The contest for the Western Theater in 1862 was monu-mental in scope and importance. Containing an area of about 230,000 square miles—roughly the size of France—the Western Theater extended from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Mississippi River in the west, and from the Ohio River in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. Seven states—Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, eastern Louisiana, and western Florida—lay within its boundaries.