The Civil War In Georgia
Part 4: War Comes to Georgia

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While Georgia was largely spared of military campaigns during the first two and a half years of the war, beginning in the fall of 1863, it became one of the most significant areas of military operations. In June, the Union Army of the Cumberland, under the command of Major General William S. Rosecrans, moved out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with the ultimate goal of capturing Chattanooga. Standing between Rosecrans and Chattanooga was the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under General Braxton Bragg. Through clever maneuverings, Rosecrans forced Bragg’s army out of middle Tennessee. Soon the Confederate forces retreated into Chattanooga.

Instead of attacking Bragg head-on at Chattanooga, Rosecrans ordered his 60,000-man army into northwest Georgia in an effort to cut off Bragg’s supply lines. Afraid of being cut off from his flow of supplies, on September 9, Bragg ordered his army to abandon Chattanooga and head south to Lafayette, Georgia. A portion of Rosecrans’s forces soon occupied Chattanooga. Shortly thereafter, Bragg learned that Rosecrans’s army was moving in three columns. However, disagreements within the Confederate high command prevented Bragg from attacking Rosecrans’s divided forces.

Rosecrans’s forces began to assemble on September 17 at Lee and Gordon’s Mill on Chickamauga Creek. The Battle of Chickamauga began the next day when Bragg ordered his army westward to cross Chickamauga Creek and drive the Union army further away from Chattanooga. Despite some stiff resistance, Confederate forces were able to cross the creek. Fearing that Bragg’s army would put itself between the Union force and Chattanooga, Rosecrans ordered the XIV corps, under the command of Major General George Thomas, to extend its left flank northward to keep the Rebels from separating the Army of the Cumberland from Chattanooga.

The next morning, a portion of Thomas’s command advanced eastward, and they collided with Confederate cavalry under the command of Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest sent word to Bragg that he had made contact with the enemy and that he needed reinforcements. Likewise, Thomas inserted more of his forces into the fray. Bragg, still hoping to cut off the Union army’s connection to Chattanooga, ordered a series of attacks against the Union position. Despite a temporary breakthrough by the Confederates, they were unable to cut Rosecrans’s lines to Chattanooga, and at the end of the day, the Union troops held a strong defensive position.

On the night of September 19, Braxton Bragg reorganized his army into two wings. Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk, a West Point graduate and Episcopal Bishop whose wartime performance thus far had been lackluster, was given command of the northern wing. The southern half of the Confederate army was put under Lieutenant General James Longstreet, one of Robert E. Lee’s corps commanders who had just arrived from Virginia with reinforcements.

Bragg, still hoping to drive Rosecrans further from Chattanooga, ordered Polk to attack the Union troops at dawn on September 20. Polk, however, was four hours late launching his attack, thus giving the Union troops more time to fortify their positions. Consequently, Polk’s series of attacks failed.

Reeling from the confusion of the day’s battle, Rosecrans became convinced that there was a hole in the center of his lines. This hole did not exist, however, and when Rosecrans ordered one of his divisions to move to plug it, he created an actual gap. Simultaneously, the portion of the Confederate army under Longstreet began its attack, which drove the southern half of Rosecrans’s army, including its commander, northward.

On the northern end of Rosecrans’s line, some Union troops under the command of George Thomas formed a strong position on Snodgrass Hill (also known as Horseshoe Ridge). These troops held off several Confederate attacks. Thomas’s defense of Snodgrass Hill provided the rest of the Army of the Cumberland with the opportunity to make it safely back to Chattanooga and earned him the nickname “the Rock of Chickamauga.”

Tactically, the Battle of Chickamauga was a victory for the Confederacy. At the end of the day, Bragg’s army had possession of the field. Numerically, the South lost more men than the Union. Rosecrans’s army suffered 16,000 casualties (men killed, wounded or missing), while Bragg lost 18,000 troops. Strategically, however, the Federal forces still accomplished their goal of occupying Chattanooga. Furthermore, the Confederacy was unable to follow up their victory at Chickamauga, and in November 1863, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant decisively defeated Bragg’s army at Chattanooga.

The Confederate Army of Tennessee began its retreat into northwest Georgia from Missionary Ridge outside of Chattanooga on November 25, 1863. The weary Rebels marched south towards Dalton, Georgia, with a portion of the Union army in pursuit. General Bragg was afraid that the Union forces, commanded by Major General Joseph Hooker, would capture the Southerners’ supply wagons and artillery pieces, which were bogged down in mud. To prevent this from happening, Bragg ordered the division of Major General Patrick R. Cleburne to make a stand at Ringgold Gap—a narrow clearing in the North Georgia mountains—to give the Confederate wagons and canons enough time to withdraw to safety.

On November 27, shortly after Cleburne had all of his men in position, Hooker’s division arrived. Cleburne ordered his troops to hold their fire until the Union soldiers were almost on top of them. When the Confederates finally opened fire, Hooker’s lead troops were beaten back. Undaunted, Hooker attempted to flank Cleburne’s division on the right and then the left. The Southerners, however, beat back these assaults as well. For five hours, Cleburne’s division held back a Union force that outnumbered it roughly three to one.

After Cleburne was notified that Bragg’s wagons and artillery were safely away, he began to prepare for a withdrawal. Sending out skirmishers to hide his movements from Hooker, Cleburne began to move the main body of his troops south. To further slow the Union advance, the Southerners burned the bridges outside of Ringgold. Cleburne’s men, along with the rest of the Confederate army, went into winter quarters in and around Dalton, Georgia. Here, Bragg submitted his resignation to President Jefferson Davis. Command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee temporarily passed to Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, and then to General Joseph E. Johnston. Although Johnston had yet to distinguish himself during the war, Davis had no other generals that were capable of leading an army.

The Civil War In Georgia Part 4: War Comes to Georgia

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The Civil War In Georgia
Part 4: War Comes to Georgia