Who led the Confederate Army in the Battle of Chickamauga?
Chickamauga Creek
Union General William S. Rosecrans had established his army at Chickamauga, Georgia, southeast of Chattanooga. Confederate General Braxton Bragg had collected reinforcements and prepared to do battle, assisted by General James Longstreet. After two days of fighting, Rosecrans and a large portion of his army fled the field in disarray. The Battle of Chickamauga marked the end of the Union's "Chickamauga Campaign" in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia, and cost Rosencrans his command.
Eastern Theater of the American Civil War
As the Union Army drew towards the outer defenses of Richmond, it became divided by the Chickahominy River, weakening its ability to move troops back and forth along the front. McClellan kept most of his army north of the river, expecting McDowell to march from northern Virginia; only two Union corps (IV and III) were south of the river. Pressured by Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his military advisor Robert E. Lee, Johnston decided to attack the smaller Union force south of the river, hoping that the flooded Chickahominy, swollen from recent heavy rains, would prevent McClellan from moving to the southern bank. The Battle of Seven Pines (also known as the Battle of Fair Oaks), fought on May 31 – June 1, 1862, failed to follow Johnston's plan, due to faulty maps, uncoordinated Confederate attacks, and Union reinforcements, which were able to cross the river despite the flooding. The battle was tactically inconclusive, but there were two strategic effects. First, Johnston was wounded during the battle and was replaced by the more aggressive General Robert E. Lee, who would lead this Army of Northern Virginia to many victories in the war. Second, General McClellan chose to abandon his offensive operations to lay siege and await reinforcements he had requested from President Lincoln; as a consequence, he never regained his strategic momentum.
Wheeler's October 1863 Raid
After being defeated in the Battle of Chickamauga, the Union Army of the Cumberland, commanded by Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, withdrew into the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was besieged by Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. The Federals held a railhead at Bridgeport, Alabama, but because Bragg's army occupied Lookout Mountain, they had to bring supplies into the beleaguered city by wagon. The routes along the Tennessee River were easily harassed by the Confederates, so Rosecrans had to bring most of his supplies into Chattanooga from Bridgeport along a 60-mile wagon route across Walden's Ridge. Bragg ordered Wheeler to take the bulk of his cavalry corps and disrupt Rosecrans's communications across Walden's Ridge.
Battle of Chickamauga
On the Union side, Rosecrans held a council of war with most of his corps and division commanders to determine a course of action for September 20. The Army of the Cumberland had been significantly hurt in the first day's battle and had only five fresh brigades available, whereas the Confederate army had been receiving reinforcements and now outnumbered the Federals. Both of these facts ruled out a Union offensive. The presence of Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana at the meeting made any discussion of retreating difficult. Rosecrans decided that his army had to remain in place, on the defensive. He recalled that Bragg had retreated after Perryville and Stones River and could conceivably repeat that behavior.
Battle of Chickamauga
The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 18 – 20, 1863, between U.S. and Confederate forces in the American Civil War, marked the end of a Union offensive in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia — the Chickamauga Campaign. It was the first major battle of the war fought in Georgia, the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater, and involved the second-highest number of casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg.
Chattooga County, Georgia
The coming of the American Civil War saw Chattoogans polarized into pro and anti-union camps. Confederate armies received five regiments from Chattooga. Several engagements were fought in the county prior to the battle of Chickamauga. General Nathan Bedford Forrest fought an engagement near Alpine with Federal cavalry resulting in the Federals being thrown back to the Chattanooga area. The largest single engagement in Chattooga was the "Battle of Trion Factory," fought on Sept. 15th, 1863 on present day First Street near the site of the East Trion Church of God. Confederate Infantry forces under the command of General Benjamin Hardin Helm and cavalry under the command of Gen. Joseph Wheeler defeated Union forces in a running battle that started somewhere near Summerville and ended in Trion. The front section of the Old Trion Cemetery on First Street contains the remains of fifty-five Union soldiers and seven Confederates killed in this action, but the graves are unmarked.
8th Arkansas Infantry Regiment
By the time of the Chickamauga Campaign in September 1863, Colonel Daniel C. Govan had assumed command of Liddell's Brigade. The 8th Arkansas would continue to serve in Govan's Brigade until the end of the war. Its casualties were 14 killed, 92 wounded, and 65 missing at Chickamauga.
Leonidas Polk
Rosecrans eventually maneuvered Bragg out of Chattanooga and the Army of Tennessee withdrew into the mountains of northwestern Georgia with the Army of the Cumberland in hot pursuit. Bragg planned to attack and destroy at least one of Rosecrans's corps, advancing separately over mountainous roads. He was infuriated when Polk's division under Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman failed to attack an isolated Union corps at Davis's Cross Roads as ordered on September 11. Two days later, Polk disregarded orders from Bragg to attack another isolated corps, the second failed opportunity. At the Battle of Chickamauga, Polk was given command of the Right Wing and the responsibility for initiating the attack on the second day of battle (September 19). He failed to inform his subordinates of the plan and his wing was late in attacking, allowing the Union defenders time to complete their field fortifications. Bragg wrote after the war that if it were not for the loss of these hours, "our independence might have been won."
Chickamauga Confederate order of battle
MG Joseph Wheeler
Battle of Chickamauga
Fighting began in earnest on the morning of September 19. Bragg's men strongly assaulted but could not break the Union line. The next day, Bragg resumed his assault. In late morning, Rosecrans was misinformed that he had a gap in his line. In moving units to shore up the supposed gap, Rosecrans accidentally created an actual gap, directly in the path of an eight-brigade assault on a narrow front by Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, whose corps had been detached from the Army of Northern Virginia. In the resulting rout, Longstreet's attack drove one-third of the Union army, including Rosecrans himself, from the field.
Battle of Brown's Ferry
Following the defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga the Union Army of the Cumberland was trapped in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Braxton Bragg. Lacking the strength to capture the city by direct assault, Bragg settled into a siege, intending to starve the Union forces into surrender or retreat. To do so, he sent the brigade of Evander Law to a point on the Tennessee River downstream from Chattanooga, ordering it to fire on any Union wagon train which passed along the opposite shore. Law spread the 4th and 15th Alabama Infantry regiments along a front, keeping the other three regiments of his brigade in reserve. When the Union army began using other routes to supply Chattanooga, Law's corps commander James Longstreet ordered three regiments to be pulled back to Lookout Mountain, leaving two regiments along the river, with Colonel William C. Oates of the 15th Alabama in command.
Chickamauga Confederate order of battle
BG Nathan B. Forrest
Gordon Granger
Granger is most famous for his actions commanding the Reserve Corps at the Battle of Chickamauga. There on September 20, 1863, the second day of the battle, he reinforced, without orders, Major General George H. Thomas' XIV Corps on Snodgrass Hill by ordering James B. Steedman to send two brigades under his command to help Thomas. This action staved off the Confederate attackers until dark, permitting the Federal forces to retreat in good order and thus helping Thomas to earn the sobriquet "Rock of Chickamauga". After the battle, Granger wrote in his report, "being well convinced, judging from the sound of battle, that the enemy were pushing him [Thomas], and fearing that would not be able to resist their combined attack, I determined to go to his assistance at once."
Granger's effective leadership at Chickamauga earned him command of the newly formed IV Corps in the Army of the Cumberland commanded by General Thomas, and he was promoted brevet lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Army. Under his command, the IV Corps force distinguished itself at the third Battle of Chattanooga. Two of the IV Corps' divisions, those commanded by Thomas J. Wood and Philip Sheridan, were among the units that assaulted the reinforced center of the Confederate line on top of Missionary Ridge. There, the Union forces broke through and forced the Confederates, under General Braxton Bragg, to retreat. After Chattanooga, Granger took part in lifting the siege at Knoxville, Tennessee. Despite these successes, his outspokenness and bluntness with the superiors including General Ulysses S. Grant, who disliked Granger, prevented him from gaining more prominent commands at the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. He was sent to the Department of the Gulf under General E. R. S. Canby, and commanded a division that provided land support to the naval operations conducted by Admiral David Farragut in the Gulf of Mexico. Granger led the land forces that captured Forts Gaines and Morgan in conjunction with the Union naval operations during the Battle of Mobile Bay. Granger commanded the XIII Corps during the Battle of Fort Blakeley, which led to the fall of the city of Mobile, Alabama.
33rd Regiment Alabama Infantry
Following the debacle at Chickamagua and his subsequent failure to prevent the routed Union forces from escaping to Chattanooga, Bragg placed that city under siege after hearing that his foes had just six days of food remaining. Entrenching his forces atop Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge overlooking the city and the Tennessee River, Bragg soon learned that he would be facing a new opponent: Ulysses S. Grant. Fresh from his victory at Vicksburg, Grant had been ordered to take command of all Federal forces in the region; his first action upon arriving was to remove Rosecrans and replace him with George Thomas, who had saved the Union army at Chickamauga. With 50,000 new reinforcements to assist him, Grant opened a so-called "Cracker Line" to the starving Federals in the city at the Battle of Brown's Ferry; here the 15th Alabama, another regiment recruited from the same part of the state as the 33rd, was driven from the field after being outnumbered and overwhelmed by attacking Federals.
