Battle of Chattanooga

“ General Rosecrans had crossed the Tennessee with an effective force of all arms equipped for duty of a few hundred more than 60,000. Of this number Wagner's brigade, with 2,061 effectives, held Chattanooga, leaving the Union force in front of Bragg slightly less than 58,000. It was several thousand less at the battle, Post's brigade of Davis' division and three regiments of infantry and one battery being engaged in guarding supply trains. ”

“ The battle was proceeding with variant fortune, when the execution of an ill-considered and unlucky order from the commanding general opened a gap in the line of battle, through which the Confederates poured and, throwing two divisions into confusion and routing two others, drove a mass of soldiers panic-stricken from the field. Rosecrans was carried away in the crowd of fugitives and, fearing that the whole army was vanquished, rode on into Chattanooga, twelve to fifteen miles away, for the purpose of taking measures for the defence of the city. ”

“ Long will I remember the proud look of defiance upon the face of every man when once within the fortifications at Chattanooga. As they were filing in the rebels reached the summit of Mission Ridge; and as they advanced, in full line of battle, they sent up loud shouts of victory, which were defiantly answered by our men, with cheer after cheer, as defiant and proud as ever. Soon the rebels opened, with shot and shell, upon every assailable point ”

“ In [81] fact, the whole region from Missionary Ridge, on the left of the marching column as far as Rossville Gap (four miles to the northwest) to the Chickamauga on the east, was densely wooded and covered with heavy undergrowth. A few small farms scattered through this woodland were tilled by the obscurest of backwoodsmen, who lived in small log cabins or small frame buildings. Their names would never have been known, even in Chattanooga nine miles away, had it not been for the accidental fighting there of the greatest battle of the west. ”

“ Crest Road runs the entire length of the line occupied by the Confederates during the Battle of Missionary Ridge. Small reservations, markers, monuments, tablets, and gun positions along the road provide information, and excellent views of Chattanooga are obtained along this drive. Moving northward the more important units of the park are: Bragg Reservation, where the Confederate commander had his headquarters; Ohio Reservation, an area set aside to commemorate the participation of Ohio troops in the battle; DeLong Reservation, site of one of the Union penetrations in the Confederate line ”

“ All the world knows now that the object of the campaign was the capture of Chattanooga. I am not an educated soldier; I am not capable of making any technical criticism of military campaigns; my opinions possess no military value ”

“ Then, finding that the enemy’s main army had fallen back, Stanley captured the gap by a direct and flank movement with only three pieces of artillery. The cavalry unexpectedly captured Shelbyville with a number of prisoners, a quantity of arms, and the commissary stores. The reports of this cavalry [47] battle show the retreat of the enemy to Tullahoma forty miles southeast of Murfreesboro, where it was supposed that he intended to make a stand. But on July 1, General Thomas ascertained that the enemy had retreated during the night from Tullahoma. ”

“ Well, we were going into one of the most terrible battles of modern times, and many of us began to realize it by this time. Off to the south we could see the dense smoke of the battle, as well as hear the crashing of musketry and the booming of artillery, and the shot and shell began to pay their respects to us in a “way we despised.”
We were hurried along the rear of the battle line toward the right of Gen. ”

“ He claims—perhaps justly—that it was this extraordinary rain and bad roads, which prevented his getting possession of the enemy’s communications, and debarred him from forcing the Confederate Army to fight a disastrous battle. He speaks very highly of James A. Garfield, his chief of staff, saying: “He possesses the instincts and energy of a great commander.”
The Union losses during the “Tullahoma [49] Campaign”—thus named in the official record—were as follows: 14 officers killed, and 26 wounded; 71 non-commissioned officers and privates killed, and 436 wounded ”

“ On these battlefields gallant soldiers of the North and the South fought for control of Chattanooga, strategic railroad center and gateway to the heart of the Confederate States. Here, thousands of men on both sides exemplified the true American qualities of independence, courage, and self-sacrifice, which constitute the enduring strength of our democracy. At the dedication of the park, a veteran of the battle said: “Here ... ”

