[Doug64]

August 31, Monday

General Bragg has his army deployed to fight off an attack from north of Chattanooga—Polk’s corps in the town, Hardee’s a short distance to the northeast, where it can interpose itself between Rosecrans and Burnside. Word has reached the Confederates that Burnside is heading for Knoxville with 15,000 men. Buckner has only about 2,500 men left in the Knoxville area and they are no match for Burnside; Bragg pulls the little unit out of Knoxville and back toward Chattanooga to bolster his own defense. Amid all this, General Hardee is suddenly transferred to Mississippi to help Johnston, whose army has been dwindling as a result of desertions and unauthorized furloughs. Hardee, a good organizer, is assigned to round up the stragglers and reconstitute Johnston’s forces. To replace him, President Davis promotes Major General Daniel Harvey Hill to lieutenant general and sends him west. Hill is a difficult and moody man, but he is an old friend of Bragg’s; they had been Army messmates in Texas during the Mexican War. It must seem to Davis that Bragg, surrounded for so long by discontented subordinates, will benefit from having a friend at his side. But it is not to be. Hill views Bragg as a changed man, grown prematurely old and showing much nerviousness. Their meeting is “not satisfactory.”

Bragg has ample reason for nerviousness. He is getting reports of Federal advances that seem to be coming from all over the map, and it is critical that he divine the real threat. “It is said to be easy to defend a mountainous country,” he says queriously to Hill, “but mountains hide your foe from you, while they are full of gaps through which he can pounce on you at any time.” It seems likely that Bragg is looking at the right wall—that is, north of Chattanooga. All during the last week of August he receives reports of Federal activity in that area. There are also fragmentary accounts of a Federal presence around the town of Stevenson, to the southwest, but these do not seem significant. Then today a Confederate sympathizer reports that a powerful force is crossing the river at Stevenson and pouring into the mountains south of Chattanooga.

Minor fighting marks the end of August, with action on the Marais des Cygnes, Kansas; at Winter’s Gap, Tennessee; and Will’s Valley, Alabama.

[Doug64]

September 1863

Although Virginia and the Mississippi Valley remain quiet, there are other sectors to watch. The results of Federal bombardment of Battery Wagner and Fort Sumter remain undetermined. Rosecrans and his Federal Army of the Cumberland are moving into Alabama and toward Chattanooga; how will Bragg and his Army of Tennessee respond? What about the thrust to Knoxville and east Tennessee? Farther west, a Northern offensive against Little Rock is under way, and there are indications of forthcoming operations on the Texas and Louisiana coasts. On the homefronts discontent seems somewhat less rampant than it had earlier in the summer. However, many Northerners realize that despite Gettysburg and Vicksburg the war is not near an end. Southerners take comfort in the fact that despite defeats in Pennsylvania and on the Mississippi, the Confederacy is still afloat and fighting.

September 1, Tuesday

As Confederate agents conspire with Bravay & Company of Paris to turn the Laird rams being constructed in England over to the Confederacy by way of France, Charles Francis Adams is engaged in the kind of diplomatic warfare that his son describes as “violent pulling, pushing, threatening, shaking, cursing and coaxing.” Adams learned in early summer that the first ram is about to be towed to sea to have its turret fitted outside territorial waters. The second ram, he is told, is about to be completed by workmen laboring overtime under gaslight. Adams writes a strong note to Lord Russell in which he speaks of the “active malevolence” of the British government; he warns that failure to seize the rams would be “virtually tantamount to a participation in the war by the people of Great Britain.” In his office at the legation, Benjamin Moran fumes about Britain’s “bastard neutrality.” Under Adams’ constant prodding, Russell grudgingly sends customs officials to examine the rams and question the builders about their ownership. The inspectors gather much hearsay evidence, according to Russell, but no solid documentation that the rams are bound for the Confederacy. “Under these circumstances,” he writes to Adams, “Her Majesty’s Government cannot interfere in any way with these vessels.”

Fort Smith, on the western border of Arkansas, falls to Union forces, while in the eastern part of the state operations proceed against Little Rock. Fighting also breaks out at Jenny Lind and Devil’s Backbone or Backbone Mountain, Arkansas.

In Charleston Harbor mortar fire smites Battery Wagner on Morris Island, and heavy Parrott rifles and ironclads hammer Fort Sumter once more. Firing of 627 shot ends the second phase of the first major bombardment. Once more Fort Sumter crumbles, and its magazine is threatened, but the garrison continues to shore up the ruins and remains defiant.

This morning, one of Wheeler’s Confederate cavalry patrols verifies yesterday’s civilian report that a powerful Federal force is crossing the Tennessee River at Stevenson and pouring into the mountains south Chattanooga. Yet General Bragg dares not shift large numbers of men away from the northern approaches to the city while there is a chance that the attack might come from that direction. He vacillates. He shifts a few units. And for a whole week the Confederate commanders sift through their scanty reports and try to figure out which of them to believe. Three times Bragg starts to pull out of Chattanooga, and each time reverses himself. The crossing of the Federal Army of the Cumberland, which lasts several days, is largely unopposed. Skirmishing occurs at Will’s Creek, Davis’ Gap, and Neal’s Gap, Alabama.

