The Battle of Chickamauga
On the morning of Sept.19, 1863, General Alex McCook walked
outside his tent near the Georgia - Tennessee border and discovered
Union Command had made a serious mistake.
Confederate General Braxton Bragg had been in a series of retreats
since the Battle of Stones River at Murfreesboro and Union Commanding
General William S. Rosecrans had continued marching west making
the capture of Chattanooga a "high-priority" for the
Union forces. It would cut the Confederacy’s most important
railroad yard and stop freight shipments on the Tennessee River.
In addition, the Federals would also have a staging area from
which campaigns could be launched across the deep South.
Union General Rosecrans had pressed west from middle Tennessee
and expected Bragg to continue retreating, but the Confederate
General finally decided to hold position and dig in at Chattanooga.
When Rosecrans crossed the Tennessee River below the city, however,
Bragg again retreated 26 miles south of the city to Lafayette,
GA where he began concentrating his army. Reinforcements from
East Tennessee, Virginia, and Mississippi arrived and quickly
filled his ranks to 66,000 men.
On Sept. 18, Bragg, wanting to put his men between the Federals
and Chattanooga, crossed the west bank of Chickamauga Creek
and took up position. During the night of the 18th, Union General
Rosecrans moved his troops forward in a night march and gained
the position between Chattanooga and the Confederates.
On the morning of the 19th, General Nathan B. Forrest drew first
blood when he engaged a Union regiment at Jay’s Mill. The
fight at the mill was ferocious. It was close-quartered and
hand-to-hand, but, around 1 p.m., Forrest fell back to regroup.
The battle had attracted divisions in both Union and Southern
armies. They marched towards the site and shortly after 1:30
the Battle of Chickamauga was engaged.
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The thick forests of the battlefield made the initial assaults
difficult. The Union and Confederate soldiers traded real estate
throughout the day. One side advancing and the other retreating
as the day gave in to night. When the first day of battle ended,
General Bragg’s plan of driving the Union forces back on
each other had been defeated. During the night, Confederate
forces regrouped and slipped into position.
The morning of the 20th, the Confederates launched their attack
at 9 am. As the day before, it degenerated into a battle for
terrain features and real estate. Confederate forces were repulsed
on every advance, but each time tore a little deeper into Union
lines. Around 11 a.m., Union General Brannan and General Wood
were ordered to positions left of the Confederate front. Wood
misunderstood the order and pulled his entire army off the line
thinking they were to reinforce General Reynold’s position.
Confederate General James Longstreet saw the gap in the Union
lines and drove three divisions through it pushing the Union
army completely off of the battlefield. It was the break the
Confederates had been needing. It broke the back of the Union
advance and forced them into retreat. Union General George Thomas
saw the Confederate surge and fell back to Snodgrass Hill where
other Union troops were gathering. He quickly organized them
into a defensive unit and from the position poured down fire
on pursuing Confederates.
The task of taking down the Union position that earned Thomas
the nickname "the rock of Chickamauga" fell in a large
part to the 63rd Tennessee Confederates. The 63rd was up against
the new lever-action rifles. It was on of the first times the
"experimental" weapons were used in a major battle
and they proved to be superior to the single-shot rifles carried
by both sides. It was General Thomas’ quick thinking on
Snodgrass Hill, however, that is credited with saving the Union
Army.
General N.B. Forrest was finally given command of the 9th Tennessee
Infantry to try and remove Thomas from his position. It was
the only time the Tennessee cavalry officer was given an infantry
command. They took heavy losses from the Union fire before he
could get to Thomas. Covering the retreat of the Union, Thomas
and his men began to fall back towards Chattanooga.
While the battle continued to rage, Gen. Forrest made a couple
of quick moves and also captured the field hospitals of the
Union’s left wing. Forrest continued operating on the Union’s
left flank and first noticed them withdrawing from the battlefield
towards Chattanooga.
When the Union began its withdrawal from the battlefield, General
Forrest sent a flood of messages warning the battlefield command
of the retreat. General Braxton Bragg then made a mistake that
nearly caused a revolt among his generals. Bragg didn’t
pursue the retreat and continue an attack that would force the
Union to withdraw from Chattanooga. The lack of action from
his command permitted the Union to fall back into the city and
fortify their positions.
Chickamauga National Military Park historian James Ogden says
the southern leaders knew the Confederate victory was a hollow
effort because of Bragg’s indecision to pursue the Union.
The blunder so angered General Forrest that he wired Confederate
Command with the news he was resigning his commission.
"General Nathan B. Forrest demanded an audience with General
Bragg," said Ogden. "He told Bragg that he would never
take another order from him and that, if Bragg was any sort
of a man, he would box his ears and dare him to resent it. Forrest
also added if Bragg ever crossed his path again, it would be
at the peril of his own life. Here was a battle that was costly
for both sides. Union casualties were around 16,200 and Confederate
losses around 18,000. In order to win, the Confederates needed
to pursue, but Bragg had failed to see the tactics of the situation."
