Lew Wallace of Indiana was a self-taught extraordinary military talent. With boldness and celerity, he advanced in less than a year from the rank of colonel of the 11th Indiana to that of major general commanding the 3rd Division at Shiloh. Ultimately, his civilian, amateur military status collided headlong with the professional military culture being assiduously cultivated by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, a cautious and difficult commander. The fallout was aggravated by Wallace’s unwillingness to acknowledge the protocols that sustained the military chain of command. The primary result of the collision was that he failed to realize his most cherished ambition: leading men in battle.

During the summer of 1864 a Union column, commanded by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson Smith, set out from Tennessee with a goal that had proven impossible in all prior attempts—to find and defeat the cavalry under the command of Confederate major general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest’s cavalry was the greatest threat to the long supply line feeding Sherman’s armies as they advanced on Atlanta.

In the fall of 1864, the Civil War’s outcome rested largely on Abraham Lincoln’s success in the upcoming presidential election. As the contest approached, cautious optimism buoyed the President’s supporters in the wake of Union victories at Atlanta and in the Shenandoah Valley. With all eyes on the upcoming election, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant conducted a series of large-scale military operations outside Richmond and Petersburg, which have, until now, received little attention.