| Chickamauga,
Georgia
The battle of Chickamauga, Georgia on September
19 and 20, 1863 was different than any battle the
tough veterans of the Union and Confederate armies
had ever fought before. It was the
in the Chickamauga Creek/Chattanooga area that made
the difference. It was rugged, with steep ridges,
narrow valleys, and a broad, twisting river. Mostly
forested, with small clearings and poor roads, it
made communication between units very poor, and it
hampered the armies' ability to maneuver. Because
they could not see anything for more than a few dozen
yards through the trees, the soldiers often had to
fight more as individuals than as units. As a result
they took this battle very personally and they fought
with an intensity and violence rare even for infantrymen.
(Click here for a vignette
about the "Drummer Boy of Chickamauga".)
 It
was a soldier's fight purely, wherein the only question
involved was the question of endurance. The two armies
came together like two wild beasts, and each fought
as long as it could stand up in a knock-down and drag-out
encounter. -- Colonel John T. Wilder
It was all for the nearby town of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Chattanooga had the fortune to be the junction of
railroads that transported goods north to Richmond,Virginia,
west to Memphis, Tennessee, and east to Atlanta, Georgia.
It was, in fact, the third most important railroad
town in the South, behind only Richmond and Atlanta.
The town also had important mineral sources vital
to the Confederacy's armies. Whoever controlled Chattanooga,
controlled the supply lines and the niter and coal
mines. If the Confederates held the town, their food
and armaments supplies to their armies in the South
and the West would be assured. If the Federals held
the town, they could cut off the Confederates' supplies
from the West. If Chattanooga fell, the states west
of the Great Smokies would be cut off, and the Federals
would be able to turn their attention on the great
industrial center of Atlanta.
The battle of Chickamauga was fought, though, almost
reluctantly by the two commanders, and . They had spent
the summer maneuvering with raids and strikes but
never attempting a full-scale battle. At last Bragg
settled his troops at Chattanooga.
Rosecrans decided that given the terrain, he would
attempt to send his armies around the city and to
attack it from the south. Thanks to the efforts of
four Union brigades, however, Bragg was deceived for
three weeks into believing that the Union troops were
concentrating in the north. Rosecrans was hoping to
fool Bragg into abandoning Chattanooga without a fight--which
is exactly what Bragg did, once he learned that Rosecrans'
army was to his south and that he had been outflanked.
Rosecrans got cocky. He took over the town and began
to pursue Bragg's army, which he believed was retreating
to Atlanta. He split his army into three sections,
each moving through a different valley, so that the
units were separated by as much as forty miles.
Bragg, though, wasn't retreating. He was merely
waiting for the arrival of General James Longstreet's
troops who had been dispatched from Virginia to reinforce
General Bragg's forces in the West.
Bragg's plan was one that had been successful before.
He would cross the Chickamauga Creek, outflank the
Federals, gain the Federal rear, cut Rosecrans' lines
of communication, and drive the Federals from the
field and, consequently, out of Chattanooga. This
time the plan did not work. Rosecrans learned where
the Confederates were moving and rapidly worked to
concentrate his separated forces. He also extended
his left flank, knowing Bragg would attempt to turn
it.
Bragg wasn't aware of Rosecrans' maneuvers--the
steep hills, the ravines, the narrow roads, the woods,
the twisting creek made it difficult to learn anything
about even one's own troops. On September 18, knowing
that Longstreet was due to arrive with reinforcements
at any moment, Bragg ordered his forces to cross Chickamauga
Creek, hold the crossings, and drive the Federals
into one small area, McLemore's Cove.
On the morning of September 19, Union Maj. Gen.
George Thomas learned that a Confederate infantry
brigade had crossed the creek when a reconnaissance
party met a Confederate cavalry brigade guarding the
Confederate rear. The cavalrymen opened fire.
The battle escalated and wavered, back and forth
along the four-mile-long line, attack and counterattack,
one side gaining the advantage, then the other. Thomas
sent in more troops, the Union line grew stable. Bragg
sent in his Confederates who forced the Federals back,
until the Federals were reinforced and began to push
the Confederates back once again. The struggle ended
only when it was too dark to see.
But it was not finished. During the cold night of
September 19 the troops of both sides moved into new
positions. The Federals built log breastworks to strengthen
their defenses. Rosecrans knew how very close the
Confederates had come to winning the day.
at 11 o'clock that night and was given
charge of the left wing as well as a vague map. Bragg
planned to begin at dawn with an attack at his far
right. Each Confederate unit would take up the battle
one after the other in succession, until the whole
Confederate army, right to left, was engaged. The
goal was the same as the day before: push the Federals
into McLemore's cove. Dawn came; Longstreet on the
far left could not hear any sounds of battle.
