The strategic consequences of this campaign were the most important of the war so far. Nearly a third of Johnston’s forces in the Tennessee-Kentucky theater were hors de combat. Half of the remainder were at Nashville and half at Columbus, 200 miles apart with a victorious enemy between them in control of the rivers and railroads. Buell’s un-bloodied Army of the Ohio was bearing down on Nashville from the north, while a newly organized Union Army of the Mississippi commanded by John Pope threatened Columbus from across the Mississippi River. Johnston had to evacuate Nashville on February 23,
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