The Confederacy suffered many defeats in the Western Theater in early 1862. The losses of Forts Henry and Donelson along with Nashville and Memphis cost the South vast amounts of territory. The lull after Shiloh, however, would soon provide the South with opportunities to offset these reverses. In Banners to the Breeze: The Kentucky Campaign, Corinth, and Stones River, Earl Hess examines the failure of three Southern campaigns to reclaim this lost territory, regain the initiative, and change the momentum of the war.

As part of the Great Campaigns of the Civil War series, Hess seeks to explain more than the military campaigns during this critical time in the West. He also discusses important social and political outcomes and events. The addition of material such as the Emancipation Proclamation, the possibility of European intervention, the importance of East Tennessee, and the rise of the Copperheads educates the reader on how the battles of Perryville, Corinth and Stones River fit into the total context of the Civil War.
After Shiloh, Union Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck decided to consolidate the gains of the past few months rather than pushing further southward. This decision, which Hess defends, allowed Southern forces the opportunity to take the offensive. Confederate Generals Edmund Kirby Smith and Braxton Bragg soon marched northward into Kentucky with hopes of gaining valuable troops and supplies for the Confederacy. In doing so, the South’s principal western army reversed 1862’s early trend of defeats and retreats and brought the war in the West to the banks of the Ohio River. Unfortunately for the Confederacy, poor command structure ultimately doomed any hopes of prolonged success.
Smith and Bragg acted separately and their failure to unite and fight Union Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio on equal terms prevented victory. Bragg and Buell’s men met at Perryville on October 8 and without Smith’s force, Bragg’s outnumbered men launched a furious attack on a Union corps that brought about no appreciable gains. Bragg, despondent over the failure to unite with Smith and acknowledging that few men were joining his ranks, eventually retreated out of the Bluegrass.
While the Kentucky campaign neared its conclusion, events in Mississippi followed an ironic similarity. Confederate Maj. Gens. Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price also conducted isolated campaigns that nearly caused Price’s destruction at Iuka on September 19. By the time their forces united to attack Corinth, Federal troops were ready. Two horrific days of Confederate assaults on October 3 and 4 failed to capture the town and Southern forces barely managed to escape to fight another day.
The Union hero at Corinth, Maj. General William S. Rosecrans, would now have his opportunity to face Braxton Bragg. Rosecrans, having replaced the slow-moving Buell, marched his force southeastward from Nashville and met the Confederates at Stones River, near the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. On December 31, Bragg launched devastating attacks on Rosecrans’s right flank; ironically defended by the same corps almost routed at Perryville. Although Confederate forces damaged the Union army, they failed to destroy it. A subsequent attack on the Union left two days later only increased the casualty lists. Bragg’s men retreated, his men upset at their commander after their wasted efforts in Kentucky and at Stones River.
At first glance of the book, readers might wonder how the Kentucky campaign and actions in Mississippi relates with the battle of Stones River. Hess quickly eliminates any doubts with his well-written narrative that describes these Confederate attempts to reverse the trend of the war in the West. The bloody battles at Perryville, Iuka, Corinth, and Stones River displayed the rugged, fighting spirit of the South’s western troops even though inadequate leadership helped produce no tangible results except high casualties that the South could ill-afford. Although Banners lacks detailed citations, the book will hopefully encourage further research to raise interest to these worthy campaigns.
CPW