Virginia sees only cavalry operations and skirmishing at Corbin’s Cross Roads, Lamb’s Creek Church near Port Conway, Leesburg, and Barbee’s Cross Roads. The “small war” in northern Virginia continues unabated. A week of Federal operations from Natchez to Harrisonburg, Louisiana, include some skirmishing; and Federals carry out ten days of expeditions into Tennessee from Paducah, Kentucky, and Union City, Tennessee.

President Davis tells Governor Isham G. Harris of Tennessee that reinforcements and arms are being sent to Chattanooga and Bragg’s threatened army.

[Doug64]

September 2, Wednesday

Federal troops under General A.E. Burnside enter Knoxville, Tennessee. The fall of Knoxville effectively cuts the fairly direct railroad link between Chattanooga and Virginia and forces Confederates to use a roundabout route from Virginia down the Atlantic coast, thence to Atlanta and Tennessee. Burnside’s move is destined to aid Rosecrans’ major effort against Chattanooga and Bragg.

At Charleston artillery fire dies to desultory proportions, but Federals entrench within eighty yards of Battery Wagner’s earthworks on Morris Island. Skirmishing takes place near Oak Shade and Rixey’s Ford, Virginia, while Federal cavalry wreck two Confederate (formerly Federal) gunboats, Satellite and Reliance, at Port Conway on the Rappahannock. In Arkansas a skirmish breaks out near Shallow Ford. Near Mier, Mexico, Confederate troops route banditti under Zapata, who has been raiding both Mexican and Confederate territory. During most of the month Federal expeditions operate from Martinsburg, and involve some skirmishing at Smithfield, West Virginia, and Strasburg, Virginia. The US Navy destroys buildings and four small boats in a raid on Peace Creek, Florida.

The people of Nevada reject the proposed state constitution.

President Lincoln tells Secretary of the Treasury Chase that he cannot include parts of Virginia and Louisiana in the Emancipation Proclamation because there was no military necessity to do so and “[t]he original proclamation has no constitutional or legal justification except as a military measure.”

A joint committee of the Alabama legislature approves the use of slaves in Confederate armies and the Alabama house adopts the resolution after modifying it somewhat.

[Doug64]

September 3, Thursday

Some of Rosecrans’ forces skirmish near Alpine, Georgia. In the West, soldiers and Amerinds fight in the Hoopa Valley, California, and near White Stone Hill, Dakota Territory. For the rest of the year there are military operations in the Humbolt Military District of California. During the night Battery Wagner at Charleston receives and returns fire, as other guns blaze in the harbor area.

To Charles Adams, Lord Russell’s refusal to interfere with the Laird rans seems like a deliberate refusal to look facts in the face. He composes a tough reply expressing his “profound regret” at the British government’s uncooperative attitude and concludes with a statement that will become famous: “It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.” Ringing though this declaration is, it has in fact been carefully thought out by Adams to permit a denial of the intent to wage war. Adams means—or at least can claim to have meant—that England’s release of the rams would automatically constitute a de facto state of war between Britain and the United States.

In any case, Russell has decided before the message arrives to withhold the ships from the Confederates. He feels that Britain has no other choice if it doesn’t want to rupture relations and sever lucrative trade ties with the North. Today he orders the rams to be detained pending further investigation. To reconcile this abrupt change of mind, he insists that the British government’s action is mearely “detention” and not “seizure.” The British will eventually dispose of the rams by buying them from Bravay & Company for service in the Royal Navy. As for Thompson’s frigate, Confederate Commander North will finally despair of getting her to sea and sell her to the Danes as the Danmark. The loss of the three vessels—fighting ships counted on to turn the tide in the naval war—is a bitter blow to the Confederacy. Bulloch writes that it has caused him “greater pain and regret than I ever thought it possible to feel.” Henry Adams is naturally elated: Stopping the rams, he says, is a “second Vicksburg” and “the crowning stroke of our diplomacy.”

[Potemkin]

The loss of the three vessels—fighting ships counted on to turn the tide in the naval war—is a bitter blow to the Confederacy. Bulloch writes that it has caused him “greater pain and regret than I ever thought it possible to feel.” Henry Adams is naturally elated: Stopping the rams, he says, is a “second Vicksburg” and “the crowning stroke of our diplomacy.”

Confederate diplomacy was hopeless from the moment Jefferson Davis appointed William Lowndes Yancey head of the South's diplomatic mission to England and France. His main motivation, of course, was to get a potential political rival out of the country. He succeeded in this aim, but at the cost of sending an incompetent diplomat to London and Paris. And things didn't improve even after Yancey admitted defeat and threw in the towel a couple of years later. Davis kept claiming he wanted recognition of the Confederacy from Europe - and indeed such recognition and support was essential if the South was to have any long-term hope of victory - but he never seems to have made any serious attempt to obtain it.

[Doug64]

@Potemkin, Davis would have much preferred being a general to being president, and he might have done better as a general. The problem was, if not him then who?