Battle of Chickamauga
Rosecrans ordered his army to move on August 16. The difficult road conditions meant a full week passed before they reached the Tennessee River Valley. They encamped while engineers made preparations for crossing the river. Meanwhile, Rosecrans's deception plan was underway. Col. John T. Wilder of the XIV Corps moved his mounted infantry brigade (the Lightning Brigade, which first saw prominence at Hoover's Gap) to the north of Chattanooga. His men pounded on tubs and sawed boards, sending pieces of wood downstream, to make the Confederates think that rafts were being constructed for a crossing north of the city. His artillery, commanded by Capt. Eli Lilly, bombarded the city from Stringer's Ridge for two weeks, an operation sometimes known as the Second Battle of Chattanooga. The deception worked and Bragg was convinced that the Union crossing would be above the city, in conjunction with Burnside's advancing Army of the Ohio from Knoxville.
John C. Frémont
Frémont and his army and two other generals, Nathaniel P. Banks and Irvin McDowell, and their respective armies, were in charge of protecting the Shenandoah Valley and Washington D.C. Rather than having these armies under one command, Lincoln and Stanton micromanaged their movements. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson took advantage of this divided command and systematically attacked each Union Army, putting fear in Washington D.C., taking spoils and thousands of prisoners. Early in June 1862 Frémont pursued the Confederate General Stonewall Jackson for eight days, finally engaging part of Jackson's force, led by Richard S. Ewell, at Battle of Cross Keys. Frémont commanded 10,500 Union troops while Ewell commanded about 5,000 Confederate troops. Frémont had moved down the Valley Pike from the northwest through Harrisonburg to Cross Keys, while Union Brigadier General James Shields closed in from the northeast, hoping to entrap Jackson's forces. Ewell who was in charge of defending Jackson's western flank established strong defensive positions.
Battle of Chickasaw Bayou
Another assault ordered by Sherman was conducted by two divisions under A.J. Smith (his own division and that of M.L. Smith, who had been wounded the day before) advancing across Chickasaw Bayou to seize the Indian Mound that was in the center of the Confederate line, defended by Barton and Gregg. Skirmishers from the brigades of Cols. Giles A. Smith and Thomas Kilby Smith covered the bayou crossing and the 6th Missouri Infantry of G. A. Smith's brigade led the way with 20 pioneers, building a road on the far bank. Five attempts to carry the position at the Indian mound were repulsed.
Chattanooga, Tennessee
During the American Civil War, Chattanooga was a center of battle. During the Chickamauga Campaign, Union artillery bombarded Chattanooga as a diversion and occupied it on September 9, 1863. Following the Battle of Chickamauga, the defeated Union Army retreated to safety in Chattanooga. On November 23, 1863, the Battles for Chattanooga began when Union forces led by future United States President and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant reinforced troops at Chattanooga and advanced to Orchard Knob against Confederate troops besieging the city. The next day, the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought, driving the Confederates off the mountain. On November 25, Grant's army routed the Confederates in the Battle of Missionary Ridge. These battles were followed the next spring by the Atlanta Campaign, beginning just over the nearby state line in Georgia and moving southeastward. After the war ended, the city became a major railroad hub and industrial and manufacturing center.
John Bratton
Bratton's regiment did not reach the Army of Tennessee until after the Battle of Chickamauga. Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins replaced Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood after he was wounded at Chickamauga and Bratton once again served as brigade commander. Bratton led a night attack on Federal forces at Wauhatchie on October 28–29, 1863, during which Bratton had the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th South Carolina Regiments and Hampton's legion at his disposal. Opposing him were the 109th and 111th Pennsylvania Regiments along with the 137th and 149th New York Regiments. Although the brigade attack was well-executed, the battle was a significant Confederate defeat at the beginning of the Chattanooga Campaign.
Knoxville Campaign
Reacting to Burnside's victories in the Cumberland Gap and at Blue Springs, and concerned that Burnside might reinforce the Federal army that was now besieged in Chattanooga, Braxton Bragg asked Confederate President Jefferson Davis to order James Longstreet to advance against Burnside. Longstreet and parts of his First Corps of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had arrived in northern Georgia in time to make a critical contribution to the Confederate victory at Chickamauga. Longstreet strongly objected to the order. He knew he would be significantly outnumbered, with 10,000 men in two infantry divisions (under Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws and Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins, the latter commanding the division of wounded Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood) and 5,000 cavalrymen under Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, versus Burnside's 12,000 infantry and 8,500 cavalry. Furthermore, he knew that the remaining 40,000 Confederates around Chattanooga would also be outnumbered by approaching reinforcements under Grant and Sherman. Longstreet argued that, by separating the Confederate forces, "We just expose both to failure, and really take no chance to ourselves of great results."
Battle of Chickamauga
Crittenden's corps began moving from Ringgold toward Lee and Gordon's Mill. Forrest's cavalry reported the movement across the Confederate front and Bragg saw another offensive opportunity. He ordered Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk to attack Crittenden's lead division, under Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood, at dawn on September 13, with Polk's corps and Walker's corps. Bragg rode to the scene after hearing no sound of battle and found that there were no preparations being made to attack. Once again, Bragg was angry that one of his subordinates did not attack as ordered, but by that morning it was too late—all of Crittenden's corps had passed by and concentrated at Lee and Gordon's Mill.
Chickamauga Confederate order of battle
Gen Braxton Bragg, Commanding
James G. Spears
At the opening of the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, Spears's unit occupied Lookout Mountain, overlooking Chattanooga. He was attacked by a Confederate force led by Nathan B. Forrest, but was ordered by Rosecrans to abandon the mountain rather than risk capture. In December 1863, Spears led his brigade north as part of an expedition to relieve Union-occupied Knoxville, which had been placed under siege by General James Longstreet. Spears scattered a small Confederate contingent led by John R. Hart near Kingston, and captured six guns abandoned by Hart at Loudon.
Ulysses S. Grant
Lincoln promoted Grant to major general in the regular army and assigned him command of the newly formed Division of the Mississippi on October 16, 1863, including the Armies of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland. After the Battle of Chickamauga, the Army of the Cumberland retreated into Chattanooga where they became trapped. Taking command, Grant arrived in Chattanooga by horseback with plans to resupply the city and break the siege. Lincoln also sent Major General Joseph Hooker to assist Grant. Union forces captured Brown's Ferry and opened a supply line to Bridgeport. On November 23, Grant organized three armies to attack at Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. Two days later, Hooker's forces took Lookout Mountain. Grant ordered Major General George Henry Thomas to advance when Sherman's army failed to take Missionary Ridge from the northeast. The Army of the Cumberland, led by Major General Philip Sheridan and Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, charged uphill and captured the Confederate entrenchments at the top, forcing a retreat. The decisive battle gave the Union control of Tennessee and opened Georgia, the Confederate heartland, to Union invasion. Grant was given an enormous thoroughbred horse, "Cincinnati", by a thankful admirer in St. Louis.
Chickamauga Union order of battle
The following Union Army units and commanders fought in the Battle of Chickamauga of the American Civil War. The Confederate order of battle is listed separately. Order of battle compiled from the army organization during the campaign.
MG William Rosecrans, Commanding
Army of Tennessee
Rosecrans launched the Chickamauga Campaign in late August, staging demonstrations near Chattanooga and upstream of the city along the Tennessee River. This convinced Bragg that Rosecrans was crossing the river to the north; however, Union forces were actually crossing to the south of the city. This forced Bragg to fall back into northern Georgia, abandoning the important railroad hub of Chattanooga on September 8. Over the course of the next several days, Bragg attempted to launch several attacks on isolated parts of the Union army but each attempt failed. On the evening of September 18, Bragg concentrated the army near Chickamauga Creek; he thought that only part of the Union army was nearby but Rosecrans had concentrated his army faster than Bragg had expected. During September 19 at Chickamauga, both sides fed in reinforcements as the day progressed. Longstreet arrived on the battlefield during the night of the 19 and 20; Bragg divided the army into two wings, with Polk commanding one division of his corps along with Hill's and Walker's corps on the right, and Longstreet commanding the other division of Polk's corps with Buckner's corps and his own corps (commanded by John B. Hood), on the left. Polk was ordered to attack at daylight on September 20, with Longstreet attacking immediately afterwards, but Polk didn't launch his attack until midmorning. The left wing failed to dislodge the Union army but Longstreet's wing attacked a gap in the Union army which routed the Union right flank. A portion of the Union army rallied on Horseshoe Ridge and held off multiple Confederate attacks until evening, when it followed the rest of Rosecrans' army into Chattanooga.
