Question

Why was the Confederate army so successful during the first two years of the Civil War

Answer 1

The Confederacy’s eastern military fortunes went well for the first two years, with major victories at First Manassas (Bull Run), ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s Valley Campaign, and the Seven Days’ Battles, where Gen. Robert E. Lee took command of the main eastern army in June 1862 and cleared Virginia of federal troops by September. His invasion of Maryland was checked at Sharpsburg (Antietam) in mid-September, and he returned to Virginia, where he badly defeated federal forces at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. The main western Confederate forces-commanded by Generals Albert Sidney Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, and Braxton Bragg-suffered defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson and Shiloh in Tennessee, and at Corinth, Mississippi, but they held that flank through 1862.