like montgomery, james montgomery and others, and lane, when grant and sherman were promoted to command of virginia and georgia, after nearly unerring success, they transferred with them their western style of war making. both put it to deadly use. grant's campaign, sherman's the march, and fellow ohioan sheridan's burning of the shenandoah valley and that night in 1874, sherman was not there, he was out west, but they vetted him nonetheless, all came to the strategic turn which broke the confederacy's capacity and its people's will to resist. in the fall of 1874, veterans of these western theaters gathered in springfield to honor their slain commander in chief and , they clearly believed that nearly from the war's outbreak, they and their soldiers had exerted a pivotal influence on the trajectory of the war. they claimed victory by their hard fighting, and they understood that many if not most of the war's pivotal measures had commenced in the west. carried to the war's eastern theaters by celebrated westerners, but also grant, sherman and sheridan but also by lesser known commanders l