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Old 04-19-2007, 22:37 PM   #5 (permalink)
Bluesman
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If the word you really are focused on is 'DECISIVE', my vote goes for Franklin. On that single day, the War in the West was finally OVER. There was no meaningful Confederate force left in the West after Hood destroyed his own army, and it wasn't capable of stopping the Federals when they came to smash what pitiful remnant was vainly trying to hold on outside Nashville.

None of the eastern battles decided anything very much, because Lee was still in the field and fighting until he was ground away to nothing by a seige, and not a battle.

Gettysburg did not end the war, not by a long shot, and Grant came dam' close to losing the war TWICE, well after Gettysburg. Once by horrendous casualties and a close election that almost went to the 'Surrender Now' Party (aka, the Democrats; ain't it odd how history repeats itself?) because of those casualties and an apparent inability to defeat Lee in the field. And then again when Lee manuevered Grant into a trap that almost saw the loss of either a third or two thirds of the Army of the Potomac at the North Anna River, failing only due to AP Hill's and his own seperate illnesses.

BUT...when the Army of Tennessee sacrificed itself at Franklin, it was mortally wounded, and THAT was the end of an entire theatre of the war.
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