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

by Michael Hendrick Fitch

ORGANIZATION

After the battle of Stone’s River and while lying at Murfreesboro, the Army of the Cumberland was reorganized. As previously stated, Rosecrans joined it as the successor of Buell, at Bowling Green, in October, 1862. Stone’s River was the army’s first battle under Rosecrans. In that, the army was called the Fourteenth Corps, Department of the Cumberland; and it was divided into three divisions—the centre, right, and left wings. General George H. Thomas commanded the centre, General Alexander McD. McCook the right, and General Thomas L. Crittenden the left. In the new organization, the command was called the Army of the Cumberland, and divided into three corps, the Fourteenth, the Twentieth, and the Twenty-first. Thomas was assigned to the command of the Fourteenth, General McCook to the Twentieth, and Crittenden to the Twenty-first.

Rosecrans came to the Army of the Cumberland with considerable prestige. He was then forty-three years old, having graduated from West Point in 1842. As brigadier-general he had gained the battle of Rich Mountain, Virginia, in July, 1861; won the battle of Carnifex Ferry, Virginia, in September of the same year; as commander of the Army of the Mississippi was victorious in the battles of Iuka in September, 1862, and of Corinth in October following. He came to the Army of the Cumberland with a record of unbroken successes behind him. He was genial, and had untiring industry. His heart and head were devoted to the Union cause. His troops saw him frequently. He was a lover of approbation, and had the confidence of his generals, and the love of his rank and file. The men affectionately nicknamed him “Old Rosy,” and that was his usual cognomen with the whole army. He was a strategist of high order. A study of his Chattanooga campaign will show his eminent ability, in so maneuvering as to compel the enemy to fight in the open. When an engagement was thus brought on, and the actual combat occurred, he lacked (in those which he fought with the Army of the Cumberland) the proper supervision of his line of battle. He too implicitly relied upon his subordinates. During the whole of the Chattanooga campaign his strategy was of the first order; but at both Stone’s River and Chickamauga, the right of his line was too attenuated; in both engagements, disaster occurred to this part of his troops.

The chief of staff to Rosecrans was General James A. Garfield, who was then thirty-one years old, brainy and very energetic. Although not a graduate of West Point, he was possessed of decided military instincts. Before the war he was an instructor in, and later president of, Hiram College, Ohio; and later was a member of the Ohio Senate. Entering the army as lieutenant-colonel of an Ohio regiment, he defeated Humphrey Marshall in the battle of Middle Creek, Eastern Kentucky, January 10, 1862, and was that year promoted to be a brigadier-general. Able and conscientious as an officer, he was perhaps rather too democratic and academic to become a typical soldier. He became very nervous at the delay in moving from Murfreesboro, and instituted an inquiry into the reasons, both for and against an earlier advance on Tullahoma. A majority of the subordinate generals in the Army of the Cumberland supported General Rosecrans in his delay. Later on, notice will be taken of Garfield’s service in the battle of Chickamauga, and his retirement to a seat in Congress.

Next to Rosecrans, the most important figure among the subordinate commanders was Thomas. He was then forty-seven years old, and a graduate of West Point in 1840. Between that time and the Civil War, he served in the war with Mexico, and against the Indians in the West. At the beginning of the War between the States he was major of the Second Cavalry, of which Albert Sidney Johnston was colonel, Robert E. Lee lieutenant-colonel, and William J. Hardee senior major. Thomas was the only field officer of that regiment who remained loyal to the Union. He was commissioned colonel of the regiment, reorganized it, and during the first battle of Bull Run served in General Patterson’s detachment, in the Shenandoah Valley. He was commissioned brigadier-general in August, 1861, and was sent to Kentucky to serve in the then Army of the Ohio (afterwards the Army of the Cumberland), under General Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter fame. Thomas organized the first real little army of that department at camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky, between Danville and Lexington; and in January, 1862, with this force defeated the Confederate troops under Zollicoffer, at Mill Springs, Kentucky, on the Cumberland River. This force and this place were then the extreme right of the Confederate line of defense, of which Forts Donelson and Henry, in Tennessee, and Paducah, Kentucky, constituted the left. This line was fortified, and extended through Bowling Green. A month after General Thomas had turned its right at Mill Springs, General Grant also turned its left, by capturing both Forts Donelson and Henry. This necessitated the establishment of a new Confederate line farther south, the evacuation of Kentucky, and the eventual loss to the Confederates of Middle Tennessee. Just before the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, the President offered General Thomas, on September 29, 1862, the command of the Army of the Cumberland at Louisville, but he declined it. Buell was in command of the army during the battle of Perryville; after which he was superseded by Rosecrans. Thomas was a soldier, pure and simple, having never resigned from the army after his graduation from the Military Academy. He had shown great ability in the recent battle of Stone’s River, as well as in every position in which he was placed, prior to that battle. It will be seen, further on, what important movements he directed in the battle of Chickamauga, which saved the Army of the Cumberland from imminent disaster.

General McCook, who commanded the Twentieth Corps, belonged to the younger class of West Point graduates, of which General Sheridan was a type. He graduated in 1853, and was thirty-two years old in April, 1863. He was a handsome man, of striking presence, and commanded with some dramatic effect.

General Crittenden, commanding the Twenty-first Corps, was then a year older than Rosecrans—forty-four years. He was not a graduate of West Point, but had served as a volunteer in the Mexican War. He was a son of U. S. Senator John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky.

The Fourteenth Corps was made up of four divisions. These were commanded respectively by Major-General Lovell H. Rousseau, Major-General James S. Negley, Brigadier-General John M. Brannan, and Major-General Joseph J. Reynolds. Each of these divisions contained three brigades, and three light field batteries. The brigades were generally composed of four regiments, but sometimes of five.

The Twentieth Corps contained three divisions, commanded respectively by Brigadier-General Jefferson C. Davis, Brigadier-General Richard W. Johnson, and Major-General Philip H. Sheridan. These were made up of brigades of four and five regiments of infantry and three batteries of artillery.

The Twenty-first Corps likewise was organized into three divisions, commanded by Brigadier-General Thomas J. Wood, Major-General John M. Palmer, and Brigadier-General Horatio P. Van Cleve, each with three brigades and several batteries. The artillery of each division of the army was commanded by a chief of artillery.