In some respects it was the beginning of the end, so far as the Confederacy was concerned. There had been many disappointments and setbacks during the war, but at no time had so many Confederates simply turned and run. As usual, the Confederate supply system had proven totally unable to care for its men. Though Braxton Bragg would come in for plenty of denunciation, the wise observers knew there was more to it than that. The Union armies west of the Appalachian Mountains had gained—after a great struggle—a complete moral ascendancy over their Confederate foes.