On July 2, the pursuit was made by the Fourteenth and Twentieth corps. The bridge over the Elk River had been burned by the enemy while retreating. The stream had risen and the cavalry could barely ford the river. On July 3, Sheridan’s and Davis’s divisions of the Twentieth Corps, having succeeded in crossing the Elk River, pursued the enemy to Cowan, on the Cumberland plateau, eighteen miles southeast of Tullahoma. Here it was learned that the enemy had crossed the mountains; and that only cavalry troops covered its retreat. Meanwhile the Union Army halted to await needed supplies, which had to be hauled by wagon from Murfreesboro over miserable roads. These supplies had to be stored at the railway station, nearest to the probable battlefield; and before the army could advance over the Cumberland plateau—where a battle would probably soon ensue—the railway had to be repaired. General Rosecrans in his official report says: “Thus ended a nine days’ campaign, which drove the enemy from two fortified positions and gave us possession of Middle Tennessee, conducted in one of the most extraordinary rains ever known in Tennessee at that period of the year, over a soil that became almost a quicksand.”[7] He claims—perhaps justly—that it was this extraordinary rain and bad roads, which prevented his getting possession of the enemy’s communications, and debarred him from forcing the Confederate Army to fight a disastrous battle. He speaks very highly of James A. Garfield, his chief of staff, saying: “He possesses the instincts and energy of a great commander.”
The Union losses during the “Tullahoma Campaign”—thus named in the official record—were as follows: 14 officers killed, and 26 wounded; 71 non-commissioned officers and privates killed, and 436 wounded; 13 missing. Total, 85 killed, 462 wounded, and 13 missing. 1,634 prisoners were taken, some artillery and small arms of very little value; 3,500 sacks of corn and cornmeal were secured.
On July 3, General Braxton Bragg sent the following dispatch from Bridgeport, Alabama—twenty-eight miles directly west from Chattanooga—to Richmond, Virginia: “Unable to obtain a general engagement without sacrificing my communications, I have, after a series of skirmishes, withdrawn the army to this river. It is now coming down the mountains. I hear of no formidable pursuit.”[8] The Confederate Army crossed the mountains to the Tennessee River and on July 7, 1863, encamped near Chattanooga. The Union Army went into camp along the northwestern base of the Cumberland plateau. The object of the Army of the Cumberland for the ensuing campaign was Chattanooga; the Tullahoma campaign was only a small part of the greater one which had yet to take place.
In the Tullahoma campaign the Tenth Wisconsin Infantry lost 3 enlisted men, wounded, and the First Wisconsin Cavalry 2 enlisted men. All the Wisconsin troops bore their full share of the fatigues of the campaign, but only the losses mentioned were reported.
There was one feature of the Tullahoma campaign that was very peculiar. A part of the Union Army had the previous year passed over this same region, while marching to the relief of Grant at Shiloh. Now returning by the way of Chattanooga, where Buell had marched on his way back to Louisville, they again came to this section of the country where the inhabitants mostly sympathized with the South. They were surprised and shocked in 1862 when the hated Yankees invaded their towns and farms. The Confederate authorities told them, that another invasion would never occur, that they could plant their crops and pursue their business without fear. Therefore, when their country was again overrun by the Union Army in 1863, their confidence in the Confederate generals was quite shaken.
CHAPTER II
The Chickamauga Campaign and Battle
A distinguished Confederate general—speaking of the importance of the city of Chattanooga to the Confederacy—said: “As long as we held it, it was the closed doorway to the interior of our country. When it came into your [the Union’s] hands the door stood open, and however rough your progress in the interior might be, it still left you free to march inside. I tell you that when your Dutch general Rosecrans commenced his forward movement for the capture of Chattanooga we laughed him to scorn; we believed that the black brow of Lookout Mountain would frown him out of existence; that he would dash himself to pieces against the many and vast natural barriers that rise all around Chattanooga; and that then the northern people and the government at Washington would perceive how hopeless were their efforts when they came to attack the real South.” With regard to the claim that Chickamauga was a failure for the Union arms, he said: “We would gladly have exchanged a dozen of our previous victories for that one failure.” It is correctly said, that even Richmond was but an outpost, until the success of the Union armies—in the centre of the Confederacy—left Lee’s legions nowhere to go, when they were expelled from Richmond.[9] This was accomplished or made possible only by the operations of the Army of the Cumberland in the Chattanooga Campaign of 1863.