6th Florida Infantry Regiment
Evacuating Chattanooga on September 8, the Army of Tennessee’s three corps, commanded respectively by Leonidas Polk, Daniel Harvey Hill, and Simon Bolivar Buckner, marched southward to intercept Rosecrans. Colonel Trigg’s Brigade tramped along under the divisional command of Brigadier General William Preston. During the second week of September, this division was to participate in an attack on an isolated Federal division in a valley near the headwaters of Chickamauga Creek. Timidity among the Confederate commanders charged with leading this advance prevented any battle. As Dr. Henry McCall Holmes wrote of September 11, "got into line of battle on mt. ridge, sides in front almost perpendicular, very strong position. We advanced for awhile but found no Yanks except one dead one, they had left, got away from us…"
Chickamauga Campaign
Rosecrans retreated into Chattanooga after the battle of Chickamauga. Reinforcements were sent from the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Potomac. Both Crittenden and Alexander McCook, commander of the XX Corps, were replaced on September 28 for alleged misconduct at Chickamauga, although they were both cleared of the charge. U.S. Grant, recently made commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi and placed in command of the Union forces near Chattanooga, decided to replace Rosecrans with Thomas on October 19.
Chickamauga Campaign
Believing that Thomas L. Crittenden's XXI Corps was isolated from the rest of the Union army, Bragg ordered his army to concentrate near Lee's and Gordon's Mills; however, Rosecrans had been concentrating his army along Chickamauga Creek. Detachments from Thomas' Corps and Confederate cavalry collided on September 19, with both commanders feeding reinforcements into the engagement. The day ended without a clear victory by either side. The next day, Bragg ordered attacks in an echelon formation starting with the left flank at dawn but Polk, commanding the Confederate left wing, failed to properly supervise his command. The attacks began four hours late and failed to dislodge the Union army from its positions. Shortly after 11 a.m., an attack by Longstreet's corps struck a gap in the Union line, routing most of the Union army. Thomas formed his corps on Snodgrass Hill and held off further Confederate attacks for the remainder of the afternoon before retreating back to Chattanooga near sundown.
George Right Smith
Battle of Chickamauga – In September 1863, Longstreet's Corps left the Army of Northern Virginia by rail to join the Battle of Chickamauga in northwest Georgia, near Dalton. The corps bolstered the forces of General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. He used these reinforcements in a vicious two-day battle, September 19 and 20, gaining one of the few Confederate victories in the southwest. But, the 18th Georgia Regiment did not participate since they arrived on the field the day after the battle. The Union forces, under the command of General William Rosencrans, fell back into Chattanooga, Tennessee. Instead of vigorously pursuing Rosencrans and pressing the siege of Chattanooga, Gen. Bragg encircled the city hoping to starve the Union commander into surrendering. But, by Oct 23rd, General Ulysses Grant had arrived and the river route to Bridgeport was opened, the threat of starvation ended. Longstreet wrote after the war,
11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment
The Union defeat at Chickamauga left the Army of the Cumberland virtually under siege in Chattanooga, but the arrival of reinforcements under Ulysses S. Grant turned the tables several weeks later, and the 11th Michigan joined in the Battle of Missionary Ridge on November 25, 1863. Stoughton was again in command of the brigade, and Major Benjamin G. Bennett led the regiment with Mudge still recovering from his Chickamauga wound. The Michiganders, despite having Bennett and Color Bearer John Day killed, successfully charged uphill against the entrenched Rebels of Otho F. Strahl’s brigade, with lead elements of the Michigan regiment penetrating a gap between Strahl’s troops and the neighboring brigade of Randall Gibson. Quartermaster Sergeant James Wood King, who entered the battle outside his line of duty, was among the first soldiers to reach the summit and fight to pry open the breach in the Rebel line. King was later nominated for the Medal of Honor. Bragg’s siege was broken by the Federal assault, and the Confederates were hurtled into a precipitous retreat. Stoughton’s troops participated in the pursuit of Bragg’s army the next day, launching a night assault in pitch darkness near Graysville, Georgia, and capturing the Confederate artillery battery of Thomas B. Ferguson without the loss of a single soldier.
Philip Sheridan
The Army of the Cumberland recovered from the shock of Stones River and prepared for its summer offensive against Confederate General Braxton Bragg. Sheridan's division participated in the advance against Bragg in Rosecrans's brilliant Tullahoma Campaign, and was the lead division to enter the town of Tullahoma. On the second day of the Battle of Chickamauga, September 20, 1863, Rosecrans was shifting Sheridan's division behind the Union battle line when Bragg launched an attack into a gap in the Union line. Sheridan's division made a gallant stand on Lytle Hill against an attack by the Confederate corps of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, but was swamped by retreating Union soldiers. The Confederates drove Sheridan's division from the field in confusion. He gathered as many men as he could and withdrew toward Chattanooga, rallying troops along the way. Learning of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's XIV Corps stand on Snodgrass Hill, Sheridan ordered his division back to the fighting, but they took a circuitous route and did not participate in the fighting as some histories claim. His return to the battlefield ensured that he did not suffer the fate of Rosecrans who rode off to Chattanooga leaving the army to its fate, and was soon relieved of command.
John K. Jackson
Following the fight at Stones River, Jackson and his men were sent back to Bridgeport and then again to Chattanooga, ordered to defend railroad communications from Atlanta to Tullahoma. From February 23 to July 25 he commanded the District of Tennessee of the Confederate Department No. 2. When Bragg's army fell back on that city, Jackson's brigade was assigned to Major General Benjamin F. Cheatham's division of Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk's corps. He fought with distinction during the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19–20, 1863, where one of his regiments, the 5th Georgia, "lost sixty-one per cent in that battle, the second heaviest loss of all the regiments engaged." He participated in the Chattanooga Campaign that October and November, most notably in the Battle of Missionary Ridge, where his brigade and that of Brig Gen. John C. Moore greatly slowed the Union breakthrough on November 25.
Chickamauga Confederate order of battle
LTG James Longstreet
Benjamin F. Cheatham
Cheatham continued as a division commander under Bragg at the Battle of Chickamauga and, following that rare Confederate victory in the West, and in the battles around Chattanooga, including Missionary Ridge, where Bragg was defeated by Grant. He helped block the Union Army in the final hours of the battle.
Army of the Tennessee
In the fall of 1862, Grant began organizing operations against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a Confederate strong point on the east bank of the Mississippi River under the command of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton. Grant's first initiative ended unsuccessfully in December, when Confederate attacks on his supply lines, especially the supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi, caused Grant to abandon his own planned overland move on Vicksburg from the east. Sherman, intended to be operating against Vicksburg down the Mississippi River in concert with Grant's abandoned thrust, then suffered a repulse in the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou. Meanwhile, initially unbeknownst to Grant, his senior subordinate, John McClernand, had used his political influence with Abraham Lincoln to obtain authority for an expedition of his own against Vicksburg. This development, which one historian has characterized as "one of the more bizarre episodes of the Civil War," set McClernand up as a potential competitor to Grant, but also benefited the Army of the Tennessee in the long run because McClernand raised new troops in the Midwest to further his own purposes. In January 1863, shortly after Chickasaw Bayou, McClernand asserted control over the 30,000 men then under Sherman and redesignated those troops as the Army of the Mississippi; that force, under McClernand and Sherman, succeeded in capturing Fort Hindman on the Arkansas River. Grant considered this objective to constitute "a wild-goose chase," and General-in-Chief Halleck authorized him to assume control over all Vicksburg operations. Hence, McClernand's briefly independent force was reincorporated into the Army of the Tennessee, and McClernand's further participation in the Vicksburg campaign was as XIII Corps commander under Grant.
In the early months of 1863, Grant pursued various futile operations seeking to capture Vicksburg from the north, causing one newspaper to complain that the "army was being ruined in mud-turtle expeditions, under the leadership of a drunkard [Grant], whose confidential adviser [Sherman] was a lunatic." However, in April Grant proceeded to establish his troops well south of Vicksburg by marching them down the west side of the Mississippi and crossing it with the aid of the Navy. Working well with the Western Flotilla under Acting Rear Admiral David D. Porter, Grant led approximately 40,000 men in the XIII (McClernand), XV (Sherman), and XVII (McPherson) Corps through the Vicksburg Campaign, a masterful 180-mile (288 km) campaign of maneuver against two Confederate armies, Pemberton's Vicksburg force and a relief force under General Joseph E. Johnston. After capturing and briefly occupying Jackson, Mississippi, on May 14, and winning the Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, Grant failed in initial assaults against the Confederate entrenchments at Vicksburg on May 19 and 22 and then settled in for siege operations rather than incur additional casualties.
Battle of Chickamauga
Longstreet finally deployed Preston's division, which made several attempts to assault Horseshoe Ridge, starting around 4:30 p.m. Longstreet later wrote that there were 25 assaults in all on Snodgrass Hill, but historian Glenn Tucker has written that it was "really one of sustained duration." At that same time Thomas received an order from Rosecrans to take command of the army and began a general retreat. Thomas's divisions at Kelly field, starting with Reynolds's division, were the first to withdraw, followed by Palmer's. As the Confederates saw the Union soldiers withdrawing, they renewed their attacks, threatening to surround Johnson's and Baird's divisions. Although Johnson's division managed to escape relatively unscathed, Baird lost a significant number of men as prisoners. Thomas left Horseshoe Ridge, placing Granger in charge, but Granger departed soon thereafter, leaving no one to coordinate the withdrawal. Steedman, Brannan, and Wood managed to stealthily withdraw their divisions to the north. Three regiments that had been attached from other units—the 22nd Michigan, the 89th Ohio, and the 21st Ohio—were left behind without sufficient ammunition, and ordered to use their bayonets. They held their position until surrounded by Preston's division, when they were forced to surrender.