[Potemkin]

@Potemkin, Davis would have much preferred being a general to being president, and he might have done better as a general. The problem was, if not him then who?

Good point. One of the 'Fire-Eaters' would have been even worse. Appointing Yancey as the Confederacy's main diplomat to Europe was a bad idea, but appointing him President of the Confederacy would have been an even worse idea. There was simply no political figure in the South comparable to Lincoln. As I keep saying in this thread, thank God Lincoln was President during the biggest existential crisis the United States has ever faced in its history.

[Doug64]

As I keep saying in this thread, thank God Lincoln was President during the biggest existential crisis the United States has ever faced in its history.

Amen!

[Doug64]

September 4, Friday

The Federal Army of the Cumberland under Rosecrans completes its crossing of the Tennessee River in the Bridgeport, Alabama, area and at Shellmound, Tennessee. Bragg’s Confederate army in Chattanooga is threatened from the south and west, his situation growing more serious by the hour.

From New Orleans Federal transports and four shallow-draft but weak gunboats head toward the Texas-Louisiana coast at Sabine Pass. It is the first of several moves by Banks’ Federal command to occupy important points in Texas, both as an offensive against Confederates and as a display of force to the French occupying Mexico.

Fighting is confined to an affair at Quincy, Missouri, and skirmishing at Moorefield and Petersburg Gap, West Virginia. Federals scout from Cold Water Grove, Missouri; and from Fort Lyon, Colorado, toward Fort Larned, Kansas. In northwest Arkansas skirmishing flares at Bentonville, Flint Creek, Hog Eye, and Round Prairie.

In Mobile, Alabama, indignant women march on supply stores with signs reading “Bread or Blood” and “Bread and Peace” and take food, clothing, and other goods.

In New Orleans, General Grant is severely injured when his horse shies and falls on him; there is some evidence that Grant has been drinking during this visit, partly social and partly to confer with General Banks. He is partially incapacitated for weeks.

[Doug64]

September 5, Saturday

By now, General Gillmore is bombarding Fort Wagner from artillery positions nearly as sturdy as the fort itself. And his forward guns are mounted within pointblank range of the Confederate bastion. Inside the fort, conditions are growing intolerable. The bombproof, where temperatures rise to well above 100 degrees, is a place of last resort. A field hospital is established there for the wounded, and as the battle has grown more intense, the screams of the dying in the bombproof are punctuated by the booming reports of artillery fire. The fort’s wells have become polluted by the decomposing corpses buried nearby, making the meager supply of fresh water that is shipped in from Charleston the most precious of commodities. The Federal barrage is augmented by Dahlgren’s ironclads, still stationed off the fort’s sea wall. Navy gunners have grown expert at placing their shells precisely on target. They have even learned how to skip shells off the surface of the water to bring them into the deepest recesses of the fort. Now, backed by the ironclads, Gillmore’s batteries open an intensive two-day bombardment. Amid firing in Charleston Harbor against Battery Wagner, Federals draw near the ditch in front of the earthwork. An assault is expected momentarily. Small-boat attacks on Battery Gregg and the north end of Cummings Point on Morris Island fail.

In Alabama Federal forces of Rosecrans move into the mountains of northwestern Georgia south of Chatanooga, skirmishing at Labanon and Rawlingsville, Alabama, and Alpine, Georgia.

In the East Tennessee Campaign, a skirmish occurs at Tazewell, Tennessee, as Federals move in on Cumberland Gap from Knoxville.

A skirmish breaks out near Maysville, Arkansas; and in Dakota Territory Federals skirmish with Amerinds near White Stone Hill.

President Davis urgently asks General Bragg, “What is your proposed plan of operations? Can you ascertain intention of enemy? ... Can you not cut his line of communication and compel his to retreat for want of supplies?” The Confederate government is increasingly concerned over the threats to Chattanooga and Bragg, as well as the Federal movement to Knoxville and east Tennessee.

The Charleston Mercury attacks President Davis: “He has lost the confidence of both the army and the people.”

[Doug64]

September 6, Sunday

At Fort Wagner the endurance of the Confederate defenders being subjected to intensive bombardment from both land and sea is close to the breaking point. Colonel Lawrence M. Keitt, now the commander of the fort, sends a message to Beauregard reporting that he has only 400 soldiers left who can fight. Now that Gillmore’s guns have blasted Fort Sumter into rubble, Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg are hardly worth the sacrifice of 400 lives. Beauregard orders an evacuation, getting the men and guns out by boat this night.

In the campaign below Chattanooga there is skirmishing at Stevens’ Gap, Georgia, and in the East Tennessee Campaign fighting near Sweet Water. Elsewhere, battling occurs at Carter’s Run, Virginia; Petersburg, West Virginia; between Fort Scott, Kansas, and Carthage, Missouri; and in the Hutton Valley of Missouri.

