I wasn't impling that you personally have forgotten. BUT, the general impression among most is that nothing happened between 1st Manassas (July 1861) and Shiloh (April 1862) because they concentrate only on the "BIG" battles.

This kind of galls me because I have been working on a Trans Mississippi campaign in which only one major engagement was fought, the Confederates lost that one. Yet, over the course of 18 months, the Confederates managed to force the Union army to move in exactly the manner which was least advantagious to the federals. I would called that a successful campaign on the Confederates part, even though they ultimately lost the final battle they had forced the federals into.

To me that is the "perfect" Campaign. One in which you force your enemy to manuver into an unfavorable position or be forced to surrender or withdraw without fighting a battle. Or at least only minor engagements in which you only expose a small position of your army to harm.

This to me was the beauty of Grant's Fort Henry and Donelson Campaign. It force the Confederates to move out of Kentucky and Tennessee along with the capture of 12,000 confederate soldiers, a sizable army that could have helped turned the tide of battle at Shiloh two months later had they withdrawen with the rest of the Confederate army into Northern Mississippi, two forts, a large number of heavy artillery and stores almost without firing a shot by his Army.