CONTENTS · Leonidas Polk, CSA 189 Brigadier General . Benjamin H. Helm, CSA 196 Brigadier General William B. Hazen, USA 217. Captain . Cuthbert H. Slocomb, CSA 229 Kelly Cabin and

CONTENTS

List of Maps and Illustrations ixPreface and Acknowledgments to the Second Edition xiiiAcknowledgments xxi

Introduction to the Second Edition 1

Introduction to the First Edition 5

To Reach the Battlefield 15

Maneuvering to a Battle 17

Delaying Actions 31

Initial Contact 43

The Battle Expands 75

Penetration and Counterattack in the Center 115

The Fight around Viniard Farm 141

Preparations for September 20, 1863 181

Bragg Renews the Attack 191

Attack and Counterattack in Kelly Field 223

The Battle for Poe Field 243

Breaking the Union Right 265

The Fight for Snodgrass Hill and Horseshoe Ridge 315

Retreat from Kelly Field 355

Afterward 367

Appendix I: Union Order of Battle 371Appendix II: Confederate Order of Battle 383Appendix III: Medical Practices and the Handling of Wounded in the Civil War 399Index 425

© University Press of Kansas. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution prohibited without permission of the Press.


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MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

MapsLocation Map 14River Crossings, August 29 to September 4, 1863 20The Turning Movement Continues: September 4–10, 1863 24Bragg’s Plan for September 18, 1863 28Stop 1A: Minty’s First Position: Morning, September 18, 1863 32Stop 1B: Minty’s Second Position: Afternoon, September 18,

1863 37Stops 2A and 2B: Alexander’s Bridge: Afternoon, September 18,

1863 39Situation: Early Morning, September 19, 1863 44Stop 4A: Initial Contact: Morning, September 19, 1863 49Stop 4B: Initial Contact: Morning, September 19, 1863 51Stops 4C, 5A, and 5B: Initial Contact: Morning, September 19,

1863 58Stops 6A and 6B: Initial Contact: Morning, September 19, 1863 70Stops 7A, 7B, 7C, 7D, and 7E: The Battle Expands: Early–

Midafternoon, September 19, 1863 74Stops 7F, 7G, and 7H: The Battle Expands: Midafternoon,

September 19, 1863 87Stops 8A and 8B: Cleburne Attacks: Night, September 19, 1863 97Stop 9: The Battle Expands: Early–Midafternoon, September 19,

1863 103Stops 10 and 11: Penetration in the Center and the Right Shoulder:

Mid–Late Afternoon, September 19, 1863 117Stops 12A, 12B, 12C, and 13: Penetration in the Center and the Left

Shoulder: Mid–Late Afternoon, September 19, 1863 125Stops 14A and 14B: Viniard Field: Midafternoon, September 19,

1863 143Stop 14C: Viniard Field: Midafternoon, September 19, 1863 149Stops 14D and 14E: Viniard Field: Midafternoon, September 19,

1863 158


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Stops 14F, 14G, and 14H: Viniard Field: Late Afternoon, September 19, 1863 170

Stop 14I: Viniard Field: Late Afternoon, September 19, 1863 173Stop 15: Negley’s Counterattack: Late Afternoon, September 19,

1863 177Situation at 9 a.m., September 20, 1863 185Stops 16A, 16B, and 17: Situation: Mid–Late Morning, September

20, 1863 199Stops 18, 19, and 20: Late Morning, September 20, 1863 213Stop 21A: Breckinridge’s Attack: Morning, September 20, 1863 222Stop 21B: Adams’s and Stovall’s Attack: Late Morning, September 20,

1863 227Stop 22: Attack into Kelly Field: Late Morning, September 20,

1863 231Stop 23: Union Counterattack, Kelly Field: Late Morning,

September 20, 1863 238Stops 24A, 24B, 24C, 24D, and 25: Poe Field: Late Morning,

September 20, 1863 249Stops 26, 27A, 27B, and 27C: Longstreet’s Attack: Late Morning,

September 20, 1863 271Stops 28 and 29: Breakthrough and Exploitation: Noon, September

20, 1863 288Stop 30A: Laiboldt’s Counterattack: Noon, September 20,

1863 296Stops 30B and 30C: Collapse of the Union Right: Noon, September

20, 1863 301Stops 31A and 31B: Fighting for Time: 1:00 p.m., September 20,

1863 310Situation: Early Afternoon, September 20, 1863 317Stops 32A and 32B: Snodgrass Hill: Early Afternoon, September 20,

1863 322Stops 33A, 33B, 33C, and 33D: Fighting for Hills 1 and 2:

Afternoon, September 20, 1863 329Stops 33E, 33F, 33G, 33H, 33I, and 33J: Horseshoe Ridge:

Afternoon, September 20, 1863 341Stop 33K: Kelly and Trigg Capture Hill 3: Evening, September 20,

1863 352


m a p s a n d i l l u s t r at i o n s [ xi

Stop 34: Retreat from Kelly Field: Late Afternoon, September 20, 1863 359

Stop 35: Reynolds Opens the Road: Late Afternoon, September 20, 1863 363

IllustrationsMajor General William S. Rosecrans, USA 21General Braxton Bragg, CSA 22Chickamauga Creek at Reed’s Bridge 35Major General George H. Thomas, USA 46Captain Robert E. A. Crofton, USA 56Colonel Alfred J. Vaughan Jr., CSA 100Colonel Aquila Wiley, USA 108Brigadier General William B. Bate, CSA 119Lieutenant Ambrose Bierce, USA 123Corporal William H. Records, USA 168Lee and Gordon’s Mill 176Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk, CSA 189Brigadier General Benjamin H. Helm, CSA 196Brigadier General William B. Hazen, USA 217Captain Cuthbert H. Slocomb, CSA 229Kelly Cabin and Field 234Major General Alexander P. Stewart, CSA 245Lieutenant General James Longstreet, CSA 267Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood, USA 273Brigadier General Bushrod R. Johnson, CSA 285Brigadier General William H. Lytle, USA 299Colonel Emerson Opdycke, USA 308Snodgrass House 316Colonel Charles G. Harker, USA 320



PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE SECOND EDITION

In 1985–1986 while a student at the U.S. Army War College I was privileged to have Jay Luvaas and Harold “Hal” Nelson as two of my professors. At that time they were beginning the prestigious and highly acclaimed U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles series. The first guidebook was for the Battle of Gettysburg, rapidly followed by a guide to the Battle of Antietam and the Maryland Cam-paign of 1862. Other titles followed, soon resulting in a series of eight volumes.