[Doug64]

September 7, Monday

In the morning, General Gillmore’s Federal troops storm Fort Wagner and find it and Battery Gregg deserted. The heroic resistance has come to an end. A small Confederate force has held off a Federal army ten times its size for almost two months. In the process, the attackers have suffered 2,300 casualties. Federal Admiral Dahlgren demands the surrender of Fort Sumter and the monitors engage Fort Moultrie. Weehawken runs aground between Fort Sumter and Cummings Point but is extricated.

At last, General Bragg can no longer deny the evidence—Rosecrans is unquestionably in the Confederates’ rear below Chattanooga, Tennessee, large numbers of Federal forces still advancing with skirmishing at Stevenson, Alabama, reconnaissance toward Chattanooga, and fighting in Lookout Valley. Just as happened at Tullahoma, Bragg has been outmaneuvered, his communications are being threatened, and he has to move the Army of Tennessee southward or risk being cut off. Late in the day, the Confederates give up Chattanooga, the great prize of the West, without firing a shot, and march over the dusty roads leading south.

At Cumberland Gap Federal troops move into the vital link between Virginia and Tennessee. On the Gulf Coast the Federal expedition under General William B. Franklin has arrived off Sabine Pass on the Texas-Louisiana border. Elsewhere fighting breaks out at Bear Skin Lake, Missouri; Ashley’s Mills or Ferry Landing, Arkansas; Morgan’s Ferry, on the Atchafalaya, Louisiana; Holly Springs and Jacinto or Glendale, Mississippi; and Bath, West Virginia. Federal expeditions operate several days from Springfield, Missouri, into Arkansas and the Indian Territory and to Big Lake in Mississippi County, Arkansas.

[Doug64]

September 8, Tuesday

No state or territory in the trans-Mississippi West—and few places in all the divided nation—suffers more during the war than Louisiana. First came the fighting for New Orleans. Then the rich sugar- and cotton-growing parishes opposite Baton Rouge, Port Hudson, and Vicksburg were laid prostrate during the long, bitter struggle for control of the Mississippi. Nor did the devastation cease in July when the Federals under Ulysses S. Grant finally took Vicksburg and Port Hudson was surrendered, clearing the Mississippi. Soon other Union armies will be marching and countermarching through Louisiana, inflicting damage both near the Mississippi and in the state’s western uplands.

The main cause of this renewed fighting is an obsession in faraway Washington, D.C., with the Confederate-controlled flatlands of east Texas. Still a wild and mostly empty area, east Texas nevertheless possesses economic and strategic importance. The region looms large in the eyes of President Lincoln and his advisers for several reasons, some of them barely pertinent to the war effort. One is intense political pressure from the mill owners of New England, whose looms have been idle for lack of Southern cotton almost since the conflict began. Their clamor for military action to wrest coastal Texas cotton fields from the Confederates will reach a crescendo as the election year of 1864 approaches. A second irritant is the Confederate arms traffic across the Rio Grande from Mexico into East Texas. Foreign ships tying up at Bagdad, a Mexican port immune to the US Navy’s blockade, are busily trading Enfield rifles and other war supplies for bales of Texas cotton, needed by the spinning mills of Europe. This traffic can be choked off only by gaining control of the Rio Grande crossing points. But most important in Lincoln’s view is what appears to be a dangerous threat from a foreign power. The invasion of Mexico by Emperor Napoleon III of France is a growing concern. Putting a Federal army in Texas will help discourage any French move to aid the Confederacy—or to annex Louisiana and portions of the southwest.

For these and others, President Lincoln and his chief military advisor in Washington, Major General Henry Halleck, have begun bombarding the Federal commander in New Orleans with orders to concentrate the troops in his Department of the Gulf and move against Texas. The officer entrusted with this task is Nathaniel P. Banks. A political general who received his rank solely because before the war he had been Speaker of the US House of Representatives and a three-term Republican governor of Massachusetts, he looks the model of a major general in tailored uniforms set off by gleaming boots. He is an honest, energetic officer, but he hasn’t always fared well on the battlefield. During the Shenandoah Valley fighting last year he was soundly drubbed by Stonewall Jackson, losing so many supply wagons that Jackson’s hungry troops, feasting on the captured Federal stores, nicknamed their unwilling benefactor “Commissary Banks.” Shifted to New Orleans, Banks commanded the Federal attack on Port Hudson, and although his campaign was marred by mistakes, the eventual capture of the Confederate stronghold has restored some luster to his reputation.

Banks views General Halleck’s orders to invade Texas with distates. He agrees with General Grant, currently still the Federal commander of the Mississippi region, that a move in the other direction, toward Mobile, Alabama, will do more damage to the Confederacy. And he shudders at Halleck’s suggestion that the invasion proceed up the Red River from the already ruined parishes north of Port Hudson to Shreveport, in Louisiana’s northwest corner. Plainly a difficult undertaking, it might prove a failure and ruin forever Banks’s hopes of someday being elected President. So he casts about for other, less risky ways to move a Federal force into Texas. His first solution is to attack Sabine Pass at the mouth of the Sabine River, which forms the Louisiana-Texas border. From there, he thinks, his troops can move down the Texas coast and capture Galveston, then take Houston and Beaumont as well.

