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The Eastern Theater of the American Civil War included the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina. (Operations in the interior of the Carolinas in 1865 are considered part of the Western Theater, while the other coastal areas along the Atlantic Ocean are included in the Lower Seaboard Theater.) The Eastern Theater was the venue for several major campaigns launched by the Union Army of the Potomac to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia; many of these were frustrated by the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee. President Abraham Lincoln sought a general to match Lee's boldness, appointing in turn Maj. Gens. Irvin McDowell, George B. McClellan, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and George G. Meade to command his principal Eastern armies. It was not until newly appointed general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant arrived from the Western Theater in 1864 to take personal control of operations in Virginia that Union forces were able to capture Richmond, but only after several bloody battles of the Overland Campaign and a nine-month siege near the cities of Petersburg and Richmond. The surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 brought major operations in the area to a close. While many of the campaigns and battles were fought in the region of Virginia between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, there were other major campaigns fought nearby. The Western Virginia Campaign of 1861 secured Union control over the western counties of Virginia, which would be formed into the new state of West Virginia. Confederate coastal areas and ports were seized in southeastern Virginia and North Carolina. The Shenandoah Valley was marked by frequent clashes in 1862, 1863, and 1864. Lee launched two unsuccessful invasions of Union territory in hopes of influencing Northern opinion to end the war. In the fall of 1862, Lee followed his successful Northern Virginia Campaign with his first invasion, the Maryland Campaign, which culminated in his strategic defeat in the Battle of Antietam. In the summer of 1863, Lee's second invasion, the Gettysburg Campaign, reached into Pennsylvania, farther north than any other major Confederate army. Following a Confederate attack on Washington, D.C., itself in 1864, Union forces commanded by Philip H. Sheridan launched a campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, which cost the Confederacy control over a major food supply for Lee's army. ==Theater of operations== The Eastern Theater included the campaigns that are generally most famous in the history of the war, if not for their strategic significance, then for their proximity to the large population centers, major newspapers, and the capital cities of the opposing parties. The imaginations of both Northerners and Southerners were captured by the epic struggles between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E. Lee, and the Union Army of the Potomac, under a series of less successful commanders. The bloodiest battle of the war (Gettysburg) and the bloodiest single day of the war (Antietam) were both fought in this theater. The capitals of Washington, D.C., and Richmond were both attacked or besieged. It has been argued that the Western Theater was more strategically important in defeating the Confederacy, but it is inconceivable that the civilian populations of both sides could have considered the war to be at an end without the resolution of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865.〔(Everything Military website ). Gary W. Gallagher, in ''Lee and His Army in Confederate History'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-8078-2631-7), p. 173, wrote that Lee's surrendering army "represented but a fraction of the Confederacy's men under arms, yet virtually everyone, North and South, interpreted Appomattox as the end of the war. ... Wartime evidence points strongly to the conclusion that Lee was correct in believing he operated in the vital geographic area."〕 The theater was bounded by the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. By far, the majority of battles occurred in the 100 miles between the cities of Washington and Richmond. This terrain favored the Confederate defenders because a series of rivers ran primarily west to east, making them obstacles rather than avenues of approach and lines of communication for the Union. This was quite different than the early years of the Western theater, and since the Union Army had to rely solely on the primitive road system of the era for its primary transportation, it limited winter campaigning for both sides. The Union advantage was control of the sea and major rivers, which would allow an army that stayed close to the ocean to be reinforced and supplied.〔''Echoes of Glory'', p. 20.〕 The campaign classification established by the United States National Park Service (NPS)〔U.S. National Park Service, (''Civil War Battle Studies by Campaign'' )〕 is more fine-grained than the one used in this article. Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and some have been combined into larger categories. Only a few of the 160 battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described. Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns associated with each section. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eastern Theater of the American Civil War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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