In developing the Gettysburg guidebook Jay and Hal used the format of the staff rides that were done in the earlier decades of the twentieth century. From this format they developed a chronological movement around a battlefield to various “stops,” where the reader is presented with the situation and the participants of the battle told their story. The primary material for this was the reports contained in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (also known as the Official Records), a massive 128-volume work published from 1880 to 1901.

Historians and students of the Civil War owe Jay Luvaas and Har-old Nelson a great debt of gratitude. Their vision in developing the U.S. Army War College guidebooks reinvigorated and for many, for the first time, opened an entirely new way to visit and study battles. Their guidebooks have brought many new and old students to Civil War battlefields and provided them the means to develop a greater understanding of what happened. Their methodology provides a template by which the student uses primary-source material and com-pares it, on the ground, with the actual terrain to see the events as the participants experienced them. This in turn leads to the formulation of conclusions about the sequence of events, which leads to in-depth insights.

As a student I participated in Jay and Hal’s monthly trips and studies to various Civil War battlefields. They would take our group around the battlefield while discussing the sequence of events and providing information on the action by use of the Official Records. It was these trips that taught me the value of these primary-source docu-ments and how to use them. The use of the Official Records with the analysis and study of the battlefield terrain opened a whole new vista

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for historical study, not only for me but for many others, as it contin-ues to do today.

As the school year came to its end and I was preparing for my next assignment in northern Georgia, I approached Jay and Hal and told them I would like to prepare one of the guidebooks. I had chosen the Battle of Chickamauga because of its proximity to where I would be. They told me to go ahead and offered their support and assistance. From that point on they became my mentors and guided me through the development of the guidebook you now hold.

When the U.S. Army began doing staff rides in the early part of the twentieth century, the first place participants visited was Chicka-mauga National Military Park. Established in 1890 and dedicated in 1895, the park was the first of the national military parks.

It was at the Battle of Chickamauga that the Confederate Army of Tennessee had its only victory over a Union army. Even though victo-rious, Braxton Bragg’s army was not able to convert its tactical victory into a significant operational or strategic advantage.

The Battle of Chickamauga provides the opportunity to study not only types of offensive operation but also different forms of maneu-ver. Almost all of the types of offensive operation and forms of maneu-ver were used by both armies one or more times during the campaign and battle.

Doctrine recognizes four types of offensive operations: move-ment to contact, attack, exploitation, and pursuit.

1. The movement to contact is used when the commander is unsure of the exact enemy location and force. It develops the situation and establishes or regains contact to create favorable condi-tions for subsequent tactical actions.

2. The attack uses the forms of maneuver to destroy or defeat en-emy forces, and seizes and secures terrain.

3. The exploitation often follows a successful attack and disor-ganizes the enemy in depth. It expands the attack, captures objectives in the enemy rear area, and causes the enemy to surrender or flee.

4. The pursuit, like the exploitation, follows a successful attack or a successful exploitation. It is designed to catch or cut off a hostile force attempting to escape with the aim of destroying it.

There are six forms of maneuver: envelopment, turning move-ment, infiltration, penetration, frontal attack, and flank attack.


p r e f ac e a n d ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s [ xv

1. The envelopment avoids the principal enemy defenses by seizing objectives behind those defenses that allow the enemy force to be destroyed in their current position. The envelopment fo-cuses on seizing terrain, destroying specific enemy forces, and interdicting enemy withdrawal routes. A single envelopment maneuvers around one enemy flank. A double envelopment maneuvers around both enemy flanks.

2. The turning movement avoids the enemy’s principal defensive position by seizing objectives in the enemy rear area, which causes the enemy to move out of their current position or di-vert major forces against a new threat. A turning movement forces the enemy to displace from their current location, whereas the envelopment seeks to engage the enemy in their current location. The presence of a force in the enemy rear turns him out of his position.

3. The infiltration is used by an attacking force to move undetected through or into an area occupied by the enemy to a position of advantage in the enemy rear area.

4. The penetration is a form of maneuver that ruptures the enemy’s defenses on a narrow front. This maneuver will create assail-able flanks at the point of penetration and provide access to the enemy rear area.

5. The frontal attack seeks to destroy a weaker enemy force or fix a larger enemy force in place over a broad front. Success with this form of maneuver depends on achieving an advantage in combat power throughout the attack. It can be the mostly costly form of maneuver.

6. The flank attack is a form of maneuver directed at the flank of the enemy. It is designed to defeat the enemy force while minimizing the effects of the enemy’s frontally oriented com-bat power. The primary difference between a flank attack and an envelopment is one of depth. A flank attack is delivered squarely on the enemy’s flank. An envelopment is delivered beyond the enemy’s flank into the enemy rear area and is of a shorter depth than a turning movement.

As you read, you will notice that the Union and the Confederacy used similar, but often different, methods to identify units. Therefore, some explanatory comments are appropriate.

The same method was used by both sides to identify units at the company, battalion, and regimental levels. Companies were identi-


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fied by a letter: A Company. Regiments were identified by a number: Thirty-eighth or 38th Indiana, Fifth or 5th Mississippi. Above regi-mental level both sides diverged in how units were identified.

The official designations of Union brigades, divisions, and corps were numeric and began with a capital letter. For example: First Bri-gade, First Division, Fourteenth Corps; or Colonel Benjamin F. Scrib-ner’s First Brigade; Brigadier General Absalom Baird’s First Division; Major General George H. Thomas’s Fourteenth Corps. When refer-ring to a brigade, division, or corps belonging to or commanded by an individual, lowercase letters are used—for example, Scribner’s bri-gade, Baird’s division, or Thomas’s corps. Many publications use ro-man numerals to designate a corps: XIV Corps. However, this form of designation was not used in the Civil War.

