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The Most Important State, North or South, during the Civil War Era (Other than Ohio) – Virginia

Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era? Virginia

By Jack Prause
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: The subject of the annual Dick Crews Memorial Debate at the January 2026 Roundtable meeting was: “Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era?” Four members made presentations on the topic; the article below was one of those four presentations.

Good evening, fellow Civil War history enthusiasts. I stand to argue that no state was more pivotal in the American Civil War than Virginia. From its battlefields to its generals, from the halls of Richmond to the farms of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia was the beating heart of the conflict. It was the main battleground, the home of legendary leaders, the arsenal and breadbasket of the Confederacy, and ultimately the place where the war effectively began and ended.

The Most Important State, North or South, during the Civil War Era (Other than Ohio) – South Carolina

Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era? South Carolina

By Ryan Bailey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2026, All Rights Reserved

South Carolina and the Making of the American Civil War: Ideological Leadership, Political Escalation, and the Collapse of Compromise

The Great Debate of 2026: Opening Remarks

Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era?

By William F.B. Vodrey – debate moderator
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: The subject of the annual Dick Crews Memorial Debate at the January 2026 Roundtable meeting was: “Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era?” Four members made presentations on the topic; the article below was the opening remarks made by the moderator of the debate.

We’re here tonight for the annual Dick Crews Memorial Debate, named after my longtime predecessor as moderator, Dick Crews. Dick once told me that the debate got its start as a Roundtable tradition because of the difficulty of finding speakers who were willing to travel to Cleveland in January. In moderating again tonight for, God help us all, my 22nd year, I stand on the shoulders of giants, including Dick.

The Great Debate of 2026

Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era?

The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2026, All Rights Reserved

The January 2026 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable featured the annual Dick Crews Memorial Debate. The topic for debate was the question: “Other than Ohio, what was the most important state, North or South, during the Civil War era?” Every state was important in one way or another during the turbulent time of the Civil War era, but some states are considered to be of greater importance. The 2026 Dick Crews Memorial Debate examined the question of which state, other than Ohio, was the most important, at least in the opinion of the debaters. (Ohio was excluded because the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable is located in Ohio.) Four debaters, each of whom chose a different state as the most important, presented arguments in support of their stance on this question. Below are the texts of those four arguments, along with moderator William Vodrey’s opening remarks.

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 2

Resaca to Allatoona Pass

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Part 1 of this series examined the start of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign in the wake of General Ulysses S. Grant’s letter of April 4, 1864, which directed Sherman regarding the rebel Army of Tennessee: “to break it up, and to get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.” In early May, Sherman instructed his three armies of maneuver to begin operations with John Schofield’s Army of the Ohio on the Union left, George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland in the center, and James McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee on the right. Sherman endeavored to use his numerical advantage to outflank Confederate defenses on Rocky Face Ridge, and he succeeded in doing so.

Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, Part 1

War of Maneuver – Rocky Face Ridge to the Outskirts of Resaca

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

The Roundtable’s 2025 field trip covered the Vicksburg Campaign, and the field trip in 2021 covered the Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga. The Union’s ultimate success in these military actions in Confederate territory depended on many Northern generals, but most prominently and importantly on the leadership of General Ulyssess S. Grant. As a result of his successes, Grant was summoned by President Abraham Lincoln to come east, and Grant was put in command over all the Union armies.

Vicksburg Field Trip – September 2025

By Steve Pettyjohn
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025, All Rights Reserved

Dates: September 25-28, 2025
Location: Vicksburg, Mississippi
Participants: 35 members and guests

Editor’s note: The photographs in this field trip report were generously provided by Jose Esparza and Steve Pettyjohn as indicated for each photograph.

The Trip

The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable conducted its 2025 annual fall field trip to Vicksburg, Mississippi from September 25-28 under the leadership of President Judge Charles Patton with the able assistance of Field Captain and Adjutant Bob Pence. The Vicksburg Campaign is one of the most important military campaigns in U.S. history and demonstrates the generalship of Ulysses S. Grant at its best. Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign has been hailed by many military historians as brilliant and worthy of being called Napoleonic. However, due to its geographic location in the Western Theater of the Civil War, the Vicksburg Campaign has always taken second fiddle to Gettysburg in the Eastern Theater.

Union Riverine Logistics at the Battle of Shiloh

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the October 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

We just returned from a wonderful field trip to Vicksburg, where we studied General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to capture the South’s “Gibraltar of the West.” It was a combined arms operation that included both the Union army and its brown water navy. Grant had employed such tactics previously and arguably under more difficult circumstances at the Battle of Shiloh, where General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio arrived after being shuttled across the Tennessee River – during the battle, at night in a rainstorm. In Wiley Sword’s book Shiloh: Bloody April, Buell is quoted as saying that it was “A brilliant page in History.” The daunting challenges of using transport ships to move troops and supplies during the Civil War are mentioned in most accounts only in passing. As such, this history brief focuses on part of the multitude of components that made up the logistics of crossing the Army of the Ohio over the Tennessee River, which must have appeared to onlookers to be an assemblage of organized chaos.

Ram Warfare on the Mississippi River in 1862

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025-2026, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the September 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

For its 2025 field trip, the Roundtable traveled to Vicksburg to study General Ulysses Grant’s campaign that accomplished one of the major goals of Union General Winfield Scott’s vaunted Anaconda Plan. But before the land campaign could be won, there was a war on the waters to win on the Mississippi River. Civil War naval battles quickly conjure the ironclad duel between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, Admiral Farragut at New Orleans, and Confederate blockade runners. However, for a couple of months in 1862, an improbable form of ancient naval battle reemerged on the Mississippi River, harkening back to the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Romans: that ancient form of naval battle being ram warfare.

Bushrod Johnson’s Final Resting Places

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in October 2016.

The Civil War is occasionally referred to as the North vs. the South. However, people who are knowledgeable about the Civil War know that that is not entirely correct on an individual level. This is because quite a few of the combatants were from the opposite part of the country, but felt loyalty to the other side and chose to fight on that side. One such person is General Bushrod R. Johnson, who was a Northerner by birth, but who fought for the Confederacy. Ironically, just like Johnson’s life had a geographic dichotomy across the Civil War’s sectional divide, Johnson has two final resting places with a similar geographic duality, one in the North and one in the South.