Loading 5,000 men on 22 transports, Banks sends them off under the command of Major General William B. Franklin. A veteran of the Army of the Potomac, Franklin has been in disfavor since his poor performance at Fredericksburg and has only recently been assigned to Banks. Escorting the transports are four gunboats under a young Navy lieutenant named Frederick Crocker. It seems like a mismatch when the Federal flotilla arrives off the bar at Sabine Pass. There is only a single company of 47 Texas artillerymen, under Lieutenant Dick Dowling, manning a small, partly finished Confederate fort, ashore at the pass. A few other troops and two ineffective cotton-clad gunboats, all that General John Bankhead Magruder can afford, comprise the rest of the extremely weak defense force. The Union gunboats open up on the fort and Dowling replies. Both lead Union gunboats are struck, grounded, and forced to surrender, with considerable loss. The other two withdraw, along with the troop transports, only after difficulty, and sail ignominiously back to New Orleans. It is a humiliating Federal failure and tremendous morale booster to western Confederates. Magruder is sure there will be more attempts; Banks is mortified at the failure of Franklin and his combined force. However, the legend that will grow up about the conflict outweighs its military significance.

At Charleston, with Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg in Union hands, Admiral Dahlgren now lays plans to capture the ruined Fort Sumter. Occupying it once and for all would prevent the Confederates from remounting guns there. And running up the Stars and Stripes at this bastion of Southern resistance would provide a tremendous morale boost for the North—soldier and civilian alike. General Gillmore is planning a separate assault using Army troops. Coordination between the services has, for the time being, collapsed. The Navy’s operation gets underway first. Dahlgren has been cheered by reports indicating that Fort Sumter’s garrison is insignificant and that only token resistance can be expected. Such is his confidence that when Commander Thomas Stevens, chosen to lead the assault, protests that it is too rsky, the admiral replies, “You have only to go in and take possession. You will find nothing but a corporal’s guard.”

The Confederate artillerymen at Fort Sumter have been withdrawn and replaced by about 320 infantrymen, under Major Stephen Elliot Jr. To Beauregard, the bastion is still vital to Charleston’s defenses. In his orders to Elliot, he writes, “You are to be sent to a fort deprived of all offensive capacity, and having but one gun—a 32-pounder—with which to salute the flag. But that fort is Fort Sumter, the key to the entrance of this harbor. It must be held to the bitter end, not with artillery, but with infantry alone; and there can be no hope of reinforcements.” As a prelude to the landing, Dahlgren calls for the fort’s immediate surrender, an ultimatum peremptorily refused by Beauregard. He replies, “Inform Admiral Dahlgren that he may have Fort Sumter when he can take it and hold it.”

This night, a volunteer force of 500 sailors and Marines embark from Federal warships in small boats for Fort Sumter. The party is still well offshore when Confederate sentinels at the ruins spot the boats and spread the alarm. Shore batteries on James Island and Sullivan’s Island open up on the invaders, as does the Confederate ram Chicora, while infantry hidden in the rubble maintain a steady musket fire on the approaching boats. Those men who manage to land are swiftly cut down or captured. Stevens orders a withdrawal, but five of his boats are seized. All told, the Navy loses 124 men to this “corporal’s guard.” Gillmore, whose own operation has been delayed, hastily cancels the entire operation when he learns of the Navy’s fiasco.

For Dahlgren, a quandry remains. He can try to push his ironclads past Fort Sumter and the still-dangerous Confederate batteries on Sullivan’s and James Islands to put the city under his guns. But to do so involves risks that the admiral is quite unwilling to take. Suppose a shot from an island battery were to disable one of his ironclads, leading to its capture? Once repaired by the Confederates, the ship would certainly be employed in their behalf to play havoc with the wooden vessels on blockade duty. Although the admiral offers to go in and try again if Secretary Welles will send him three more monitors, the government decides the hazards are no longer worth the prize. In the aftermath of Federal victories elsewhere, at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, Washington realizes that Charleston’s capture is no longer of the first importance. Dahlgren must be relieved. After weeks of fighting, he is physically and mentally exhausted. Confinement aboard an iron ship in the sweltering Carolina heat has taken its toll. Seasickness, frustration, and a sense of failure gnaw at him. “The worst of this place is that one only stops getting weaker. One does not get stronger,” he notes in his journal. “My debility increases, so that today it is an exertion to sit in a chair. I do not see well. How strange—no pain, but so feeble. It seems like gliding away to death. How easy it seems! Why not, to one whose race is run?”

Other fighting occurs at Winston’s Gap, Alabama, and Alpine, Georgia, in what will become the Chickamauga Campaign, and in east Tennessee at Limestone Station and Telford’s Station. Skirmishing breaks out at Brandy Station, Virginia, once more; at Beech Fork in Calhoun County and at Sutton, West Virginia; on the Atchafalaya, Louisiana; and in the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona Territory.

President Davis tells Lee of the increasing threats to Bragg and that he has considered sending Lee west, but fears the effect of Lee’s absence from Virginia.