Early in the war the Confederacy used a numbering and a name system for unit designations. As the war progressed the numbering system was used less and the name system was most commonly used. The official designations of Confederate brigades, divisions, and corps were the commanders’ names, and Brigades, Divisions, and Corps be-gan with a capital letter. For example: Wood’s Brigade, Cleburne’s Division, and Hill’s Corps.

When referring to a brigade, division, or corps belonging to or commanded by an individual then lowercase letters are used. For ex-ample: Brig. Gen. S. A. M. Wood’s brigade, Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cle-burne’s division, and Lieut. Gen. Daniel H. Hill’s corps.

The Confederate system sometimes can be confusing. The unit officially designated Walker’s Division at Chickamauga had earlier been commanded by Major General William H. T. Walker; hence its official designation of Walker’s Division. By the time of Chickamauga, Walker was a corps commander and his old division was commanded by Brigadier General States R. Gist. But it was not called Gist’s Division as the designation had not been officially changed.

Cavalry units used the same systems as Union and Confederate infantry units. However, artillery battery designations were totally dif-ferent between Union and Confederate forces.

Union artillery batteries were designated either by a letter or a number. If the battery was part of an artillery regiment it was desig-nated by a letter; for example, Battery A, First Michigan Light Artil-lery (A/1st MI). The regimental designation was on paper only as no artillery regiment was deployed as a tactical unit. Batteries that were not associated on paper with a regiment were designated indepen-dent batteries and identified by a number; for example, Fourth Bat-


p r e f ac e a n d ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s [ xvii

tery Indiana Artillery (4th Indiana Battery). Many times batteries were referred to by the commander’s name; for example, Van Pelt’s battery and Flansburg’s battery. But these were not official designations.

Confederate artillery designation used a different system. Batter-ies used a multiple name system. They could be named for the area where they came from, their state, and the current or previous com-mander. For example, Warren Light Artillery (Mississippi Battery), which was commanded by Lieutenant Harvey Shannon, could be re-ferred to as the Warren Light Artillery, Shannon’s Mississippi Battery, or Shannon’s Battery. These terms were often used interchangeably.

As with anything pertaining to the Civil War there are always ex-ceptions.

Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga was first published in 1993. Since that time there have been some significant improvements and changes to Chickamauga National Military Park. Many of these changes pro-vide improved or additional access to the battlefield and increased vis-ibility of the terrain. In addition, computer capability for situational map production has greatly improved over the two and one-half de-cades since this book’s first publication. I have gone on to write other battle guides developed along the general format that I learned from Jay Luvaas and Hal Nelson. In doing these books I have continued to learn and modified how to use the Official Records in conjunction with the terrain to develop the scenario and events of a battle.

The book is organized so that you may follow the battle from start to finish in a chronological order. Driving instructions direct you from stop to stop on the battlefield. However, each section is designed to stand alone so that you may visit only those portions of the battle that you wish to see or have time for. If you look at the map in the National Park Service brochure, you will see a series of numbered stops. These do not correspond with the numbered stops in this book.

In this book, the stops and the positions within them are designed to place you on the ground where the combat and events took place that I or the participants are describing. These stops and positions provide you with a point of reference. You do not have to remain at those exact locations. In fact, you are encouraged to move away from those points and explore the terrain and events from various posi-tions in close proximity to where the stops and positions have placed you. By doing this, you will gain additional insights to the actions and events.

When placing maps in a book, it is normal practice to orient the map so that the top of the page is in the direction of north. You will


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find that some maps in this book depart from such practice. One of the basic rules of map reading is that you orient the map with the terrain. As you stand at a particular location you will find instructions informing you where to walk, where to position yourself, and which direction to face. When you then look at the map for that stop it will be oriented correctly with the terrain and it will not be necessary for you to rotate the book to obtain proper orientation. This will allow you to page back and forth between the text and the maps without having to rotate the book. There is a compass rose on each map indi-cating north.

In several instances you will find differences in the spelling of certain words. For example, in 1863 “re-enforcement” was the correct spelling, while today the spelling is “reinforcement.” Or you might find “LaFayette road,” while today you would find it written as “La-Fayette Road.” I have left the spelling and grammar as I found it in anything written by the participants. For ease of identifying who was Union and who was Confederate, the names of Confederate soldiers and civilians are in italics.

Chickamauga was a fluid battle. Attacking units moved forward, flanked or penetrated enemy positions, and were thrown back by counterattacks. Defenders moved forward from their positions to meet attacks, were driven back, and counterattacked to regain lost positions. Therefore, when looking at the maps in this book, you must remember you are looking at a brief snapshot in time of many unit movements. The maps are designed to be a frame of reference that will allow you to visualize the events transpiring around you as you read the various accounts of the participants.

Over the past two decades I have been asked, “Why do staff rides matter; tactics and weapons are different and what can a modern sol-dier learn from a Civil War battle?” These questions can be answered on two different levels.

First, one can do a staff ride, a full or modified version, or as many have done use a War College guidebook just for the purpose of historically studying the battle or campaign. For this purpose the individual is moving from a historical study using books and maps to a study on the battlefield mostly using primary source material. It is akin to moving from the theoretical to the actual application. Once on the ground with a guidebook the possibilities for understanding and insights that cannot be gained from just reading are enormous.

Second, one can use a guidebook to conduct a staff ride for the purpose of not only studying the battle but developing insights and


p r e f ac e a n d ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s [ xix

lessons that have application today. Even though weapons, tactics, and techniques are different, there are some principles that were valid in the Civil War (or any war, for that matter) that are just as valid today. Leadership is a prime example. The same techniques and prin-ciples that go into providing positive leadership then are the same as today. These are applicable to the leadership that develops a positive mission-oriented soldier-caring team. Conversely, there is the nega-tive leadership that created a dysfunctional chain of command, as was found in the Confederate Army of Tennessee at Chickamauga.

The decision-making process and the consequences of “good” or “bad” decisions are fertile ground for transferable lessons learned. For example, consider Bragg’s decision for the allocation of combat power for his attack at the Battle of Stones River on December 31, 1862. He had several options; each involved calculated risks. The one he chose did not provide sufficient weight for the main attack and subsequently caused an unraveling of his plan when unforeseen events occurred.