Tullahoma Campaign
Rosecrans did not immediately pursue Bragg and "give the finishing blow to the rebellion" as Stanton urged. He paused to regroup and study the difficult choices of pursuit into mountainous regions. When the campaigning resumed, Bragg's army proved to be only temporarily defeated. Reinforced with additional troops from Lee's Virginia army, Bragg attacked Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga in September and won the only significant Confederate victory in the Western Theater of the war, driving Rosecrans back to Chattanooga and besieging him there.
Battle of Chickasaw Bayou
On the morning of December 29, Sherman ordered an artillery bombardment of the Confederate defenses to weaken them before a general Federal advance. For almost four hours, an artillery duel took place all along the line of battle, but did little damage. At 11 a.m., the duel ceased, and the infantry deployed into their lines of battle. Understanding the formidable nature of the Confederate fortifications, Sherman remarked, "We will lose 5,000 men before we take Vicksburg, and may as well lose them here as anywhere else."
Battle of Chickamauga
Gallery: the Battle of Chickamauga from the "Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies".
Ambrose Burnside
Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans was defeated at the Battle of Chickamauga, and Burnside was pursued by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, against whose troops he had battled at Marye's Heights. Burnside skillfully outmaneuvered Longstreet at the Battle of Campbell's Station and was able to reach his entrenchments and safety in Knoxville, where he was briefly besieged until the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Fort Sanders outside the city. Tying down Longstreet's corps at Knoxville contributed to Gen. Braxton Bragg's defeat by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga. Troops under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman marched to Burnside's aid, but the siege had already been lifted; Longstreet withdrew, eventually returning to Virginia.
Battle of Chickamauga
The Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by Bragg, with about 65,000 men, was composed of the following major organizations:
Battle of Chickamauga
Bragg's plan was for an attack on the supposed Union left flank by the corps of Maj. Gens. Simon B. Buckner, John Bell Hood, and W.H.T. Walker, screened by Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry to the north, with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham's division held in reserve in the center and Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne's division in reserve at Thedford's Ford. Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman's division faced Crittenden at Lee and Gordon's Mill and Breckinridge's faced Negley.
Chickamauga Campaign
(September 19–20, 1863)
Battle of Chickamauga
Thomas's lead division, under Maj. Gen. James Negley, intended to cross McLemore's Cove and use Dug Gap in Pigeon Mountain to reach LaFayette. Negley was 12 hours ahead of Brig. Gen. Absalom Baird's division, the nearest reinforcements. Braxton Bragg hoped to trap Negley by attacking through the cove from the northeast, forcing the Union division to its destruction at the cul-de-sac at the southwest end of the valley. Early on the morning of September 10, Bragg ordered Polk's division under Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman to march 13 miles southwest into the cove and strike Negley's flank. He also ordered D.H. Hill to send Cleburne's division from LaFayette through Dug Gap to strike Negley's front, making sure the movement was coordinated with Hindman's.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Sherman's military record in 1862–63 was mixed. In December 1862, forces under his command suffered a severe repulse at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Soon after, his XV Corps was ordered to join Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand in his successful assault on Arkansas Post, generally regarded as a politically motivated distraction from the effort to capture Vicksburg. Before the Vicksburg Campaign in the spring of 1863, Sherman expressed serious reservations about the wisdom of Grant's unorthodox strategy, but he went on to perform well in that campaign under Grant's supervision.
Battle of Chickamauga
The plan for the Union advance was to cross the Cumberland Plateau into the valley of the Tennessee River, pause briefly to accumulate some supplies, and then cross the river itself. An opposed crossing of the wide river was not feasible, so Rosecrans devised a deception to distract Bragg above Chattanooga while the army crossed downstream. Then the Army would advance on a wide front through the mountains. The XXI Corps under Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden would advance against the city from the west, the XIV Corps under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas would cross over Lookout Mountain 20 miles south of the city, while the XX Corps under Maj. Gen. Alexander M. McCook and the Cavalry Corps under Maj. Gen. David S. Stanley would advance even farther to the southeast toward Bragg's railroad supply line leading from Atlanta. If executed correctly, this plan would cause Bragg to evacuate Chattanooga or be trapped in the city without supplies.
Battle of Chickamauga
For a third time, Bragg ordered a fresh division to move in, this time Maj. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart's (Buckner's corps) from its position at Thedford Ford around noon. Stewart encountered Wright's retreating brigade at the Brock farm and decided to attack Van Cleve's position on his left, a decision he made under his own authority. With his brigades deployed in column, Brig. Gen. Henry Clayton's was the first to hit three Federal brigades around the Brotherton Farm. Firing until their ammunition was gone, Clayton's men were replaced with Brig. Gen. John Brown's brigade. Brown drove Beatty's and Dick's men from the woods east of the LaFayette Road and paused to regroup. Stewart committed his last brigade, under Brig. Gen. William Bate, around 3:30 p.m. and routed Van Cleve's division. Hazen's brigade was caught up in the retreat as they were replenishing their ammunition. Col. James Sheffield's brigade from Hood's division drove back Grose's and Cruft's brigades. Brig. Gen. John Turchin's brigade (Reynolds's division) counterattacked and briefly held off Sheffield, but the Confederates had caused a major penetration in the Federal line in the area of the Brotherton and Dyer fields. Stewart did not have sufficient forces to maintain that position, and was forced to order Bate to withdraw east of the Lafayette Road.
Battle of Missionary Ridge
The Confederate enthusiasm that had risen so high after Chickamauga had been dashed at Chattanooga. One of the Confederacy's two major armies was routed. The Union now held undisputed control of the state of Tennessee, including Chattanooga, the "Gateway to the Lower South." The city became the supply and logistics base for Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, as well as for the Army of the Cumberland, and Grant had won his final battle in the West prior to receiving command of all Union armies in March 1864.
Sand Mountain (Alabama)
Union troops under Major General George H. Thomas crossed Sand Mountain in September 1863 in an attempt to cut off the Confederate troops in Chattanooga. They were unsuccessful, and the opposing armies met at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19–20, 1863, resulting in a major Confederate victory.
Evander McNair
At the Battle of Chickamauga McNair's brigade participated in exploiting the break in the Union lines that turned the battle for the Confederates. During the fierce fighting McNair was wounded and both he and his brigade were sent to Mississippi for recuperation. In 1864 McNair was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department where he served for the remainder of the war.
Helena Artillery
The Chattanooga Campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles in October and November 1863, during the American Civil War. Following the defeat of Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans' Union Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Chickamauga in September, the Confederate Army of Tennessee under Gen. Braxton Bragg besieged Rosecrans and his men by occupying key high terrain around Chattanooga, Tennessee. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was given command of Union forces in the West and significant reinforcements began to arrive with him in Chattanooga from Mississippi and the Eastern Theater.
William Crutchfield
While Crutchfield never enlisted, he frequently provided information on Confederate troop movements to Union forces operating in Chattanooga and the vicinity. During the Union bombardment of Chattanooga in August 1863, he was again pursued by Confederate authorities, but eluded them by swimming across the Tennessee River and reaching Union lines. He provided the leaders of the Army of the Cumberland with invaluable information regarding Confederate troop positions, and would subsequently serve as an honorary captain and local guide to Union generals throughout the Chickamauga Campaign. He assisted William B. Hazen and John B. Turchin at the Battle of Brown's Ferry in October 1863, and Ulysses S. Grant and George H. Thomas at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in November 1863. After the Union Army solidified its control of Chattanooga, Crutchfield provided assistance to General James B. Steedman and other post commanders until the close of the war. In his memoirs, General Philip H. Sheridan wrote that Crutchfield's "devotion to the Union cause knew no bounds," and described the information he provided as critical to the Union Army's success in the Chickamauga Campaign.
Wilmon W. Blackmar
After fighting with his regiment in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of corporal. On March 1, 1863, he advanced to the rank of sergeant and then advanced again to first sergeant on May 5 of that same year, according to historian Samuel P. Bates (or, per Grand Army of the Republic records, to the rank of "orderly sergeant"). He then participated with the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign from August 21 to September 20, 1863, engaging in a well-publicized charge on Confederate States Army troops at Murfreesboro, Tennessee and also fighting in the Battle of Chickamauga (September 18–20).