Confederate Attorney General Thomas H. Watts resigns, having been elected governor of Alabama in August. He is succeeded as interim General by Wade Keyes.

[Doug64]

September 9, Wednesday

General Braxton Bragg and the Confederate Army of Tennessee have left Chattanooga. In the morning troops of Rosecrans’ army enter the city, and Rosecrans is exultant. He telegraphs Halleck: “Chattanooga ours without a struggle and East Tennessee is free.” He then sends his entire army marching at full speed after Bragg. Thomas Crittenden and his XXI Corps are to move up the Tennessee River valley into Chattanooga then follow Bragg’s line of retreat. Alexander McCook and XX Corps are sent far to the south, fifty miles below Chattanooga, with orders to get behind the Confederate army if possible; they will cross Lookout Mountain via the more distant of its passes, Winston’s Gap, and push east. George Thomas and XIV Corps are sent charging eastward through the middle route, via Stevens’ Gap and McLemore’s Cove. Thomas’ orders are to “strike the enemy in flank, and if possible cut off his retreat.”

Before taking to the road, Thomas, a general who rarely questions an order, makes a suggestion to the suddenly adventurous Rosecrans. Instead of separating the three corps, he says, it might be prudent to consolidate the position around Chattanooga before chasing Bragg. The city can then serve as a secure base for the offensive. Rosecrans brushes aside Thomas’ proposal. Bragg is fleeing for his life, and here is a golden opportunity to destroy him. The commanding general is full of optimism and high spirits. There is plenty of evidence that Bragg is in disarray. As the Federals neared Chattanooga, captured and deserting Confederates reported that the Army of Tennessee was in full flight, headed into Georgia toward Rome and Atlanta. The mountain people along Bragg’s route give a similar account: Confederate officers were admitting that their army was in panicky retreat. But strangely, as the Federals continue to race ahead, they see increasingly ominous signs of the enemy all around those fingerlike mountains. Thomas is running into unexpected pockets of Confederate opposition. General Beatty, with Thomas’ vanguard in McLemore’s Cove, remarks nervously in his diary that “information poured in upon us from all quarters that the enemy, in strength, was making dispositions to surround and cut us off before reinforcements could arrive.” And that is exactly what the enemy has been planning.

Bragg is not in full scale retreat. His withdrawal has been orderly, and today he stops near Chattanooga in the vicinity of La Fayette, across Pigeon Mountain from McLemore’s Cove. The stories of pancky flight have been cleverly orchestrated—Rosecrans isn’t the only general playing such games. The deserters pouring out their tales of demoralization were sent to the unwary Federals by Bragg. The local civilians have been carefully misled by well-briefed Confederate officers. Moreover, Bragg has taken the time to reshuffle his infantry units into a new organization of four corps, each with two divisions. In addition to Polk and Hill, the corps commanders are Buckner and Major General William H.T. Walker, who has just come from Mississippi. Bragg’s men are eager, enthusiastic, and “in fine condition.” Bragg’s reinforcements are beginning to arrive, and soon his troops will outnumber those of Rosecrans.

And Bragg knows where Thomas’ corps is. He has kept the Federal forces under almost constant surveillance as they march through the hills. In fact, Thomas and his 20,000 men are marching into a trap in McLemore’s Cove. On its south end, where Missionary Ridge and Pigeon Mountain converge, the valley is a cul de sac. The Confederates are blocking the passes leading eastward through Pigeon Mountain with felled trees and guarding them with infantry and artillery. And the broad northern mouth of the valley is rapidly filling with Confederate troops—which will number 23,000 in all. This evening, Bragg sends orders for the trap to be sprung tomorrow morning; one of Polk’s divisions under Major General Thomas C. Hindman, recently arrived from Arkansas, is to move south into McLemore’s Cove. There he is to smash into Thomas’ lead division, commanded by Major General James S. Negley. Meanwhile, one of D.H. Hill’s divisions, led by General Cleburne, is to march west from La Fayette through one of the gaps in Pigeon Mountain to join in the assault.

After conferences in Richmond early in September, President Davis and his generals have decided to detach Longstreet’s corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to aid Bragg. Therefore, Longstreet leaves the Rapidan line and heads toward Richmond. Due to recent Federal occupation of east Tennessee which culminates this day in the surrender of Cumberland Gap to the Federals, Longstreet has to go by way of North Carolina and Atlanta to get to Bragg. He moves rapidly, especially considering the condition of Southern railroads, but it is to be about ten days before the movement is completed.

Elsewhere there is a skirmish at Webber’s Falls, Indian Territory.

