The Chattanooga Campaign: With especial reference to Wisconsin's participation therein

by Michael Hendrick Fitch

A larger setting can be given to this campaign for the capture of Chattanooga, by framing it into the two military fields of the Potomac on the east, and the Tennessee on the west. The Army of the Potomac was opposed to General Lee’s forces. It operated generally between Washington, D. C., and Richmond, Virginia, the latter being the objective. At the time the Army of the Cumberland marched out of Murfreesboro, Lee had taken advantage of the defeat of the army under Hooker from May 1 to 3, 1863, at Chancellorsville, Virginia, and invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania. He was decisively defeated in the battle of Gettysburg, on July 3 following, by Major-General George C. Meade, which closed his campaigning into the North. The old field north of Richmond was reoccupied by the Army of the Potomac, then in command of Meade, as successor to Hooker. It was the latter who, in October, brought the Eleventh and Twelfth corps from the Army of the Potomac to the Army of the Cumberland, at Chattanooga.

On the west of the Army of the Cumberland, was the field of the Army of the Tennessee. Its task was the opening of the Mississippi River. At this time, General U. S. Grant was in command, and had his army at Vicksburg. That stronghold surrendered to him on July 4. Thus the great river was opened. This left the greater part of the Army of the Tennessee free to cooperate in the autumn with the Army of the Cumberland in the battles around Chattanooga; and from that date to assist in the Atlanta campaign, and the March to the Sea, the following year.

It will thus be seen that victory crowned all three of the great armies during the time of the Chattanooga campaign. The confidence and discipline of the Union forces, increased at this time; the discovery, by the governing powers at Washington, of those of the general officers who displayed the most ability; the placing of such officers in the command of the Union armies; and the gradual weakening of the secession armies, were the principal factors contributing to the final end of the war. The resulting campaigns of 1864 and the early part of 1865, sufficed to crush the most powerful rebellion in history.

During its long occupancy of Murfreesboro, the Army of the Cumberland had been somewhat recruited; its equipment was restored to its former condition; and it had also been very much improved, as well as reorganized. During this time the formidable Fortress Rosecrans was built at Murfreesboro, so that a small force might continue to hold the place after the army moved on. This fort proved of great value during the Hood campaign against Franklin and Nashville, in November and December, 1864. Nashville had to be permanently occupied. In fact, the line of railway running from Louisville through Kentucky and Tennessee to Chattanooga, through Bowling Green, Nashville, Murfreesboro, Tullahoma, and Bridgeport, formed the line for carrying supplies, as well as the line of operations. This line, about three hundred and forty miles long, had to be defended and kept open, as the Union Army advanced. As part of it—if not the whole—lying in southern Kentucky and Tennessee, was in the enemy’s country, it was necessary to build and man as the army advanced, a line of forts and block houses, for the protection of this railroad from Nashville to Chattanooga.

By glancing at a good map, the reader can see the immense difficulty involved in the maintenance and defense of this line of supplies consisting of but a single-track railroad. The task required the services of about a fourth of the entire army. The field of operations contained no navigable rivers parallel with the line of advance, upon which gunboats might assist the army in its conflicts with the enemy, and by which the railroad could be assisted in carrying supplies. Two somewhat important streams traversed the field, or rather ran at right angles to it—the Cumberland, on which Nashville is located; and the Tennessee, flowing past Chattanooga. These run westward from the Cumberland Mountains, and for very small craft plying for limited distances only, were navigable within the field of the Army of the Cumberland. But they were of practically no use to the Union Army, except at Chattanooga after its occupation—when for a time, supplies were thus transported from Bridgeport and Stevenson pending the repairing of the railway from those places. There were also two smaller streams in southern Tennessee, running at right angles to the line of operation, called the Duck and the Elk. It was necessary that the Union commander consider these in his advance from Murfreesboro, for they were fordable only in places, and not even there when floods were rampant. They were bridged on the main wagon roads, but these bridges were easily destroyed by the enemy. In its campaigns from Louisville, Kentucky, to Chattanooga, the Army of the Cumberland did not have any assistance from the navy.

In this sketch, it is not necessary to give a tedious account of the most difficult natural obstacles, such as streams, mountains, and distances. These are apparent upon the study of any good map. But mention must be made, that the Union Army faced a chain of mountains lying between it and Chattanooga, at the northwestern edge of which then lay the Confederate Army. This is the plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, extending in a southwest direction from West Virginia to northern Alabama, and covering what is known as East Tennessee. This plateau is about 2,200 feet above tidewater.

Chattanooga is the commercial gateway through which run both the Tennessee River and the railways from north, east, and south. It lies near the junction of the boundary line between Alabama and Georgia, with the south line of Tennessee, at the eastern edge of the Cumberland Mountains, where the Tennessee River, flowing westward, cuts through the range. It is in a direct southeast line from Nashville. The occupation of Chattanooga by the Union Army cut the Confederacy asunder. Hence, the struggle for this position became a fierce one. It cost both sides strenuous campaigns, an immense number of lives, and the destruction of an incalculable amount of property. Its possession by a Union Army was an inhibition of any serious Confederate invasion into Middle Tennessee or Kentucky. The object of the Chattanooga campaign was, therefore, the capture of that city; and ultimately, the destruction of the Confederate Army. Should the capture of the city be accomplished, but the army of the Confederate escape, Chattanooga could be made the sub-base of a new campaign, which would effectually dismember the Confederacy, and greatly hasten its downfall. Such was the Union theory, and this actually occurred.

Followed by the “March to the Sea,” the Atlanta campaign dismembered the enemy’s domain and made possible the end of the war. Lee’s surrender would not have occurred at the time it did (April, 1865), if the homes of his soldiers in the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama had not been invaded by the Western armies of the Union; and his rear threatened by Sherman’s troops. These results were made possible only by the capture and continued possession of Chattanooga.

After Sherman had marched through Georgia and South Carolina, and penetrated North Carolina, with a large part of the old Army of the Cumberland and troops from other armies, thousands of Lee’s army deserted, and lined the roads leading back to their homes. When captured and paroled, as they were in immense numbers, by Sherman’s “bummers,” they invariably said that they left Lee when Richmond was abandoned; and would not longer fight for a Confederacy that could not defend their homes. Love of home is greater than love of country; unless the state or nation can protect the homes from invasion and desecration, there is little incentive for its volunteers to fight for the abstract principles of patriotism.

A description of the contour of the field, from Murfreesboro to the Chickamauga, would be only an interminable and profitless account; it being a tangle of flat and rolling land, from Murfreesboro to the gaps in the first hills, where the enemy was met; and thenceforth steep mountains and deep valleys. But the grand strategy subsequently adopted by Rosecrans, depended so entirely upon this contour, that when each separate movement or battle shall hereafter be described, a somewhat minute account of the country contiguous to that particular military event will be given.