The right wing's commander, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk,
had not been informed of Bragg's plans until an hour
after sunrise. So his attack did not begin until nearly
10 a.m. At first the Confederate assaults were unsuccessful.
The Federals were ready and strong. For a while it
looked as if the day was to be a repeat of the day
before: one side attacks, the other resists while
calling for reinforcements, reinforcements rush up
and push back the attackers, who call for more men,
and so on in a truly vicious circle.
The Confederates, though, had a lucky break and
they took full advantage of it. Thomas had called
for reinforcements, and Rosecrans ordered units from
the Federal center and right to his aid. Rosecrans,
believing that a gap now existed in the center of
the Federal line, ordered one of his divisions to
close it. However, Rosecrans was mistaken--there was
no gap in the line until that division moved out and
created one.
Longstreet's troops rushed into the quarter-mile
gap and split the Federal army. The Federal right
wing melted and fled toward Chattanooga. Seeing the
situation deteriorate,
quickly worked to form his men up on Snodgrass Hill
in order to protect the road (and the Union line of
retreat) to Chattanooga. At 2 p.m., Longstreet directed
his troops to assault Thomas' position. The first
attack failed. The Union defenders managed to throw
a second attack back, as well. Just as his men were
running out of ammunition, Thomas was reinforced by
a reserve division. It was barely enough.
| Rosecrans, swept along
in the rush to the town, eventually sent an order
to General Thomas to withdraw. Thomas replied
that he would not pull back until after dark.
His Federals resisted 25 Confederate attacks before
day's end. At nightfall, his troops retreated
quietly. Only three Union regiments remained on
Snodgrass Hill when the last Confederate attack
of the day began. Very few soldiers of those three
regiments managed to escape. And so it ended with
the Confederates facing one another, realizing
they had won a great victory. As if with one voice,
every Rebel throat loosed the awesome Rebel yell. |
Thomas, "The Rock of
Chickamauga." |
On the 20th instant, after a very severe
battle, we gained a complete and glorious victory
- the most complete victory of the war, except, perhaps,
the first Manassas.
--Lt. Gen. James Longstreet
Bragg, though, could not understand how thoroughly
his forces had defeated Rosecrans' Federals and he
failed to follow up his advantage. So the Federals
were able to settle into Chattanooga, where they had
wanted to be all along. The only way to remove them
was to starve them out. Bragg set up for a siege,
deploying his troops on the heights that ringed the
city. Soon life in Chattanooga became uncomfortable
for the Federals.
Lookout Mountain, in the
background, was only one
of the high points that ringed the railroad junction
at Chattanooga.
The Battle of Chickamauga was the largest battle
in the western theater. It has been called the South's
last great hope to turn the tide of the war in the
west. Its short-term effect on Federal confidence
was devastating. Assistant Secretary of War Charles
Dana sent a telegram to Washington D.C.: Chickamauga
is as fatal a name in our history as Bull Run.
Its positive effect on Confederate morale, so low
after the July 1863 defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg,
was tremendous. The effect only lasted until November,
however, when the Federal reinforcements arrived from
Virginia and Mississippi to fight the Battles for
Chattanooga, defeating the Confederates and turning
the city into their supply base - their gateway -
as they advanced into Georgia.
Herman Melville is better known for his novels,
particularly Moby Dick and Billy Budd.
However, the Civil War moved him to write poetry.
The poem "On the Slain at Chickamauga" was published
on August 17, 1866 in a collection of his poetry,
Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War: Civil War
Poems. Click
to read "On the Slain at Chickamauga."
Sources:
- Black, Robert C., III, The
Railroads of the Confederacy, University of
North Carolina Press, 1998.
- Bowers, John, Chickamauga
& Chattanooga, The Battles that Doomed the Confederacy,
Harper Collins, 1994.
- Cozzens, Peter, The Battles
for Chattanooga, Eastern National Park and Monument
Association, 1996.
- Current, Richard N. et. al.,
Encyclopedia of the Confederacy, Simon &
Schuster, 1991.
- Miles, Jim, Paths to Victory,
A History and Tour Guide of the Stone's River, Chickamauga,
Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville Campaigns,
Rutledge Hill Press, 1991.
- Editors of Time-Life Books,
Voices of the Civil War, Chickamauga, Time
Life Books.
- Spruill, Matt, Guide to the
Battle of Chickamauga, University Press of Kansas,
1993.
- Stephenson, Wendell Holmes and
E. Merton Coulter, Ed. A History of the South,
Vol. VII, Louisiana State University Press, 1950.
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