[Doug64]

September 10, Thursday

Still another important Confederate center falls, as Southerners evacuate Little Rock, capital of Arkansas. Sterling Price’s Confederates withdraw to Rockport and Arkadelphia. Occupation of Little Rock leaves the Federals in command of the Arkansas River and severely threatens Kirby Smith’s entire Confederate Trans-Mississippi area, already under attack from Frederick Steele’s expedition which has moved across Arkansas from Helena. There is an engagement at Bayou Fourche, Arkansas.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, as Federals operate from Alpine toward Rome, La Fayette, and Summerville, probing Confederate positions south of Chattanooga with skirmishing occuring at Summerville, Pea Vine Creek, and near Graysville, things begin to go wrong for the Confederates. In the morning, when Major General Hindman is partway into the valley of McLemore’s Cove, he begins to fret that D.H. Hill might be delayed in getting through Pigeon Mountain’s gap. Hindman decides that it will be more prudent to delay his attack until he is certain that Hill is on the scene. And to be sure, Hill’s division has encountered delays. To begin with, for some reason General Bragg’s order to move through the gap and attack Thomas’s division took five hours to reach him. When Hill finally gets the order, it is nearly dawn and he thinks of a long list of reasons for not obeying: He claims that Cleburne is ailing and that his troops are out of position; the barricades that the Confederates have erected in the gaps to block the Federals now have to be removed and this will take time; Thomas might himself be setting a trap. Hill lists these excuses in a querulous message to Bragg that takes more than three hours to reach its destination. Nothing happens. Bragg is frantic, pacing back and forth as he awaits the sound of battle. At last in the afternoon Bragg desperately sends one of Major General Buckner’s divisions to bolster Hindman. but when Buckner and Hindman meet around 8 pm, they hold a council of war, solemnly discuss the situation, and decide to do nothing. Although Bragg again orders Hindman to attack, Hindman stays where he is. He does promise to attack in the morning, however.

In the East Tennessee Campaign, fighting breaks out at Brimstone Creek, Kentucky, and Athens, Tennessee.

Fort Sumter enjoys the first of eighteen days of respite from bombardment. With the US Navy unwilling to risk its ironclads and the Army equally hesitant to move on the city without massive reinforcements, the situation lapses into a stalemate. Yet there will be no relief from the horror. The Union is too committed to its campaign against Charleston to withdraw entirely. To do so would be a terrible blow to Federal pride. Fort Sumter remains the focus of Federal fury. To prevent the Confederates from mounting new guns, the pitiful pile of debris will be subjected to months of bombardments from both the ironclads and the Federal batteries now established on the sites of Battery Gregg and Fort Wagner.

In Virginia the main action is Longstreet’s move to Richmond en route to Bragg in Georgia.

At Raleigh, North Carolina, Confederate soldiers pillage the offices of the Standard, owned by W.W. Holden, pro-Union editor and politician who advocates peace.

[Potemkin]

September 10, Thursday
At last in the afternoon Bragg desperately sends one of Major General Buckner’s divisions to bolster Hindman. but when Buckner and Hindman meet around 8 pm, they hold a council of war, solemnly discuss the situation, and decide to do nothing. Although Bragg again orders Hindman to attack, Hindman stays where he is. He does promise to attack in the morning, however.

“Act upon your own judgement and make your generals execute your orders. Call no councils of war. It is proverbial that councils of war never fight. Do not let the enemy escape.” - Halleck to Meade, several months earlier.

[Doug64]

“Act upon your own judgement and make your generals execute your orders. Call no councils of war. It is proverbial that councils of war never fight. Do not let the enemy escape.” - Halleck to Meade, several months earlier.

Of course, that was Halleck talking, not a man known for rapid marches and aggressive action when he commanded in the field. Still, there’s a good reason why Stonewall Jackson held exactly one such council, and swore to never hold another.

[Doug64]

September 11, Friday

Considerable reconnaissance and skirmishing continue in northwest Georgia with operations toward Rome and skirmishes near Blue Bird Gap, Davis’ Cross Roads, Rossville, Ringgold, and around Lee and Gordon’s Mills. The Federal advance is gradually building toward a climax. And Negley, the commander of Thomas’s lead division at McLemore’s Cove, has been seeing the same signs of the enemy as his brigade commander John Beatty. To play it safe he pulls back to Steven’s Gap, through which he had entered the valley and his only escape route. The opportunity for Generals Hindman and Buckner to carry out their attack is lost.

Elsewhere, fighting flares near Greenville, Kentucky; at Waldron, Arkansas; Baldwin’s Ferry on the Big Black, Mississippi; and Moorefield, West Virginia. A brief mutiny in Terrell’s Texas Cavalry in Texas is soon put down. Federal expeditions of several days’ duration operate from La Grange to Toone’s Station, Tennessee; from Corinth, Mississippi, into Tennessee; and from Camp Piatt near Fayetteville, West Virginia.

President Lincoln turns down General Burnside’s resignation, asks Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee to inaugurate a state government at once, and confers with Stanton, Halleck, and others about the Charleston situation.