Simon Bolivar Buckner
In late August, Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside approached Buckner's position at Knoxville. Buckner called for reinforcements from Bragg at Chattanooga, but Bragg was being threatened by forces under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans and could not spare any of his men. Bragg ordered Buckner to fall back to the Hiwassee River. From there, Buckner's unit traveled to Bragg's supply base at Ringgold, Georgia, then on to Lafayette and Chickamauga. Bragg was also forced from Chattanooga and joined Buckner at Chickamauga. On September 19 and 20, the Confederate forces attacked and emerged victorious at the Battle of Chickamauga. Buckner's Corps fought on the Confederate left both days, the second under the "wing" command of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, participating in the great breakthrough of the Union line.
Braxton Bragg
In June, he was outmaneuvered in the Tullahoma Campaign and retreated into Chattanooga. In September, he was forced to evacuate Chattanooga, but counterattacked Rosecrans and defeated him at the Battle of Chickamauga, the bloodiest battle in the Western Theater, and the only major Confederate victory therein. In November, Bragg's army was routed in turn by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battles for Chattanooga.
Tennessee in the American Civil War
After winning a victory at Chickamauga in September 1863, the Confederates besieged Chattanooga but were finally driven off by Grant in November. Many of the Confederate defeats can be attributed to the poor leadership of General Braxton Bragg, who led the Army of Tennessee from Shiloh to the Confederate defeat at Chattanooga. Historian Thomas Connelly concludes that although Bragg was an able planner and a skillful organizer, he failed repeatedly in operations, in part because he was unable to collaborate effectively with his subordinates.
Battle of Lookout Mountain
The Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought November 24, 1863, as part of the Chattanooga Campaign of the American Civil War. Union forces under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker assaulted Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and defeated Confederate forces commanded by Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson. Lookout Mountain was one engagement in the Chattanooga battles between Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Military Division of the Mississippi and the Confederate Army of Tennessee, commanded by Gen. Braxton Bragg. It drove in the Confederate left flank and allowed Hooker's men to assist in the Battle of Missionary Ridge the following day, which routed Bragg's army, lifting the siege of Union forces in Chattanooga, and opening the gateway into the Deep South.
11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment
After months of recuperation in Murfreesboro, Rosecrans advanced again in the Tullahoma Campaign on June 23, 1863, turning Bragg’s army out of its position, and repeated this feat to force his retreat from Chattanooga. When Rosecrans pushed too aggressively in pursuit, Negley’s division, the 11th Michigan included, was nearly cut off and captured, but fought a successful delaying action against a vastly superior Confederate force at the Battle of Davis’s Cross Roads. The 11th was the most heavily engaged unit in the battle, losing 3 dead, 11 wounded, and 3 missing (the missing soldiers later perished at Andersonville). A week later, the adversaries clashed again at the Battle of Chickamauga, where the 11th Michigan on September 20, 1863, helped parry a Rebel attempt to flank George H. Thomas’s corps and cut the Union army off from its line of retreat. The Michiganders participated in the ambush of Brigadier General Daniel Weisiger Adams’s brigade, inflicting severe losses on the Confederates and capturing Adams in the process. Later that day—with Stanley wounded, Stoughton raised to brigade command, and Mudge leading the regiment—the 11th Michigan participated in the legendary defense of Snodgrass Hill (also known as Horseshoe Ridge), inflicting catastrophic casualties on the Confederate brigade of Archibald Gracie. Confederate general Joseph Kershaw, witnessing the attack, declared it “one of the heaviest assaults of the war on a single point.” Michigan sergeant William G. Whitney earned the Medal of Honor for gathering desperately needed ammunition from downed Rebels between the lines—while under fire from Rebel sharpshooters—during a brief lull in the assault. Overall casualties for the 11th Michigan at Chickamauga amounted to 66 men, with Mudge among the wounded.
Chickahominy River
General Joseph E. Johnston, who commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, resolved to attack the two (of five) corps that were south of the river and destroy them before the rest of the army could come to their aid. The attack was made in two places, at the railroad station of Fair Oaks and (about a mile away) at the crossroads of Seven Pines. (The battle is often referred to in the North as the Battle of Seven Pines; the South calls it the Battle of Fair Oaks.) At first the Union troops were driven back and almost beaten, but meanwhile the soldiers on the other side of the Chickahominy had succeeded in building a bridge. Several thousand Union men hurried across to help, driving the Confederates back. General Johnston was severely wounded (May 31). The next day the attack was renewed at Fair Oaks, but the Confederates were again defeated and they retreated in disorder to Richmond.
Battle of Chickamauga
On September 21, Rosecrans's army withdrew to the city of Chattanooga and took advantage of previous Confederate works to erect strong defensive positions. However, the supply lines into Chattanooga were at risk, and the Confederates soon occupied the surrounding heights and laid siege upon the Union forces. Unable to break the siege, Rosecrans was relieved of his command of the Army of the Cumberland on October 19, replaced by Thomas. McCook and Crittenden lost their commands on September 28 as the XX Corps and the XXI Corps were consolidated into a new IV Corps commanded by Granger; neither officer would ever command in the field again. On the Confederate side, Bragg began to wage a battle against the subordinates he resented for failing him in the campaign: Hindman for his lack of action in McLemore's Cove and Polk for his late attack on September 20. On September 29, Bragg suspended both officers from their commands. In early October, an attempted mutiny of Bragg's subordinates resulted in D.H. Hill being relieved from his command. Longstreet was dispatched with his corps to the Knoxville Campaign against Ambrose Burnside, seriously weakening Bragg's army at Chattanooga.
Battle of Chickamauga
Bragg met individually with his subordinates and informed them that he was reorganizing the Army of Tennessee into two wings. Leonidas Polk, the senior lieutenant general on the field (but junior to Longstreet), was given the right wing and command of Hill's Corps, Walker's Corps, and Cheatham's Division. Polk was ordered to initiate the assault on the Federal left at daybreak, beginning with the division of Breckinridge, followed progressively by Cleburne, Stewart, Hood, McLaws, Bushrod Johnson, Hindman, and Preston. Informed that Lt. Gen. James Longstreet had just arrived by train from Virginia, Bragg designated him as the left wing commander, commanding Hood's Corps, Buckner's Corps, and Hindman's Division of Polk's Corps. (Longstreet arrived late on the night of September 19, and had to find his way in the dark to Bragg's headquarters, since Bragg did not send a guide to meet him. Longstreet found Bragg asleep and woke him around 11 p.m. Bragg told Longstreet he would take charge of the left wing, explained his battle plan for September 20, and provided Longstreet a map of the area.) The third lieutenant general of the army, D.H. Hill, was not informed directly by Bragg of his effective demotion to be Polk's subordinate, but he learned his status from a staff officer.
43rd Mississippi Infantry
In September 1863, Company H (Pound's Battalion) of the 43rd Mississippi was ordered to join Braxton Bragg's Army of the Tennessee in Georgia. Pound's Battalion fought at the Battle of Chickamauga. Chickamauga was a victory for the Confederacy.
Battle of Chickamauga
At around 2 p.m, the division of Brig. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson (Hood's corps) encountered the advance of Union Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis's two brigade division of the XX corps, marching north from Crawfish Springs. Johnson's men attacked Col. Hans Heg's brigade on Davis's left and forced it across the LaFayette Road. Hood ordered Johnson to continue the attack by crossing the LaFayette Road with two brigades in line and one in reserve. The two brigades drifted apart during the attack. On the right, Col. John Fulton's brigade routed King's brigade and linked up with Bate at Brotherton field. On the left, Brig. Gen. John Gregg's brigade attacked Col. John T. Wilder's Union brigade in its reserve position at the Viniard Farm. Gregg was seriously wounded and his brigade advance halted. Brig. Gen. Evander McNair's brigade, called up from the rear, also lost their cohesion during the advance.
Union Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood's division was ordered to march north from Lee and Gordon's Mill around 3 p.m. His brigade under Col. George P. Buell was posted north of the Viniard house while Col. Charles Harker's brigade continued up the LaFayette Road. Harker's brigade arrived in the rear of Fulton's and McNair's Confederate regiments, firing into their backs. Although the Confederates retreated to the woods east of the road, Harker realized he was isolated and quickly withdrew. At the Viniard house, Buell's men were attacked by part of Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law's division of Hood's corps. The brigades of Brig. Gens. Jerome B. Robertson and Henry L. Benning pushed southwest toward the Viniard field, pushing back Brig. Gen. William Carlin's brigade (Davis's division) and fiercely struck Buell's brigade, pushing them back behind Wilder's line. Hood's and Johnson's men, pushing strongly forward, approached so close to Rosecrans's new headquarters at the tiny cabin of Widow Eliza Glenn that the staff officers inside had to shout to make themselves heard over the sounds of battle. There was a significant risk of a Federal rout in this part of the line. Wilder's men eventually held back the Confederate advance, fighting from behind a drainage ditch.
Patrick Cleburne
During the campaigns of 1863 in Tennessee, Cleburne and his soldiers fought at the Battle of Chickamauga. They successfully resisted a much larger Union force under Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on the northern end of Missionary Ridge during the Battle of Missionary Ridge, and Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Ringgold Gap in northern Georgia, in which Cleburne's men again protected the Army of Tennessee as it retreated to Tunnel Hill, Georgia. Cleburne and his troops received an official Thanks from the Confederate Congress for their actions during this campaign.
