Throughout April of 1862, Gen. Henry Halleck pulled together nearly all the major field forces in the western armies, while Beauregard awaited him at Corinth. Halleck’s delayed attack ranks among the slowest and least aggressive military campaigns in history. Halleck intended to avoid bloody battles and in this, he succeeded. But the Union would learn the hard way that you can capture a town without fighting, but you can’t win a war that way.

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