Chickamauga

Features 103 photographs and illustrations of thirty key sites in and around the Chickamauga battlefield--the most visited battlefield park--organized in an order that allows for a driving tour through the park.

From mid-August to mid-September 1863, Union major general William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland maneuvered from Tennessee to north Georgia in a bid to rout Confederate general Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee and blaze the way for further Union advances. Meanwhile, Confederate reinforcements bolstered the numbers of the Army of Tennessee, and by the time the two armies met at the Battle of Chickamauga, in northern Georgia, the Confederates had gained numerical superiority. Although the Confederacy won its only major victory west of the Appalachians, it failed to achieve the truly decisive results many high-ranking Confederates expected. In The Chickamauga Campaign,Steven E. Woodworth assembles eight thought-provoking new essays from an impressive group of authors to offer new insight into the complex reasons for this substantial, yet ultimately barren, Confederate victory. This broad collection covers every angle of the campaign, from its prelude to its denouement, from the points of view of key players of all ranks on both sides. In addition to analyzing the actions taken by Union leaders Thomas L. Crittenden, Alexander McCook, and James S. Negley, and Confederate commanders Braxton Bragg, Patrick Cleburne, Daniel Harvey Hill, Thomas C. Hindman, James Longstreet, and Alexander P. Stewart, the book probes the campaign’s impact on morale in the North and South, and concludes with an essay on the campaign’s place in Civil War memory. The final essay pays particular attention to Union veteran Henry Van Ness Boynton, the founder and developer of Chickamauga and Chattanooga State Military Park, whose achievements helped shape how the campaign would be remembered. This second volume in the Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland seriesprovides a profound understanding of the campaign’s details as well as its significance to Civil War history. Contributors: John R. Lundberg Alexander Mendoza David Powell Ethan S. Rafuse William G. Robertson Timothy B. Smith Lee White Steven E. Woodworth

The Battle of Chickamauga was the third bloodiest of the American Civil War and the only major Confederate victory in the conflict's western theater. It pitted Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee against William S. Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland and resulted in more than 34,500 casualties. In this first volume of an authoritative two-volume history of the Chickamauga Campaign, William Glenn Robertson provides a richly detailed narrative of military operations in southeastern and eastern Tennessee as two armies prepared to meet along the "River of Death." Robertson tracks the two opposing armies from July 1863 through Bragg's strategic decision to abandon Chattanooga on September 9. Drawing on all relevant primary and secondary sources, Robertson devotes special attention to the personalities and thinking of the opposing generals and their staffs. He also sheds new light on the role of railroads on operations in these landlocked battlegrounds, as well as the intelligence gathered and used by both sides. Delving deep into the strategic machinations, maneuvers, and smaller clashes that led to the bloody events of September 19@–20, 1863, Robertson reveals that the road to Chickamauga was as consequential as the unfolding of the battle itself.

In the Autumn of 1863, a pair of remarkable military engagements took place on opposite sides of the Georgia-Tennessee border -- two battles marked by ferocity, genius, courage, astonishing ineptitude, and outrageous fortune that changed the course of the War Between the States. John Bowers, the man who brought one of the Confederacy's most capable and eccentric commanders to life in Stonewall Jackson, now tells the riveting story of two brutal months in the life of a young nation at war with itself. From the opening volleys at Chickamauga Creek to the final, shocking outcome several miles north at Chattanooga, Bowers brilliantly recreates the fire and fury of the decisive battles of America's Civil War. More than a dramatic account of stunning master strokes and fatal missed opportunities, it is also the unforgettable story of real people: Grant, Longstreet, Sherman, the fiery gambler Nathan Bedford Forrest, George H. Thomas, the tormented Union officer despised and disowned by his Virginia family, and the tragic, tenacious General Braxton Bragg, who, through incompetence, miscalculation, and blind folly, almost singlehandedly doomed the Confederate cause. At Chickamauga, the South won a battle. At Chattanooga, they lost the war. In the Autumn of 1863, a pair of remarkable military engagements took place on opposite sides of the Georgia-Tennessee border -- two battles marked by ferocity, genius, courage, astonishing ineptitude, and outrageous fortune that changed the course of the War Between the States. John Bowers, the man who brought one of the Confederacy's most capable and eccentric commanders to life in Stonewall Jackson, now tells the riveting story of two brutal months in the life of a young nation at war with itself. From the opening volleys at Chickamauga Creek to the final, shocking outcome several miles north at Chattanooga, Bowers brilliantly recreates the fire and fury of the decisive battles of America's Civil War. More than a dramatic account of stunning master strokes and fatal missed opportunities, it is also the unforgettable story of real people: Grant, Longstreet, Sherman, the fiery gambler Nathan Bedford Forrest, George H. Thomas, the tormented Union officer despised and disowned by his Virginia family, and the tragic, tenacious General Braxton Bragg, who, through incompetence, miscalculation, and blind folly, almost single-handedly doomed the Confederate cause.

Contains primary source material in the form of personal recollections from letters, diaries, photographs, sketches, and artifacts of both soldiers and civilians.

This thesis analyzes how Major General William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, employed the command and control mechanisms available to him as he maneuvered his army from Tullahoma, Tennessee toward Chattanooga, Tennessee in August-September, 1863. It also analyzes how these mechanisms were employed during the battle of Chickamauga itself, on 19-20 September, 1863. General Rosecrans possessed three mechanisms for commanding and controlling his army. The first was the military telegraph, provided by the quasi-military U.S. Military Telegraph service. Next were the assets of the fledgling U.S. Signal Corps, which consisted of signal flags and torches, and a portable version of the telegraph. Finally, there were couriers, who were usually mounted, and were provided by subordinate unit details, or by units specifically formed for courier duty. The thesis concludes that General Rosecrans did not use his command and control mechanisms effectively. Rosecrans relied too heavily on couriers to carry messages over densely wooded, cross-compartmented terrain in order to send orders to his widely dispersed subordinates and receive information from them. While Rosecrans made wide use of the military telegraph, to include using it during the battle itself, he did not effectively use his Signal Corps assets. These assets were used essentially as static observation posts, and only to a limited degree as a means for effecting command and control. The thesis further concludes, however, that General Rosecrans use of command and control assets was not a decisive factor in the outcome of the campaign or battle. While his reliance upon courier assets added significantly to the time required to obtain information and send orders, it was not the reason for the Union defeat at Chickamauga.