John Bell Hood
Meanwhile, in the Western Theater, the Confederate army under General Braxton Bragg was faring poorly. Lee dispatched two divisions of Longstreet's Corps to Tennessee, and Hood was able to rejoin his men at Chickamauga Creek on September 18. Bragg ordered him to form a "mini-corps," merging one of the brigades he had with him on the field with Brig. Gen. Bushrod Johnson's division. It was then that Hood participated in the Battle of Chickamauga, driving Col. Robert Minty's Union brigade from Reed's Bridge and stopping only at Alexander's Bridge, where John T. Wilder's men fired their Spencer repeating rifles on the Confederates. As darkness set in, he chanced to have met Gen. John C. Breckinridge, former Vice-President of the United States, presidential candidate and Senator of Kentucky as well as a cousin of Buck Preston. The remaining two units of Hood's division regrouped with their commander to prepare for the next day's battle.
Braxton Bragg
After Rosecrans had consolidated his gains and secured his hold on Chattanooga, he began moving his army into northern Georgia in pursuit of Bragg. Bragg continued to suffer from the conduct of his subordinates, who were not attentive to his orders. On September 10, Maj. Gens. Thomas C. Hindman and D.H. Hill refused to attack, as ordered, an outnumbered Federal column at McLemore's Cove (the Battle of Davis's Cross Roads). On September 13, Bragg ordered Leonidas Polk to attack Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden's corps, but Polk ignored the orders and demanded more troops, insisting that it was he who was about to be attacked. Rosecrans used the time lost in these delays to concentrate his scattered forces. Finally, on September 19–20, 1863, Bragg, reinforced by two divisions from Mississippi, one division and several brigades from the Department of East Tennessee, and two divisions under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet from Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, turned on the pursuing Rosecrans in northeastern Georgia and at high cost defeated him at the Battle of Chickamauga, the greatest Confederate victory in the Western Theater during the war. It was not a complete victory, however. Bragg's objective was to cut off Rosecrans from Chattanooga and destroy his army. Instead, following a partial rout of the Union army by Longstreet's wing, a stout defense by Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas allowed Rosecrans and almost all of his army to escape.
Battle of Wauhatchie
After their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga, Union forces under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee besieged the city, threatening to starve the Union forces into surrender. Bragg's troops occupied Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, both of which had excellent views of the city, the river, and the Union's supply lines. Confederate troops launched raids on all supply wagons heading toward Chattanooga, which made it necessary for the Union to find another way to feed their men. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant relieved Rosecrans of his command and replaced him with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. Grant's first priority upon reaching Chattanooga was to resupply the Union army.
Chickamauga Creek
During the Civil War, one of the bloodiest engagements of the war was fought near Chickamauga Creek over control of the railroad center at nearby Chattanooga. The conflict became known as the Battle of Chickamauga, fought September 19–20, 1863. However, the creek itself had very little influence on the course of the battle.
John C. Breckinridge
In May 1863, Breckinridge was reassigned to Joseph E. Johnston, participating in the Battle of Jackson in an unsuccessful attempt to break the Siege of Vicksburg. Vicksburg fell to Grant's forces on July 4, and Breckinridge was returned to Bragg's command on August 28, 1863. After seeing no action on the first day of the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia on September 19, he led a division of D.H. Hill's corps in an attack on the Union forces the next morning. The Confederate troops succeeded in breaking the Union line, but the main army, due at least in part to Bragg's hesitation, escaped back to Tennessee. Of Breckinridge's 3,769 men, 166 were killed in the battle; 909 were wounded and 165 were missing.
Battle of Chickamauga
Harold Knudsen contends that Chickamauga was the first major Confederate effort to use the "interior lines of the nation" to transport troops between theaters with the aim of achieving a period of numerical superiority and taking the initiative in the hope of gaining decisive results in the West. He states, "The concentration the Confederates achieved at Chickamauga was an opportunity to work within the strategic parameters of Longstreet's Defensive-Offensive theory." In Knudsen's estimation, it was the Confederates' last realistic chance to take the tactical offense within the context of a strategic defense, and destroy the Union Army of the Cumberland. If a major victory erasing the Union gains of the Tullahoma Campaign and a winning of the strategic initiative could be achieved in late 1863, any threat to Atlanta would be eliminated for the near future. Even more significantly, a major military reversal going into the election year of 1864 could have severely harmed President Lincoln's re-election chances, caused the possible election of Peace Democrat nominee George McClellan as president, and the cessation of the Union war effort to subdue the South.
Battle of Chickasaw Bayou
At noon, Union troops advanced with a cheer. Blair's brigade moved on the left, DeCourcy's in the center, followed by Brig. Gen. John M. Thayer's brigade on the right; Thayer's brigade lost its way and only one regiment, the 4th Iowa Infantry, was engaged. Colonel James A. Williamson, commanding the 4th Iowa, was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. They crossed water barriers and abatis and carried the advance rifle pits on the weight of sheer numbers, but met stiff resistance when they came against the main Confederate line and began to crumble under the heavy fire. The survivors fell back across the bayou on a corduroy bridge. S.D. Lee ordered his men to make a counterattack, during which they captured 332 Federals and four battle flags.
Claudius C. Wilson
Wilson's brigade was attached to General Joseph E. Johnston's forces attempting to relieve the Siege of Vicksburg Mississippi in early 1863 and later in defending Jackson, Mississippi. After the fall of Vicksburg, Wilson's brigade went to Georgia where they were part of the reserve corps at the Battle of Chickamauga. Wilson's distinguished conduct at that battle in initiating a counterattack when Union Army troops had driven back Confederate cavalry under Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest early on the second day of the battle and in capturing several artillery pieces helped win the battle for the Confederates. That conduct resulted in recommendations that Wilson be promoted to the grade of brigadier general.
William Rosecrans
Rosecrans did not immediately pursue Bragg and "give the finishing blow to the rebellion" as Stanton had urged. He paused to regroup and study the logistically difficult choices of pursuit into the mountainous regions to the west and south of Chattanooga. When he was ready to move, he once again maneuvered in a way to disadvantage Bragg. The Confederates abandoned Chattanooga and withdrew into the mountains of northwestern Georgia. Rosecrans threw aside his previous caution under the assumption that Bragg would continue to retreat and began to pursue with his army over three routes that left his corps commanders dangerously far apart. At the Battle of Davis's Cross Roads on September 11, Bragg came close to ambushing and destroying one of Rosecrans's isolated corps. Realizing the threat at last, Rosecrans issued urgent orders to concentrate his army, and the two opponents faced each other across West Chickamauga Creek.
The Battle of Chickamauga began on September 19 with Bragg attacking the not fully concentrated Union army, but he was unable to break through Rosecrans's defensive positions. On the second day of battle, however, disaster befell Rosecrans in the form of his poorly worded order in response to a poorly understood situation. The order was directed to Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood, "to close up and support [General Joseph J.] Reynolds's [division]," planning to fill an assumed gap in the line. However, Wood's subsequent movement actually opened up a new, division-sized gap in the line. By coincidence, a massive assault by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet had been planned to strike that very area and the Confederates exploited the gap to full effect, shattering Rosecrans's right flank.
William Tecumseh Sherman
Command in the West was unified under Grant (Military Division of the Mississippi), and Sherman succeeded Grant in command of the Army of the Tennessee. Following the defeat of the Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Chickamauga by Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee, the army was besieged in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sherman's troops were sent to relieve them. While traveling to Chattanooga, Sherman departed Memphis on a train that arrived at the Battle of Collierville, Tennessee, while the Union garrison there was under attack on October 11, 1863. General Sherman took command of the 550 men and successfully defended against an attack of 3,500 Confederate cavalry.
George Henry Thomas
Thomas served in the Mexican–American War and later chose to remain with the U.S. Army for the Civil War as a Southern Unionist, despite his heritage as a Virginian (whose home state would join the Confederate States of America). He won one of the first Union victories in the war, at Mill Springs in Kentucky, and served in important subordinate commands at Perryville and Stones River. His stout defense at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 saved the Union Army from being completely routed, earning him his most famous nickname, "the Rock of Chickamauga." He followed soon after with a dramatic breakthrough on Missionary Ridge in the Battle of Chattanooga. In the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of 1864, he achieved one of the most decisive victories of the war, destroying the army of Confederate General John Bell Hood, his former student at West Point, at the Battle of Nashville.
Battle of Gaines's Mill
The Battle of Gaines Mill, sometimes known as the Battle of Chickahominy River, took place on June 27, 1862, in Hanover County, Virginia, as the third of the Seven Days Battles (Peninsula Campaign) of the American Civil War. Following the inconclusive Battle of Beaver Dam Creek (Mechanicsville) the previous day, Confederate General Robert E. Lee renewed his attacks against the right flank of the Union Army, relatively isolated on the northern side of the Chickahominy River. There, Brig. Gen. Fitz John Porter's V Corps had established a strong defensive line behind Boatswain's Swamp. Lee's force was destined to launch the largest Confederate attack of the war, about 57,000 men in six divisions. Porter's reinforced V Corps held fast for the afternoon as the Confederates attacked in a disjointed manner, first with the division of Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill, then Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, suffering heavy casualties. The arrival of Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's command was delayed, preventing the full concentration of Confederate force before Porter received some reinforcements from the VI Corps.
