150-Year Anniversary ยท January 1862
On January 19, 1862, Union forces won the Battle of Mill Springs in eastern Kentucky, breaking the right flank of the Confederate line in the West and opening the way for the offensives to come.
Edwin M. Stanton took office as secretary of war, bringing fierce energy and organization to the Union war effort and prodding the cautious McClellan toward action.
Rain and mud kept the great eastern armies idle, but in the western theater plans were maturing for a thrust up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers that would soon transform the war.
January 1862 was a winter pause before the river campaigns. Those campaigns are introduced on the Civil War timeline hub.