With its unique position as the gateway to the entire western Confederacy, Tennessee found itself the prime battleground in the West during the Civil War. Further, both the North and the South coveted the state's vast resources in agriculture and industry. Thomas L. Connelly (1938–1991), credited with some of the earliest studies of the Western Theater, traces the tactical maneuvers to garner the prize called Ten­nessee. He recounts the battles fought by large armies and master­minded by the most brilliant generals of the period. In Civil War Tennessee, Connelly is at his best in providing the reader with synop­ses of the events that made the state the spearhead of the war effort.