Ogden also says the victory was a big morale boost for the Confederacy,
but came a little too late for them to capitalize on it.
"Bragg could have really changed the scope of the war if
he had followed through on the attack. The Confederate forces
were hardened veterans and could’ve taken Chattanooga.
The stories of individual effort and sacrifice on both sides
made it one of the greatest battles of the War Between the States."
The 1863 Battle of Chickamauga shook up the front-line military
command on both sides of the War Between the States. While the
Union fortified Chattanooga, General Sherman was ordered from
Vicksburg to the city, General Joseph Hooker with the 11th and
12th corps was ordered down from the Army of the Potomac, and
General U.S. Grant was given general command of Union forces
in Chattanooga.
Within days of Grant’s arrival in October, the Union opened
a short supply route called "the cracker line".
On Nov. 23, Union General Thomas routed the Confederates from
Orchard Knob, the next day, under a heavy shroud of fog, the
Union pushed the Confederates out of their defenses around Lookout
Mountain, and, on the 25th, General Grant ordered General Thomas
and the Army of the Cumberland to assault the rifle pits at
the base of Missionary Ridge.
Thomas’s men quickly accomplished it and, acting without
orders, scaled the ridge in one of the war’s great charges
and assaulted the Confederate lines. A young Union officer by
the name of Arthur MacArthur helped lead the assault. When a
standard-bearer would fall in the battle, the soldier behind
would grab the flag and carry it forward until he was wounded.
Mac Arthur, seeing it going down again, leaped across the wounded
and grabbed it. He carried it forward and planted it in the
ground until his wounds forced him to relinquish it. Following
a change in the requirements for awarding the Medal of Honor
in 1896, MacArthur would receive the Nation’s highest award
for his actions during the battle.
While the battles were hard fought and fierce, the Union broke
the Confederate lines and sent them into retreat towards Georgia.
By December, the Union Army had captured and controlled Chattanooga,
where they would launch their last assault on the Confederate
South.
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A side note to the Battle of Chickamauga occurred in the mountains
of western North Carolina when news of the Confederate victory
and the heavy losses began to make its rounds in the community
of Stecoa. Long-time resident Hazie Brown listened with a heavy
heart when she heard her husband’s unit had been one of
the hardest hit. The horrors of field hospitals during the war
were well known and Hazie thought John would stand a better
chance if she found him first. With no more than the clothes
on her back, Hazie saddled a horse and rode along the mountain
trails past Union and Confederate patrols to the outskirts of
the battlefield. Amid the dead and dying, she scoured the field
looking for anyone who might have known her husband’s last
location. She finally found him and caught up a loose horse
from the battlefield. Hazie Brown loaded him on the horse and
rode to a cave where she bandaged his wounds and cared for him
until he was well enough to ride. She and her husband returned
to the mountain community where her story became a part of the
local folklore. She and her husband John are buried side by
side in a cemetery named in her honor in the Stecoa community.
Numerous books on the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga are available
at local bookstores. Of special note in the battle was General
John Bell Hood receiving a wound that would plague him throughout
his command and eventually lead the Texan to commit one of the
greatest mistakes in military history.
In 1890, Congress authorized the establishment of four National
Military Parks. On September 18-20, 1895, the first National
Military Park in America was dedicated outside Chattanooga.
Since the purpose would be to maintain the park in its historic
condition, they noted there had scarcely been any change in
the roads, fields, and forests.
The changing terrain of the battlefield still offers unique
opportunities for historical and professional military study
of the operations of two great armies meeting face to face.
It is still a source of study today and is regarded as one of
the best of its kind in the world.
Chickamauga National Military Park was transferred from the
War Department to the National Park Service in 1933 and, while
close to 1,400 monuments would be built to mark the battlefield
contributions of the Union and Confederate veterans from the
states represented in the battle, not one has ever been erected
to mark the contributions of the Tennesseans who fought and
died at Chickamauga.
Unlike other Tennessee National Military Parks, you will notice
there is no National Cemetery on the Park’s grounds. All
of the soldiers left on the battlefield, with one exception,
were buried in other locations.
Before it became a park, the forests of Chickamauga remained
untouched, but not for any environmental or historical reason.
The gunfire that raged on the battlefield was like a steel curtain
that tore into every tree on the site. The bullets imbedded
in the trees make cutting them dangerous. Lumber mills in the
region never would accept any timber from the site.
Chickamauga National Military Park is open daily and offers
a variety of activities. Chickamauga Battlefield features a
self-guided seven-mile driving tour, monuments, historical tablets,
hiking, and horse trails. The visitor center contains exhibits,
a well-stocked bookstore, and facilities for doing historical
research.
For more information on Park hours and operations, you can call
(706) 866-9241.