The list goes on and on. A few areas for transference of lessons learned are understanding the commanders’ intent, effective com-munication of orders and intent, use of force multipliers, organiza-tional principle and effectiveness, reconnaissance, and effective staff work, just to name a few.

It is my hope that you, the reader, will use this guidebook and others to develop your own purpose of study, insights, and lessons learned.

Three individuals were instrumental in the publication of this sec-ond edition of the Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga. They are Michael J. Briggs, previous editor in chief of the University Press of Kansas; Joyce Harrison, the current editor in chief; and Colonel (Ret.) Ruth Collins, president and CEO of the Army War College Foundation. When I contacted them with the proposal that now might be a good time to revise this book, they quickly and enthusiastically approved and have consistently supported the preparation of the second edi-tion. I owe them my gratitude. I greatly appreciate the hard work done by Larisa Martin, production editor; Michelle Asakawa, copy editor; Rebekah Lodos, editorial assistant; and many others. Thanks are also due to Tim Kissel, who created the maps for this edition. His expertise in modern map construction has enhanced the use of this book.

I am grateful to Jay Luvaas (1927–2009) and Hal Nelson for all


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that they taught me in the application of the Official Records to a battle-field and for their mentoring and support as I developed the original manuscript for this book.

As always, my greatest thanks go to my wife, Kathy, as she has once more sustained, supported, and encouraged me through the process of writing another book.

Matt SpruillLittleton, Colorado


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book is not the work of a single individual but is rather the product of work and support from a team of friends and colleagues. Foremost in this instance are Professor Jay Luvaas and Colonel Har-old Nelson of the U.S. Army War College, who started me on the trail that led to this book and provided invaluable aid and editorial work. Jim Cissell, chief ranger at Chickamauga National Military Park, earned my thanks by reviewing the manuscript and giving many help-ful suggestions. I owe a hearty thanks to Rangers Connie Vogel-Brown and Rex Williams for their cheerful assistance and ready supply of answers to my endless stream of questions. I owe an unpayable debt to my friends Colonel Robert Lee “Cold Steele” Powell and Colonel Jim Sheppard for walking the battlefield with me and helping to fit re-ports to terrain. I am indebted to Mrs. Corless Doughman Ferris and Mr. Thomas J. Doughman for providing me the transcript of the letter of Private T. J. Doughman, Company G, Eighty-ninth Ohio Infantry, which is included in Appendix III.

Special thanks go to Colonel Roy Strong (Ret.), executive direc-tor of the U.S. Army War College Foundation, for having the vision to see the need for the entire battlefield series and for encouraging the project. John Kallmann has been especially patient with the difficul-ties imposed by a distant battlefield and an even more distant editor for this volume.

My deepest gratitude and love go to my wife, Kathy, my mom, Helen, and my sons, Matt and Lee, all of whom walked parts of the field and read parts of the manuscript with me, acted as photogra-phers, and constantly provided that special support that only a family can. My part in this book was done for them and those of our family who will follow.

M. S.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

The transition from 1862 to 1863 saw a momentous shift of for-tune from the Confederacy to the Union.

The Civil War year of 1862 began as one of promise and high ex-pectations for the North. In the Eastern and Western Theaters, Union forces were positioned to strike deadly blows against the Confederacy.

In the east, on January 9, a Union division-sized force commanded by Brigadier General Ambrose E. Burnside departed Annapolis, Mary-land, by ship and in early February landed inside the North Carolina Outer Banks. Burnside’s operation secured a lodgment from which future operations against eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia could be conducted. This was followed in March by the re-vitalized and reorganized Army of the Potomac, under command of Major General George B. McClellan, landing on the tip of the Pen-insula in Virginia. From there McClellan began a campaign up the Peninsula designed to capture the Confederate capital, Richmond. Although movement was not as rapid as planned, by the middle of June the army was on the eastern outskirts of Richmond. It appeared that it was only a matter a time before the Confederate capital and major manufacturing center would fall into Union hands.

In the west Union armies and naval forces gained early and de-cisive victories. Middle Tennessee was opened, and the Confeder-ate defensive line from the mountains west to the Mississippi River was broken when Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant on February 6 captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and then ten days later captured Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. This was followed with Grant’s victory at Shiloh in early April and the Union navy’s cap-ture of New Orleans, the Confederacy’s largest city, on April 25.

By late summer the euphoria from these victories was gone as Confederate armies went on the offense and diminished the early Union successes.

In the east, General Robert E. Lee took command of the Confeder-ate army defending Richmond. During the Seven Days Battles, June 25 to July 1, he drove McClellan’s army away from Richmond and eventually forced its departure from the Peninsula. Lee followed this by moving the center of conflict to northern Virginia. On August 29 and 30 he defeated the Union Army of Virginia, commanded by Ma-

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jor General John Pope, at the Second Battle of Manassas and then in-vaded northern territory. On September 17 he fought McClellan to a tactical draw along Antietam Creek in Maryland. Lee elected to retreat from Maryland. President Abraham Lincoln used this strategic victory to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which would go into effect on January 1, 1863. Lee finished the year with the dramatic defeat of the Army of the Potomac, now commanded by Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in mid-December.

In the west things did not go well for Union forces. A late sum-mer two-army Confederate offense was launched into Kentucky. Ma-jor General Edmund Kirby Smith led an army north from Knoxville, Tennessee, that eventually captured Lexington, Kentucky, on Sep-tember 1. A second Confederate force joined Smith’s invasion when, on August 28, General Braxton Bragg led his army from Chattanooga, Tennessee, into Kentucky. On September 23 Bragg’s army was at Bards- town, Kentucky. The invasion of Kentucky by these two Confederate armies brought Major General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio north from southern Tennessee.