James Longstreet
The First Corps veterans began to arrive in the early stages of the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19. Bragg had already begun an unsuccessful attempt to interpose his army between Rosecrans and Chattanooga before the arrival of Longstreet's corps. Throughout the day, Confederate troops launched largely unsuccessful assaults on Union positions that were highly costly for both sides. One of Longstreet's own divisions under Hood successfully resisted a strong Union counterattack from Jefferson C. Davis's division of the XX Corps that afternoon. When Longstreet himself arrived on the field in the late evening, he failed to find Bragg's headquarters. He and his staff spent considerable time riding looking for them. They accidentally came across a federal picket line and were nearly captured. When the two finally met at Bragg's headquarters late at night, Bragg placed Longstreet in command of the Left Wing of his army; Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk commanded the Right. On September 20, Longstreet lined up eight brigades in a deep column against a narrow front, an attack very similar to future German tank tactics in World War II. The attack was supposed to begin early in the morning shortly after an assault by Polk's wing. However, confusion and mishandled orders caused Polk's attack to be delayed, and Longstreet's advance did not begin until just after 11 after hearing gunfire from his left. By chance, a mistaken order from General Rosecrans caused a gap to appear in the Union line by transferring Thomas J. Wood's division from the right to reinforce the XIV Corps under George Henry Thomas in the center.
Battle of Chickamauga
Bragg committed the division of Brig. Gen. St. John R. Liddell to the fight, countering Thomas's reinforcements. The brigades of Col. Daniel Govan and Brig. Gen. Edward Walthall advanced along the Alexander's Bridge Road, smashing Baird's right flank. Both Scribner's and Starkweather's brigades retreated in panic, followed by King's regulars, who dashed for the rear through Van Derveer's brigade. Van Derveer's men halted the Confederate advance with a concentrated volley at close range. Liddell's exhausted men began to withdraw and Croxton's brigade, returning to the action, pushed them back beyond the Winfrey field.
Chattanooga Campaign
Seeing the lack of progress on the flanks, around 3:30 p.m. Grant ordered Thomas to move forward in the center in accordance with his earlier instructions. The men of the Army of the Cumberland advanced and quickly pushed the Confederates from their rifle pits but were then subjected to a punishing fire from the Confederate positions up the ridge. Most of Thomas's troops had been at the disastrous loss at Chickamauga and had suffered taunts by Sherman's and Hooker's newly arrived forces. Now they were under fire from above with no apparent plan to advance or move back. At this point, the Union soldiers continued the attack against the remaining lines. This second advance was taken up by the commanders on the spot, but also by some of the soldiers who, on their own, sought shelter from the fire further up the slope. Bragg had placed his artillery and trenches of the infantry along the actual crest of the ridge, rather than the military crest, and they were unable to provide effective fire. The Union advance was disorganized but effective; finally overwhelming and scattering what ought to have been an impregnable Confederate line. As such, the Army of the Cumberland's ascent of Missionary Ridge was one of the war's most dramatic events. Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones contend that the Battle of Missionary Ridge was "the war's most notable example of a frontal assault succeeding against intrenched defenders holding high ground." A Union officer remembered that
Battle of Chickasaw Bayou
On December 26, three Union divisions under Sherman disembarked at Johnson's Plantation on the Yazoo River to approach the Vicksburg defenses from the northeast while a fourth landed farther upstream on December 27. On December 27, the Federals pushed their lines forward through the swamps toward the Walnut Hills, which were strongly defended. On December 28, several futile attempts were made to get around these defenses. On December 29, Sherman ordered a frontal assault, which was repulsed with heavy casualties, and then withdrew. This Confederate victory frustrated Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's attempts to take Vicksburg by a direct approach.
First Battle of Auburn
Following the conclusion of the Gettysburg Campaign, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and Union Army of the Potomac regrouped on their previous positions astride opposite banks of the Rapidan River. For the duration of the summer both armies remained inactive, reorganizing and resupplying after the devastation wrought at Gettysburg. In early September, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet was dispatched with two divisions to aid the Confederate war effort in the West. After the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, which Longstreet helped secure, Maj. Gen. George Meade was forced to send the XI and XII Corps to help secure Middle Tennessee. When Gen. Robert E. Lee learned of the reassignment of the two Union Corps he decided to go on the offensive and force the Army of the Potomac to give battle on ground of his choosing.
C.C. Crews
During the Battle of Chickamauga, Col. C.C. Crews commanded the 1st Brigade (General John A. Wharton Division, Major General Wheeler Corps) consisting of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Georgia Cavalry and Malone's Alabama Regiment. They captured Lookout Mountain, which earned Col. Wheeler, Morgan, Crews and Harrison a commendation in September 1863 from Major General Wheeler, "I tender my thanks for their zeal, energy and gallantry during the engagement". In October, Crews' Georgia Brigade helped participate in the capture of McMinnville, Tennessee, during Wheeler's October 1863 Raid.
Battle of Chickamauga
The Chickamauga Campaign was followed by the Battles for Chattanooga, sometimes called the Chattanooga Campaign, including the reopening of supply lines and the Battles of Lookout Mountain (November 23) and Missionary Ridge, (November 25). Relief forces commanded by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant broke Bragg's grip on the city, sent the Army of Tennessee into retreat, and opened the gateway to the Deep South for Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's 1864 Atlanta Campaign.
Battle of Chickamauga
Realizing that part of his force had narrowly escaped a Confederate trap, Rosecrans abandoned his plans for a pursuit and began to concentrate his scattered forces. As he wrote in his official report, it was "a matter of life and death." On September 12 he ordered McCook and the cavalry to move northeast to Stevens Gap to join with Thomas, intending for this combined force to continue northeast to link up with Crittenden. The message to McCook took a full day to reach him at Alpine and the route he selected to move northeast required three days of marching 57 miles, retracing his steps over Lookout Mountain.
United States Military Railroad
In the fall of 1863 the Confederate railroads, acting as interior lines of communication, transferred two divisions and an artillery battalion of Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s I Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, by railroad from Virginia to Georgia to reinforce General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. The troops began arriving at the Catoosa Platform, Georgia on September 19, having begun their journey from Virginia on September 9. Ultimately, only 5 of Longstreet’s 10 infantry brigades arrived in time to participate in the Confederate victory at Chickamauga. Following their defeat, the troops of MG William Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland fell back to Chattanooga, Tennessee where they were surrounded by the Confederates who occupied the heights surrounding the town.
Army of the Tennessee
After taking Vicksburg, the Army of the Tennessee "lay, as it were, idle for a time." But soon enough the changing roles for the army and its leading figures evidenced themselves in the November 1863 victory achieved by a mixed Union force in the Battles for Chattanooga. To set the stage: In late September 1863, Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee defeated William Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland in the Battle of Chickamauga; Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was besieged there by Bragg. To address this crisis, Washington elevated Grant, the celebrated victor of Vicksburg, to command of the newly created and geographically broad Military Division of the Mississippi and ordered him to travel to Chattanooga, assume command of all forces there, and defeat Bragg. The War Department gave Grant his choice between continuing Rosecrans as commander of the Army of the Cumberland or elevating corps commander George Thomas to head that army; Grant chose Thomas. Grant's forces at Chattanooga eventually included elements of three armies: 35,000 men from the Army of the Cumberland under Thomas; 20,000 men sent west from the Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker; and 17,000 men from the Army of the Tennessee.
It was William Tecumseh Sherman who led the Army of the Tennessee's contingent to Chattanooga, up the Mississippi River from Vicksburg and then east from Memphis. Sherman began his march as a corps commander and ended it as Grant's replacement as commander of "the Department and Army of the Tennessee." He brought to Chattanooga most of his old XV Corps, now placed temporarily under the command of Maj. Gen. Frank P. Blair, Jr., and the 2nd Division of the XVII Corps, led by Brig. Gen. John E. Smith. With the arrival of Sherman's force, Grant was prepared to take the offensive and break Bragg's siege. He assigned Sherman to assault the right flank of Bragg's army, at the north end of Missionary Ridge, with three of his four divisions and other troops; this attack was intended to play the major role for the Union. However, in the Battle of Missionary Ridge on November 25, Sherman's attack gained no traction, and it fell to Thomas's Army of the Cumberland to break the Confederate line by assaulting directly up the middle of Missionary Ridge. On this occasion, then, the Army of the Tennessee ended up playing second fiddle to the Army of the Cumberland.
4th Arkansas Infantry Regiment
At the Battle of Chickamauga, McNair's was one of the eight brigades which, under Major General James Longstreet's direction, rushed through the gap in the Federal line and put one wing of the Union army to rout. In the battle McNair was wounded and the brigade as a whole suffered heavy casualties. The consolidated 4th/31st/4th Arkansas lost twenty-four percent of the 385 soldiers engaged at Chickamauga.
