring them that much closer to this ultimate goal of independence.

The Union - By obvious contrast, the goal of the Union was to deny survival, and therefore independence, to the Confederacy. Events during the war that favored the Union tended to bring them that much closer to their ultimate goal of denying Confederate independence.

Offense and Defense

None of this is exactly breaking news, but it does lead us to an important point. When the shooting finally started, the respective goals outlined above necessarily dictated who was going to be the aggressor, and who was going to be the defender.

Since survival for the Confederacy equaled victory, it was necessary for them to simply exist, and do so long enough to compel the Union to give up the contest. A good deal easier said than done, to be quite sure - but the means to victory all the same. It was not necessary for the South to "defeat" the North in the same sense that the North had to defeat the South. If the North did not go on the attack then the South would win by default, whereas the reverse did not hold true.

In the overall context of the war then, it was the Confederacy that was on the defensive and the Union that was on the offensive.

This is not to say that each and every battle and campaign was therefore one of Union thrust and Confederate parry. There were, of course, a number of instances where the exact opposite was true.

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