“ Chattanooga was occupied by the Union forces on September 16, 1863. Rosecrans pushed forward to the Chickamauga valley, where, on September 18, Bragg attacked in force. The battle raged for two days, the Union line was broken, and General Thomas and his division were isolated on a slope of Missionary Ridge. Assault after assault was delivered against him, but he stood like a rock, and at sundown still held the position.
THE BALLAD OF CHICKAMAUGA
[September 19, 20, 1863]
By Chickamauga's crooked stream the martial trumpets blew ”

“ Thomas’s command were able—after the arrival of General Gordon Granger’s troops—to stop the enemy’s further successes. It is evident that the fighting spirit was gone from Bragg’s army since, although they discovered the falling back, they did not approach Rossville Gap on the 21st with a considerable force, nor seriously interfere in the backward movement to Chattanooga, not even trying to capture a wagon, mule, or horse, although its great cavalry leader, Forrest and his troopers, were in force close to Rossville Gap. It was more paralyzed than the Union Army. ”

“ The Twenty-first Corps with the exception of Hazen’s and Wagner’s infantry and Minty’s cavalry—which were still north and east of Chattanooga—were to march to Wauhatchie, at the lower end of Lookout Valley, near Lookout Mountain, and to communicate with the Fourteenth Corps at Trenton in the same valley, and threaten Chattanooga by way of the Tennessee River via the nose of Lookout Mountain. The cavalry crossed at Caperton’s and at a ford near Island Creek, in Lookout Valley, from which point they reconnoitered towards Rome, Georgia, fifty-five miles south of Chattanooga, via Alpine. ”

“ As we could not thus hold Chattanooga, our army, on September 7th and 8th, took position from Lee and Gordon's Mill to Lafayette, on the road leading south from Chattanooga and fronting the east slope of Lookout Mountain. The forces on the Hiawassee and at Chickamauga Station took the route by Ringgold. A small cavalry force was left in observation at Chattanooga, and a brigade of infantry at Ringgold to cover the railroad. ”

“ No sound can awake them to glory again." More than twenty-seven years have passed since that heroic struggle on the steep mountain side of Missionary Ridge. The blue and the gray sleep side by side in the National Cemetery at its base. Chattanooga, then a small war-battered village, has grown, by northern capital and northern industry, to be an important iron manufacturing city. The Tennessee runs its bright and winding way around the proud Lookout, but no rebel yell pollutes the air, and no rebel rag defies the national authority, but all is peace and order, industry and law. ”

“ The Union less was 5,286 killed and wounded, and 330 missing. These losses seem small compared with other battles of less importance—Chickamauga for instance; but it must be remembered that the sacrifice for the continued possession of Chattanooga by the Union Army includes also all the losses of the conflicts of the Tullahoma campaign, of Chickamauga, Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob, and Missionary Ridge. When it is considered how much these battles meant, in their causal effect on the [225] final suppression of the rebellion itself, their value becomes apparent. ”

“ But the first great blunder, detaching Longstreet, cannot be accounted for in any way I know of. If he had captured Chattanooga, East Tennessee would have fallen without a struggle. It would have been a victory for us to have got our army away from Chattanooga safely. It was a manifold greater victory to drive away the besieging army; a still greater one to defeat that army in his chosen ground and nearly annihilate it. ”

“ Starkweather’s brigade of Johnson’s division was left to hold the original works around Chattanooga; and did so during the assault of the rest of the troops upon Missionary Ridge.
[207] At 1 p. m. on the 12th, C. A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, who was in Chattanooga, sent this dispatch to the Secretary of War at Washington, “In our front here [meaning Thomas’s front] , Confederate rifle-pits are fully manned, preventing Thomas gaining ridge.” At 4:30 p. m. he sent another dispatch showing how misleading the former dispatch was: “Glory to God. The day is decisively ours. ”