Buell’s army reached Louisville, Kentucky, on September 29 and on October 1 moved to locate and attack the Confederate forces. In the meantime, Bragg had ordered his and Smith’s armies to concen-trate in the Harrodsburg-Perryville area. As Buell approached Per-ryville, Bragg, even though his force was not concentrated, seized the initiative and attacked him on October 8. Although Bragg retreated, Buell’s mismanagement of the battle prevented him from gaining a significant victory, and the perception in the North was that of a Union defeat. Bragg and Kirby Smith returned to Tennessee and even-tually placed their forces just south of Nashville at Murfreesboro, Ten-nessee, along Stones River.

In the first week of November, Grant commenced his offensive to capture Vicksburg and open the Mississippi River. After suffering re-verses at Holly Springs and Chickasaw Bluffs in late December, Grant terminated his initial operations and was forced to develop new ave-nues of approach.

As the year drew to a close, Bragg’s newly named Army of Tennes-see and what would shortly become the Union Army of the Cumber-land—previously the Army of the Ohio—now under the command of Major General William S. Rosecrans, fought a bloody battle from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, along Stones River. Although hard pressed at first, Rosecrans would eventually win the Battle of Stones River when Bragg retreated farther south toward Chattanooga.


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Coming at the end of a series of Union defeats, this victory gave the Lincoln presidency and the populace in the North a bright ray of hope during a fall and winter of Union defeats and Confederate vic-tories.

In the east the 1863 campaign season began with an offensive operation by the Army of the Potomac, now commanded by Major General Joseph Hooker, to envelop Lee’s position at Fredericksburg. In a surprise maneuver, Hooker’s forces crossed the Rappahannock River west of Lee. Lee responded to this threat and in the Battle of Chancellorsville drove Hooker back across the Rappahannock River.

In early June Lee commenced his second invasion of the North as his army moved west from its positions along the Rappahannock River into the Shenandoah Valley, then moved north into Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Army of the Potomac pursed the Army of Northern Virginia and, now under the command of Major General George G. Meade, stopped Lee’s invasion in the first three days of July at Gettys-burg. Lee would never have sufficient force to again cross into North-ern territory and from this point on would be on the operational and tactical defense.

In the west, Grant, now a major general, renewed his campaign to capture Vicksburg. After several attempts to reach a favorable po-sition, he passed his army down the Mississippi River to a point south of Vicksburg, fought a campaign of maneuver toward the east, then turned back west and placed Vicksburg under siege. Grant’s campaign came to a successful conclusion on July 4 when Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton surrendered the Confederate force defending Vicks-burg.

In central Tennessee, Union forces were arranged to penetrate into the central “Heartland”—that vital area that provided the Con-federacy with food, livestock, minerals, and manufacturing to sustain its armies and population. This was an area with multiple north-south and east-west railroads and two strategically critical railroad hubs: Chattanooga and Atlanta.

In the later part of June, Rosecrans commenced operations from the previous winter encampment around Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In a five-day campaign of maneuver, from June 26 to June 30, he com-pleted a turning movement that forced Bragg to abandon his positions along the Elk River, abandon central Tennessee, and retreat to Chat-tanooga. While Bragg entrenched at Chattanooga, Rosecrans’s army remained in the area northwest and west of Chattanooga.

The armies that fought at Chickamauga were the Confederate


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Army of Tennessee and the Union Army of the Cumberland. The Army of the Tennessee had come into existence in 1862 as the Army of the Mississippi. It had fought at Shiloh, was transferred to central Tennessee, and then with Kirby Smith’s Army of Kentucky had invaded Kentucky in the late summer and early autumn. After the Battle of Perryville both armies had retreated back to Tennessee and then were combined into the Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg.

The Union army was constituted in 1861 as the Army of the Ohio, under command of Major General Don Carlos Buell. It had also fought at Shiloh and had been forced back north to defend against Bragg’s and Smith’s incursion into Kentucky. After the Battle of Perryville as the Confederates retreated, Buell initially followed, then moved to the vicinity of Nashville. On October 30, 1862, Buell was replaced by Major General William S. Rosecrans. The Army of the Ohio was renamed the Fourteenth Corps and in January 1863 it was designated the Army of the Cumberland.

During the Tullahoma Campaign Bragg’s Army of Tennessee num-bered about 44,000 while Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland had a strength of about 55,000. In late August and early September with Rosecrans crossing the Tennessee River and maneuvering in north-ern Georgia with some 58,000 troops, Bragg was reinforced. Rein-forcement for the Army of Tennessee came from eastern Tennessee, Mississippi, and even from the Army of Northern Virginia. The rein-forcements from Virginia were two divisions and an artillery battalion of Longstreet’s Corps. Five of eight brigades would arrive in time to participate in the battle. These reinforcements brought Bragg’s troop strength up to 66,000. This was one of the few times that Confederate forces would outnumber Union forces in a major battle.


INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION

This new volume in the U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles series is similar to its predecessors. Built upon the after-action reports of the officers who fought the battle, it uses maps, de-tailed directions, and short editorial comments to put the reader on the critical terrain so that those soldiers’ words, and the impressions and actions they recall, will be clear in the reader’s mind. A detailed order of battle for each army is included in Appendixes I and II, and Appendix III addresses an important dimension of the military art as it applies to the Civil War. Only this latter appendix is offered as a traditional history.

Throughout the text the editors have resisted the temptation to adjust contradictions. We believe that the inquiring reader, con-fronted with problems in the original sources, asks valuable questions that are rarely apt to arise when reading traditional narrative histo-ries. The success of the earlier volumes in this series, together with the continued enthusiasm that this method engenders during our own staff rides over the old battlefields, confirms this belief. Readers encountering this method for the first time may be skeptical, but they will soon find themselves reconstructing the battle in ways they other-wise might not have thought possible.

By the 1880s—when the Civil War veteran was about as remote in time from his battlefield as the Vietnam veterans are from theirs—old soldiers from the North and South returned to their battlegrounds in increasing numbers. To judge from the programs of their reunions, they were occasions for oratory, dedicating monuments to the past and expressing faith in the future, and the National Military Parks created over the next decade were established in large measure as shrines “for the patriotic devotion for the future generations of Amer-ican youth.”1 At the dedication of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in 1895, two former Confederate generals

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1. John C. Paige and Jerome A. Greene, Administrative History of Chicka-mauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (Denver: National Park Service, 1983), pp. 18–19.