Alfred Jefferson Vaughan Jr.
Recovering from the injury, Vaughan participated in the Battle of Richmond on August 29–30, and the Battle of Perryville on October 8. He also fought during the Battle of Stones River (also called the Battle of Murfreesboro) from December 31 to January 2, 1863. Vaughan's most notable service was during the Battle of Chickamauga on September 17–18, 1863, after which he was given a field promotion personally by Confederate President Jefferson Davis "for conspicuous gallentry." Vaughan was promoted to brigadier general effective November 18, 1863, "in recognition for his service to the Confederacy at Chickamauga." An account of his performance in that fight follows:
Chickasaw Bayou Confederate order of battle
The following Confederate Army units and commanders fought in the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou of the American Civil War. The Union order of battle is listed separately.
LTG John C. Pemberton
Battle of Chickamauga
Breckinridge's brigades under Brig. Gens. Benjamin Helm, Marcellus A. Stovall, and Daniel W. Adams moved forward, left to right, in a single line. Helm's Orphan Brigade of Kentuckians was the first to make contact with Thomas's breastworks and Helm (the favorite brother-in-law of Abraham Lincoln) was mortally wounded while attempting to motivate his Kentuckians forward to assault the strong position. Breckinridge's other two brigades made better progress against the brigade of Brig. Gen. John Beatty (Negley's division), which was attempting to defend a line of a width more suitable for a division. As he found the left flank of the Union line, Breckinridge realigned his two brigades to straddle the LaFayette Road to move south, threatening the rear of Thomas's Kelly field salient. Thomas called up reinforcements from Brannan's reserve division and Col. Ferdinand Van Derveer's brigade charged Stovall's men, driving them back. Adams's Brigade was stopped by Col. Timothy Robbins Stanley's brigade of Negley's division. Adams was wounded and left behind as his men retreated to their starting position.
The other part of Hill's attack also foundered. Cleburne's division met heavy resistance at the breastworks defended by the divisions of Baird, Johnson, Palmer, and Reynolds. Confusing lines of battle, including an overlap with Stewart's division on Cleburne's left, diminished the effectiveness of the Confederate attack. Cheatham's division, waiting in reserve, also could not advance because of Left Wing troops to their front. Hill brought up Gist's Brigade, commanded by Col. Peyton Colquitt, of Walker's Corps to fill the gap between Breckinridge and Cleburne. Colquitt was killed and his brigade suffered severe casualties in their aborted advance. Walker brought the remainder of his division forward to rescue the survivors of Gist's Brigade. On his right flank, Hill sent Col. Daniel Govan's brigade of Liddell's Division to support Breckinridge, but the brigade was forced to retreat along with Stovall's and Adams's men in the face of a Federal counterattack.
Battle of Chickamauga
The three infantry corps of Rosecrans's army advanced by separate routes, on the only three roads that were suitable for such movements. On the right flank, McCook's XX Corps moved southwest to Valley Head, Alabama; in the center, Thomas's XIV Corps moved just across the border to Trenton, Georgia; and on the left, Crittenden's XXI Corps moved directly toward Chattanooga around Lookout Mountain. On September 8, after learning that Rosecrans had crossed into his rear, Bragg evacuated Chattanooga and moved his army south along the LaFayette Road toward LaFayette, Georgia. The Union army occupied Chattanooga on September 9. Rosecrans telegraphed Halleck, "Chattanooga is ours without a struggle and East Tennessee is free." Bragg was aware of Rosecrans's dispositions and planned to defeat him by attacking his isolated corps individually. The corps were spread out over 40 miles (65 km), too far apart to support each other.
Henry C. Hodges
In 1863 Lt. Colonel Hodges was made the Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Cumberland, reporting to Major General Rosecrans, and participating in the Battle of Chickamauga from September 19 – 20, 1863. Two days earlier, Hodges had been requested by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to secure 2,000 horses for the cavalry, which he accomplished. Hodges then built supply depots for General Sherman's march through the South. After the Civil War, Hodges was often utilized to reconcile various claims for goods and services incurred during the war by Union troops. Keep in mind that at any one time, there were over a million soldiers in the Northern armies, which needed to be supplied by quartermasters. Over the course of the four years of the war, they spent over a billion dollars on food, supplies, uniforms, tents, wagons, horses and mules, services, and transportation. Colonel Hodges is considered one of the top 20 procurement officers in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Battle of Chickamauga
In his successful Tullahoma Campaign in the summer of 1863, Rosecrans moved southeast from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, outmaneuvering Bragg and forcing him to abandon Middle Tennessee and withdraw to the city of Chattanooga, suffering only 569 Union casualties along the way. General-in-chief Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck and President Abraham Lincoln were insistent that Rosecrans move quickly to take Chattanooga. Seizing the city would open the door for the Union to advance toward Atlanta and the heartland of the South. Chattanooga was a vital rail hub (with lines going north toward Nashville and Knoxville and south toward Atlanta), and an important manufacturing center for the production of iron and coke, located on the navigable Tennessee River. Situated between Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Raccoon Mountain, and Stringer's Ridge, Chattanooga occupied an important, defensible position.
Henry Brevard Davidson
For much of the rest of the war, he was a cavalry commander. He participated in several raids and mounted actions including Wheeler's October 1863 Raid. On August 1863 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. Davidson fought at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19–20, 1863. He was given command of a cavalry brigade at Rome, Georgia, in Wharton's Division of Wheeler's Cavalry Corps from October 1863 through early 1864. His brigade served in parts of the Atlanta Campaign. Before the conclusion of that campaign, Davidson was sent to Virginia where on September 27, 1864, he took command of a brigade of cavalry attached to the division of Brigadier General Lunsford L. Lomax during the Valley Campaigns of 1864. He commanded the Cavalry Brigade, Valley District, Army of Northern Virginia from January to March 1865 when the Confederate Valley force under Lieutenant General Jubal Early was effectively destroyed at the Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia on March 2, 1865. Davidson surrendered with General Joseph E. Johnston's force at Greensboro, North Carolina in April 1865. He was paroled on May 1, 1865.
Chickamauga Confederate order of battle
BG Nathan B. Forrest
Battle of Chickamauga
Additional Union reinforcements arrived shortly after Johnson. Maj. Gen. John Palmer's division of Crittenden's corps marched from Lee and Gordon's Mill and advanced into the fight with three brigades in line—the brigades of Brig. Gen. William Hazen, Brig. Gen. Charles Cruft, and Col. William Grose—against the Confederate brigades of Wright and Smith. Smith's brigade bore the brunt of the attack in the Brock field and was replaced by Strahl's brigade, which also had to withdraw under the pressure. Two more Union brigades followed Palmer's division, from Brig. Gen. Horatio Van Cleve's division of the XXI corps, who formed on the left flank of Wright's brigade. The attack of Brig. Gen. Samuel Beatty's brigade was the tipping point that caused Wright's brigade to join the retreat with Cheatham's other units.
Chickamauga Confederate order of battle
LTG Daniel H. Hill
James S. Negley
On November 29, 1862, he was appointed major general of volunteers and took command of the 8th Division in the Army of the Ohio. His division became the 2nd Division in George H. Thomas' Center Wing of the XIV Corps during the Battle of Stones River. On the second day of fighting, he led a successful counterattack against Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge on the Union left flank. He commanded his division during the Tullahoma Campaign and the Battle of Chickamauga. During the maneuvering that preceded the Battle of Chickamauga, Negley's division, in the advance of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's corps, was almost trapped in a cul-de-sac named McLemore's Cove, but command confusion in the Confederate Army of Tennessee allowed them to escape in what became known as the Battle of Davis' Crossroads. After the Union defeat at Chickamauga, Negley, whose division became scattered during the second day's fighting, was relieved of command, but was acquitted of any wrongdoing during the battle. The most recent study of his actions is highly critical to the general for vanishing from sight without anyone knowing where to find him. Negley, however, blamed his misfortunes on the prejudices toward him of West Point graduates. When Ulysses S. Grant became general-in-chief in 1864 he discussed restoring Negley to command. However, after serving on several administrative boards, Negley resigned in January 1865.
Chickamauga Campaign
(August 21, 1863)
Battle of Chickamauga
The battle on the second day began at about 9:30 a.m. on the left flank of the Union line, about four hours after Bragg had ordered the attack to start, with coordinated attacks planned by Breckinridge and Cleburne of D.H. Hill's Corps, Polk's Right Wing. Bragg's intention was that this would be the start of successive attacks progressing leftward, "en echelon", along the Confederate line, designed to drive the Union army south, away from its escape routes through the Rossville Gap and McFarland's Gap. The late start was significant. At "day-dawn" there were no significant defensive breastworks constructed by Thomas's men yet; these formidable obstacles were built in the few hours after dawn. Bragg wrote after the war that if it were not for the loss of these hours, "our independence might have been won."