After the retreat of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee from the region about Tullahoma, across the Cumberland Plateau to Chattanooga, Rosecrans established his headquarters at Winchester, Tennessee.[10] He began the repair of the railroad back to Murfreesboro and forward to Stevenson, Alabama, ten miles southeast of Bridgeport and eight miles north of the Tennessee River. The three corps were put into camp in their normal order. The Twentieth Corps occupied the country adjacent to Winchester; the Fourteenth Corps the region near to Decherd;[11] the Twenty-first Corps occupied the country near McMinnville.[12] Detachments were thrown forward as far as Stevenson. The campaign had so far been mere child’s play, compared with what lay before the army in the next movement against Chattanooga and the Confederate Army. The straight line of the plateau is thirty miles across from Winchester to the Tennessee River; the distance is perhaps forty miles by the available roads. The railroad after reaching the summit of the plateau followed down Big Crow Creek to Stevenson, then turned sharply up the valley of the Tennessee, crossing the river at Bridgeport to the South side; then winding among numerous hills, which constitute the south end of the Sand Mountain, continued around the northern nose of Lookout Mountain, close to the river bank, into Chattanooga. Bridgeport is on the Tennessee River twenty-eight miles in a straight line west of Chattanooga. Just opposite, towards the northern nose of Sand Mountain, on the north side of the river, is the southern end of Walden’s Ridge which extends northward from the river, and parallel with the plateau, from which it is separated by the Sequatchie River and Valley. In short the Cumberland Mountains are here a series of ridges and valleys which run from northeast to southwest in a uniform trend, parallel with each other. The Tennessee River rises in southwestern Virginia, and runs between the Cumberland Plateau and Sand Mountain; but between Chattanooga and Bridgeport it cuts a zigzag channel towards the west, between Sand Mountain and Walden’s Ridge, which is the name given to that portion of the ridge lying on the north of the river. What the Army of the Cumberland intended to do was to cross the ridge, called the Cumberland Plateau, then the river, and the Sand Mountain into Lookout Valley and then the Lookout Ridge, in order to reach the Chattanooga Valley south of Chattanooga. Such a movement would force Bragg to march out of the city to defend his communications. These ridges are all linked together at different places. Sand and Lookout at Valley Head, Alabama; the Cumberland Plateau and Walden’s at the head of Sequatchie Valley and River. Pigeon Mountain is a spur of Lookout Ridge. Chattanooga is located on the south side of the river, between the northern nose of Lookout and Missionary Ridge. The latter is a separate and low ridge about three miles southeast of Chattanooga. Without a map it will be difficult for the reader to perceive the rugged and almost impassable field of operations, which General Rosecrans faced, while his army lay at the northwestern base of the Cumberland Plateau, waiting for suitable preparation for the intended campaign.
There was an alternative line of advance open to Rosecrans, namely to cross the plateau into the Sequatchie Valley, or to march around the head of the valley at Pikeville, then over Walden’s Ridge, and thus attack Chattanooga directly from the north; or, to cross the river above and to the east of Chattanooga, at the north end of Missionary Ridge, that is, at the mouth of the Hiawassie River. This last route would have exposed his line of retreat or communications, and he therefore chose to operate at his right and enter into the valley south of Chattanooga.
Early in August the railroad was repaired to Stevenson and Bridgeport; also the branch to Tracy City on the plateau.