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spoke of the positive results of the war. “It was a remarkable war in all its aspects,” John B. Gordon proclaimed, most remarkable of all be-cause “it bequeathed a legacy of broader fraternity and more com-plete unity to America.” James Longstreet, forever the “old war horse,” invoked Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and then appealed to his old comrades, former enemies, and all of their sons “to lock shield . . . to prevent any future occupation by Great Britain in Venezuela and resist any further amercement by England in Nicaragua.”2

In contrast to the battlefield park at Gettysburg, which had been established in 1864 by a private corporation chartered by the Pennsyl-vania legislature to preserve portions of the battlefield, mark Union battle positions, and supervise the location of monuments and mark-ers, the Chickamauga Memorial Association, organized twenty-five years later, included veterans from every state, North and South, that had sent troops into the battle. This was to be a national military park.

But even before the establishment of the Chickamauga and Chat-tanooga National Military Park by act of Congress in 1890, there was a secondary and less publicized mission: to preserve and mark the battlefield “for historical and military study.”3 This probably started with former Brigadier General John B. Turchin’s study of the bat-tle published in 1887. Basing his history upon the newly published Official Records, correspondence with “veracious” participants and his own personal experience, Turchin produced an analysis of the battle with the hope that it “may prove instructive to the students of the military art.” The book is filled with what modern soldiers would call “lessons learned.” Among the particular lessons of this campaign, General Turchin, a well-educated professional soldier who had previ-ously served on the General Staff in the Imperial Russian Army and had participated in the campaigns in Hungary in 1848–1849 and in the Crimea in 1854–1855, identified the following:

First. A topographical map is the headlight of an army operating in enemy’s country. With a topographical map, all the move-ment and concentration of troops can be perfectly planned. . . . Without such a map, an army gropes in the dark. . . .

2. H. V. Boynton, Dedication of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896), pp. 39, 41; “The National Military Park,” Century Magazine (vol. L, Sept. 1895), p. 705.

3. Ronald F. Lee, The Origin and Evolution of the National Military Park Idea (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, Office of Park Historic Preserva-tion, 1973), p. 31. Emphasis added.


i n t r o d u c t i o n t o t h e f i r s t e d i t i o n [ 7

Second. The scattering of various columns of troops at a distance from the enemy is necessary and useful, but to do it in proxim-ity to the enemy is dangerous.

Third. For a daring expedition choose rather a reckless and rash commander than one who is methodical and scientific. Hind-man was not the man to attack Negley and Baird at Dug Gap . . . still less was Polk a fit man to quickly and impetuously attack Crittenden.

Fourth. When an important movement is projected, on which the success of the campaign depends, the commander-in-chief who planned it must assume command and carry it out, in-stead of giving written orders to subalterns, as Bragg so often did during this campaign.

Fifth. Think twice before you adopt a plan, but when it is adopted, stick to it until it is carried out. Bragg’s plan of striking Thomas at Stevens’ Gap was a good one, but he only dared to go half-way. So it was with his attempt against Crittenden at Lee-and-Gordon’s mill.

Sixth. Night movements are sometimes indispensable; such was our passing the army to the left in the night from September 18 to 19. But night attacks, such as Cleburne’s on our left in the evening of the 19th, are to be avoided; they hardly ever attain the desired object, and result in a great deal of noise and very little execution.

Seventh. No army can be complete without the staff-officers being thoroughly educated and specially prepared for this important duty. . . . Our staff officers were selected at random, and be-ing utterly unprepared for their duties, encumbered rather than facilitated our operations. . . . Almost all our assistant- adjutant-generals were mere clerks, instead of real military helpers to their generals.

Eighth. A continuous formation of a deployed front in an uninter-rupted line that crosses hill and dale, often disregarding the topographical . . . changes of the ground, belongs to the time of Frederick the Great. . . . We often too strictly adhered to it. . . . If you adopt your formation for defensive purposes to . . . varying ground, you never will have the line of your formation straight, but broken, consisting in salient, points, and recesses which . . . if properly occupied, will make your position strong. Salients give a cross-fire in front of the intermediate spaces. . . . That salient of our breastworks on the left, where Gen. Baird



had a few guns planted so that they could enfilade the line, did great damage to the enemy.

Ninth. We had no general reserve. . . . A strong reserve is indis-pensable. It is the means of repulsing the enemy in case he penetrates the line. . . . If we had had two divisions by Dyer’s farm standing in reserve, we could have met Hood’s column after it broke our line and have forced it back.

Tenth. The shifting of troops from one point of the line to another during the action is always dangerous. And here is another proof of the importance of having a reserve.

Eleventh. It is infinitely better to spend the whole night in toil-some marching in order to get into a good position, than to risk meeting the enemy in a faulty position. We did not have a proper position where we fought on the 19th. . . .

Twelfth. It is always better to use troops in the battle in their proper organization, if possible. . . . Mixing of parts of com-mands interferes with the highest usefulness of the troops. . . . In the battle of Chickamauga too much of that sort of breaking and mixing up of commands occurred . . . and it was a great disadvantage.

Thirteenth. It is pernicious usage to appoint separate commanders of the wings. What was good in the last century is out of date now. . . . Our army consisted of three army corps; to make two wings it was necessary to break one of the corps, and . . . the commander of the broken corps . . . did not know where to stay.

Fourteenth. The battle . . . proved to the full satisfaction of our own and the enemy’s soldiers that barricades—even of old rails and rotten logs—make a good protection against the rifle.4

In November 1888 Turchin revisited the battlefield with other former Union officers to locate positions of Union units for the pur-pose of correcting the official War Department map of the battle. The following year a group of former Union and Confederate officers or-ganized the Chickamauga Memorial Association and then petitioned Congress for aid in acquiring land at Lookout Mountain, Missionary

4. John B. Turchin, Chickamauga, 2nd edition (Chicago: Fergus Print-ing Company, 1889), pp. 167–174 passim. There are additional “lessons” expounded by Turchin, but these apply directly to the experience at Chick-amauga.



Ridge, and “the entire field of Chickamauga.” In its report the House Committee on Military Affairs National Military Park urged the estab-lishment of a National Military Park for reasons that Turchin would have approved.

