But while the Federals learned to cooperate under the brilliant consensus-oriented leadership of Grant, the Confederates squabbled continually, and failed to communicate and cooperate. Responsibility for the various armies (and Union Navy) out west was divided on both sides. ![]() The two national governments, and their respective media and influential elites, were oriented toward the East front, which they mistakenly assumed would prove decisive. Throughout the war, Washington and Richmond both tended to ignore the west they sent inadequate soldiers and supplies. ![]() Furthermore, control would completely knock Texas and Arkansas out of the war without the need to defeat the strong armies there. The Mississippi River was of less strategic value, but control was a high priority because the "Father of Waters" was central to the image of nationhood held by westerners. The second goal was to use the Tennessee River to launch an attack at the rebel heartland in Georgia. The first western strategic goal of the Union was to seize full control of the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers, and state of Tennessee. The western theater stretched not two hundred miles across Virginia, but a thousand miles from Cincinnati to New Orleans.
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