“ The battles around Chattanooga must be considered as ending in one of the most complete victories of the war. Bragg’s army was defeated, men and material captured, and the Confederates driven south. The mountainous defense line which the Confederacy hoped to hold had been pierced and large sections of it were in Union control. Chattanooga, the railroad center, was now in Union hands and the interior line of communication from this section of the Confederacy to Richmond, by way of Knoxville, was destined to remain in Union control for the remainder of the war. ”

“ Under cover of the skirmishing the mountain was evacuated and in the morning there were no troops to be seen on the northern slope. The weather was a little foggy, but as it gradually cleared, a line of troops without colors displayed could be seen in the valley through an opening in the trees, marching towards Missionary Ridge. Not being able to distinguish whether they were the enemy's or our own, at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 25 I sent the following message to Capt. Jesse Merrill at army headquarters:—
Can see a long line of infantry on ridge beyond Chattanooga creek a little east of South. ”

“ Reynolds crossed over with his Division, if I remember rightly, at Doherty's gap, while Crittenden's corps moved up the railroad around the north end of the mountain, and General Wagner continued to threaten Chattanooga in front with Wilder's and Minty's brigades of cavalry. Chattanooga lays in the wide end of a Y, formed by Lookout on the west, and Pigeon mountains on the east; the north end of Lookout rising about one mile and a half from the west side of the town. Pigeon mountain is a spur of Lookout, which projects itself over to the Tennessee, about four miles east of Chattanooga. ”

“ The whole road was filled with flying soldiers; here and there were pieces of artillery, caissons, and baggage wagons. Everything was in the greatest disorder. When I reached Chattanooga, a little before four o'clock, I found Rosecrans there. In the helter-skelter to the rear he had escaped by the Rossville road. He was expecting every moment that the enemy would arrive before the town, and was doing all he could to prepare to resist his entrance. Soon after I arrived the two corps commanders, McCook and Crittenden, both came into Chattanooga. ”

“ Your pass is all right up to this point, but the Commandant at Nashville has no authority here. Orders are very strict against any more civilians coming to Chattanooga under any pretext. Rations are very short, and there is danger of their being much shorter, with the rebel cavalry slashing around everywhere at our cracker-line. ”

“ General Grant’s most excellent plan on the 24th was that Thomas’s troops should bear to the left, join with the right of Sherman after his forces had advanced to the tunnel, through which the railroad from Chattanooga to East Tennessee ran, and together they should make an assault with the whole union line. Thomas’s troops were in line until 3:30 p. m. on the 25th, waiting for Sherman to capture the hill over the tunnel. General Sherman had begun the fight early in the morning of the 25th by advancing Corse’s brigade ”

“ The forces on Lookout Mountain were ordered to advance across Chattanooga Valley to attack the Confederate left flank, but they advanced slowly. Meanwhile, in order to relieve the situation on both Union flanks, other troops were thrown against the Confederate rifle pits along the base of Missionary Ridge. In a rush these Union soldiers carried the rifle pits. Then in their enthusiasm, without waiting for further orders, they charged up the mountain slopes and broke the Confederate positions. This precipitated a general retreat of the Confederate Army across the border into Georgia. ”

“ Ammunition was almost exhausted, and the troops were short of clothing. Thousands of army mules, worn out and starved, lay dead along the miry roads. Chattanooga, occupied by the Union army, was too strongly fortified for Bragg to take by storm, but every day shells from his batteries upon the heights were thrown into the town. This was the situation when Grant, stiff and sore from a recent accident, arrived at Nashville, on his way to direct the campaign in East Tennessee. ”

“ These facts together with the affair at Dug Gap and the presence of McCook’s Corps at Alpine caused the Confederate Army to hesitate; thus General Rosecrans was given time to concentrate his whole army—not Crittenden’s Corps only—at Chickamauga, across the Lafayette road, between the Confederate Army and Chattanooga. Bragg’s plan was to attack Crittenden’s left and rear, throwing it back upon the centre—General Thomas’s—before Crittenden could be reinforced, and then to thrust his army between Rosecrans and Chattanooga. Rosecrans’s plan was to prevent such a disaster. ”