The preservation for national study of the lines of decisive bat-tles, especially when the tactical movements were unusual both in number and military ability, and where the field embraced great natural difficulties, may be regarded as a matter of national im-portance. . . . The preservation of these fields will preserve to the nation for historical and military study the best efforts which . . . noted officers, commanding American veterans, were able to put forth. The two together form one of the most valuable object les-sons in the art of war. . . . The national value of the preservation of such lines for historical and professional study must be apparent to all reflecting minds.5

Congress passed the legislation without a dissenting vote.From the first, the army was actively involved with the effort. The

secretary of war, who was officially responsible for developing and administering the park, appointed three commissioners—each a vet-eran of one of the armies that had fought there—to locate and mark the battle lines. The army delivered condemned artillery and other ordnance to help mark appropriate sites and built a 70-foot-high steel tower on the highest hill along Horseshoe Ridge so that officers could have an overview of the terrain. Finally, in 1896 a bill was passed spec-ifying that all national military parks—which by this time included Gettysburg and Shiloh (but not yet Antietam, still officially designated a battlefield site)—were to be utilized as “national field for military maneuvers for the Regular Army . . . and the National Guard.” In urg-ing this, Representative John P. Tracy of Missouri claimed that Chick-amauga-Chattanooga could not be excelled

as a theatre for military instruction. . . . A month’s campaigning for practical study on such a field of maneuvers by the corps of West Point cadets, where the lines of battles and the movements . . . of nearly every organization of each side have been ascertained

5. H. V. Boynton, The National Military Park Chickamauga-Chattanooga: An Historical Guide (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke Company, 1895), pp. 257–258. Emphasis added.



and . . . marked . . . would be worth an entire course in textbooks on the strategy of a campaign and battle tactics.6

As hoped, soon after the park was established the land was used for encampments by the Georgia State Militia, and in early 1898 Regular Army troops arrived to train on the ground. During the Spanish-American War it served as a mobilization camp, with some 72,000 troops—more than had been present in either army during the battle—having camped and trained at Fort Thomas in the vi-cinity of the Wilder Tower. Indeed, more soldiers died of disease at Chickamauga in 1898–1899 than were killed in battle during the war with Spain.7

In 1902 Congress authorized the army to purchase acreage ad-jacent to the park for a regimental-sized cavalry post, and with the completion of Fort Oglethorpe both the army and the militia from neighboring southern states “made frequent and increasing use of park lands,” sometimes in ways that had not been anticipated: train-ing camps and cantonments in 1918, with trenches along the slopes of Snodgrass Hill that resembled the Western Front; biplanes tethered on Wilder Field in the 1930s; and a Woman’s Army Corps (WAC) training center during World War II. Only in the 1950s could it be asserted that “the military use of the park had entered a new day.”8

Turchin and the House Military Affairs Committee of 1890 would have been pleased to see the group of honor graduates from the ad-vanced Leavenworth Staff College course and their instructor, Major Eben Swift, visit the area in 1906. Swift was especially interested in Sherman’s campaign from Ringgold to Atlanta, but the following year the Leavenworth staff ride also included Chickamauga and Chatta-nooga.9 The student officers and instructors rode over the battlefield, stopping at various points to discuss the application of some principle to the battle and the terrain. The “applicatory method” of instruction then in vogue at Leavenworth was based upon the assumption that principles were best learned by their application rather than through

6. Ibid., pp. 259–260; Lee, Origin and Evolution of the National Military Park Idea, p. 35.

7. Paige and Greene, Administrative History of Chickamauga, p. 176.8. Ibid., pp. 171–199 passim.9. Carol Ann Reardon, “The Study of Military History and the Growth

of Professionalism in the U.S. Army before World War I,” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1987, pp. 104–107.



abstract study, and for these students, who had applied the accepted principle in Map Problems, the Kriegspiel, Tactical Rides, and Ma-neuvers, this historical staff ride served as the capstone course. Each officer previously had been assigned to research some phase of a par-ticular battle for analytical study, and after his presentation on the field the class would consider the action and how it might relate to modern conditions.

For the next four years the staff ride was an integral part of the Leavenworth curriculum, and in 1983 Leavenworth returned to the tradition by reinstituting the Chickamauga staff ride as an elective. Thanks to the popularity of this course, a number of Leavenworth staff rides to Chickamauga are now conducted each year, while vari-ous army branch schools and groups from nearby military installations organize their own staff rides over the battlefield. Most participants probably would agree that the value of “professional study” of these staff rides “must be apparent to all reflecting minds.”

The principal editor of this volume, Colonel Matt Spruill, is a 1986 graduate of the U.S. Army War College. Matt was an enthusiastic participant in our monthly staff rides during his student year. A num-ber of other students have developed studies of minor battlefields or details of a major battle, and we have acknowledged help from a few in earlier volumes. Some of these have gone on to lead staff rides for their units on subsequent assignments. But Matt is unique in having sustained his interest by devoting nearly every free moment in off-duty hours during the ensuing two years he was stationed at U.S. Army Forces Command in Atlanta to writing a complete manuscript. His dedication, hard work, and experience as a staff ride leader enabled him to produce this manuscript, and the army’s continued interest in historical staff rides gave him early opportunity to test it in the field.

A graduate of the Citadel who later earned his master’s degree in history from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Matt has been a successful troop commander in armor, cavalry, and special forces assignments. He has led soldiers in Vietnam, Germany, and the United States; has been a key staff officer in Japan and with the U.S. Forces Command; and now commands a NATO unit. He has taught in ROTC, at his branch school, and at the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth. We were fortunate when he turned his talents to the battle of Chickamauga.

As we read this manuscript, several things that differed somewhat



from what we had been studying in the Eastern Theater caught our attention. We were impressed by the remarkable professionalism of many brigade commanders, Union and Confederate, who bore the brunt of the fighting. These men fought their brigades magnificently and wrote their reports well. While debates may continue between the parochial advocates of one theater or another, we are convinced that strong leadership at the principal tactical level can be found in ample measure in every army by this stage of the war.