[Doug64]

September 12, Saturday

The probing, skirmishing, and reconnaissance continues on the long front south of Chattanooga, with fighting at Alpine, Dirt Town, Leet’s Tanyard, and on the la Fayette Road near Chattanooga River, Georgia. In the early-morning hours, General Bragg makes another attempt to snare a Federal corps—this time Crittenden’s force, which is marching southward from Chattanooga right into the heart of the Confederate army. Crittenden has sent Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood’s division ahead while he proceeds to the railroad town of Ringgold with his remaining two divisions. Wood pushes all the way to the mouth of McLemore’s Cove, to a place called Lee & Gordon’s Mill. There, Wood’s division is only about fifteen miles north of La Fayette, Bragg’s headquarters—and almost that far by road from the rest of Crittenden’s corps at Ringgold. Wood is perilously isolated and so close to the Confederates that, unknowingly, he almost collides with Hindman. Bragg knows of Wood’s presence and he sees yet another chance to strike a crippling blow. As a first step, he orders Polk to attack Wood. Crush that division, Bragg tells Polk, “and the others are yours.” But because of faulty intelligence, Bragg sends Polk to the wrong place to make the attack on Wood. And by the time Polk finds the enemy, the odds have changed: Crittenden is moving with his other two divisions from Ringgold to join Wood at Lee & Gordon’s Mills. Now Polk decides that he is dangerously outnumbered. In fact, the reverse is true—Polk has four divisions to send against Crittenden’s three, and Bragg is prepared to send him more. Nevertheless, there are now more troops facing Polk than he had been led to expect, and he decides not to attack. Crittenden, meanwhile, withdraws north for distance, and Polk, uncertain, falls back toward La Fayette. Bragg rages, but nothing can be done to retrieve his fumbled opportunities. His officers will later contend that Bragg’s orders have been vague, uninformed, and discretionary. General Hill will write that Bragg has issued “impossible orders, and therefore those entrusted with their execution got in the way of disregarding them.” Moreover, Hill will record, Bragg has earned such a reputation for finding “a scapegoat for every failure and disaster” that his subordinates are all reluctant to take the initiative.

In the east Tennessee operations, a skirmish takes place at Rheatown. Minor fighting occurs at South Mills, North Carolina; White Plains and Bristoe Station, Virginia; Roane County, West Virginia; Houston in Texas County, Missouri; Brownsville, Arkansas; and Stirling’s Plantation near Morganza, Louisiana. Federals scout from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

[Doug64]

September 13, Sunday

The fairly quiet Virginia front becomes less so as Meade’s Army of the Potomac occupies Culpeper Court House. The Union move from the Rappahannock to the Rapidan is brought about by a Confederate withdrawal by Lee, weakened from the loss of Longstreet’s corps. Fighting breaks out in the area of Brandy Station, Muddy Run, Culpeper Court House, Pony Mountain, and Stevensburg, a much fought-over section.

As upset as General Bragg is with his subordinates, the Confederates south of Chattanooga have no monopoly on ineptitude during this period of fruitless maneuvering. Rosecrans has been told repeatedly that Bragg is standing fast; he simply hasn’t believed it. After Negley recoiled from McLemore’s Cove two days ago, Thomas, his superior, swiftly reported the presence there of the enemy; and a few hours later he added, “All information goes to confirm that a large part of Bragg’s army is opposed to Negley.” Rosecrans replied with a jaunty wire yesterday: “Your dispatches of 10:30 last night and again of 4 this morning have been received. After maturely weighing the notes, the general commanding is induced to think that General Negley withdrew more through prudence than compulsion. He trusts that our loss is not serious.” But evidence of large Confederate deployments in the immediate area continues to mount. Far to the south General McCook reports hearing that “Bragg’s whole army,” along with part of Johnston’s, is at La Fayette. And once more Negley reports in: He has seen clouds of dust in the Dug Gap of Pigeon Mountain, indicating the movements of large Confederate units.

The signs are unmistakable—and today, at last, Rosecrans sees that his scattered corps are in grave danger. Pulling his forces together has become, he now acknowledges, “a matter of life and death.” He orders Thomas to shift his troops from Stevens’ Gap to Pond Spring, a position just five miles from Crittenden’s corps around Lee & Gordon’s Mills. McCook, perilously exposed about thirty miles to the south at a town called Alpine, is also summoned northward. McCook laboriously retraces his steps westward across Lookout Mountain, up the valley west of it and then back eastward across the mountain to where Thomas has been camped in Stevens’ Gap. It is a painful 57-mile march—“extremely exhausting,” says Major General Philip Sheridan, one of McCook’s division commanders. The supply wagons and artillery have to be dragged up the mountain roads and inched down again by manpower; the troops make forced marches of as much as 25 miles a day. In all, the long trip back will take four days. Rosecrans waits apprehensively, but Bragg does nothing.

Washington orders General Grant to send all available from the Army of the Tennessee toward Chattanooga to aid Rosecrans. Near Chattanooga operations and skirmishes center around Lee and Gordon’s Mills, toward La Fayette and near Summerville, Georgia. A reconnaissance probes from Henderson’s Gap to La Fayette, Georgia.

Elsewhere there is a skirmish near Salem, Missouri. Scouts and expeditions lasting several days include one by Federals from Fort Larned to Booth’s Ranch on the Arkansas River, Kansas, and another by Confederates near Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana. In South Carolina Confederates capture a Union telegraph party near Lowndes’ Mill on the Combahee River. Southern cavalry seize twenty crewmen of USS Rattler while they attend church at Rodney, Mississippi.