This professionalism is not limited to fighting. The ability to re-supply units with ammunition while in contact seems superior to any-thing we have seen in eastern battles to this point in the war, and the quick improvisation of offensive and defensive fortifications, while less extensive than at Chancellorsville, seems to have made a greater impression upon participants.

We were struck, too, by the many high-quality memoirs written by senior officers engaged in this battle. They had a sense of the impor-tance of their actions and tried to extract lessons that would improve performance or explain battle outcomes. This volume does not rely on those memoirs, since we try always to deal with the impressions of the moment rather than subsequent reflections or explanations, but many of the excellent after-action reports foreshadow the later writings of Generals William B. Hazen, John B. Turchin, and others.

We noted the ways in which compartmentalization of the Union army slowed the application of improved methods. This is most strik-ing in the organization of the infantry-artillery team. The Army of the Potomac, learning many lessons from the Army of Northern Virginia and from its own experiences at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chan-cellorsville, already had a chief of artillery who commanded a reserve artillery and directed the efforts of fairly senior artillery officers com-manding artillery brigades. This structure was responsive to the needs of senior infantry commanders while exhibiting tremendous flexibil-ity on the march, in the attack, or when defending. These ideas had not yet penetrated the Army of the Cumberland, and the Union ar-tillery actions at Chickamauga were often clumsy, late, or ineffectual because of this difference.

We were also reminded that “high tech” units, well-led and equipped with a proper doctrine as well as the newest equipment, can be genuinely decisive. In this battle, Colonel John T. Wilder’s brigade of mounted infantry is a case in point. Armed with Spencer repeating rifles and detached from their parent division, these soldiers com-bined tremendous firepower with an improved edge in tactical mobil-



ity. Freed from organizational constraints, they were inserted at the critical point again and again by senior commanders. Their combat power was decisive at the minor tactical level, but the Union army had not yet developed the ability to transform this tactical advantage into operational achievements. This seems to be a recurring dilemma for armies seeking “high tech” solutions to tactical problems.

And finally, we are impressed by the insistence of survivors that this battlefield be preserved so that army officers might use it for pro-fessional study. The School of Application for Cavalry and Infantry at Fort Leavenworth—established by another product of the west-ern armies, General W. T. Sherman—had been in existence for less than a decade, and already the notion was accepted by veterans and the House Military Affairs Committee that such a battlefield offered unique opportunities for junior officers to study leadership and tac-tics.

We are pleased to add this volume to the U.S. Army War Col-lege Guides to Civil War Battles series. As teachers we take pardon-able pride in Matt’s achievement, and while Chickamauga lies well beyond the range of our own regular staff rides, the book should be of value to anyone visiting the battlefield. The work and the basic text were done by Matt; our role was essentially to assure that the vol-ume conforms to others in the series in style, historical content, and technique. It is appropriate here to acknowledge our appreciation to Colonel D. G. Hansen, chairman, Department of National Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College, for providing support and mak-ing the necessary time available to devote to the manuscript; Colonel Roy Strong, of the War College Foundation, who made it possible for us to go over the battlefield—manuscript in hand—one last time; and to Traci Durff for her cheerful and capable assistance in preparing the final manuscript for the publisher.

Jay LuvaasHarold W. Nelson


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TO REACH THE BATTLEFIELD

Traveling north from Atlanta, Georgia, or south from Chatta-nooga, Tennessee, on Interstate I-75, leave the interstate at Exit 350 and travel west on Battlefield Parkway (Georgia Route 2) for 6.3 miles to LaFayette Road. Turn left (south) and drive 1.0 mile on LaFayette Road. The stone building on your right as you enter the battlefield area is the Park Headquarters and Visitor Center. Turn right and park in the parking lot.

You will start your tour here, but you may wish to spend a few minutes in the Visitor Center before you begin. It houses an excellent small arms collection, a bookstore, and the usual sources of informa-tion and comfort.

As you proceed around the battlefield you will see signs indicating “Tour” or “STOP 1,” and so on. These signs are for the Park Service tour and have no relationship to the directions and stops in this book. Please disregard them.

15



MANEUVERING TO A BATTLE August 29 to September 17, 1863

In late August, Major General William S. Rosecrans commenced his next campaign. Rosecrans’s initial objective was to capture Chat-tanooga, which would provide an avenue of advance through the mountains into northern Georgia and ultimately Atlanta. In addition it would remove a significant piece of the “Heartland” from the Con-federacy.

This strategic town on the Tennessee River was one of the two remaining railroad hubs that linked the western and eastern Confed-eracy. Railroads radiating from Chattanooga facilitated shipments of troops and supplies east all the way to Richmond, west to Mississippi, and south to Atlanta, then to the Gulf Coast or the south Atlantic Coast. The railroad north, until its capture by Rosecrans, provided connections from Chattanooga to Nashville then Louisville. And now provided the backbone of Rosecrans’s supply lines.

Rather than attack the Confederates in their strong position at Chattanooga, Rosecrans decided he would again use maneuver. His choice was to conduct a turning movement, commencing west of Chattanooga, cross the mountains to the south, and threaten General Braxton Bragg’s lines of supply and communication.

On August 16 Rosecrans moved his army closer to the north bank of the Tennessee River. Thirteen days later, while a four-brigade diversionary force north of Chattanooga held Bragg’s attention, the army began crossing the river west of Chattanooga near Stevenson, at Bridgeport, Shellmound, and other points. The crossings were com-pleted by September 4, Sand Mountain was crossed, and the Army of the Cumberland was positioned in Will’s Valley with Lookout Moun-tain before them.

Report of Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, USACommanding Army of the Cumberland

The movement over the Cumberland Mountains began on the morning of the 16th of August. . . . These movements were completed by the evening of the 20th of August. Hazen’s brigade made the reconnaissance on Harrison’s Landing, and reported the enemy throwing up works there, and took post at Poe’s Cross-Roads on the 21st. Wagner, with his brigade, supported Wilder

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Documents

CONTENTS · Leonidas Polk, CSA 189 Brigadier General . Benjamin H. Helm, CSA 196 Brigadier General William B. Hazen, USA 217. Captain . Cuthbert H. Slocomb, CSA 229 Kelly Cabin and