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CHICKAMAUGA, BATTLE OF

CHICKAMAUGA, BATTLE OF (19–20 September 1863). The Army of the Cumberland, under Union General W. S. Rosecrans, maneuvered an inferior Confederate force under General Braxton Bragg out of Chattanooga, TENNESSEE, an important railway center, by threatening it from the west while sending two flanking columns far to the south. When Bragg retreated to the east, Rosecrans pursued until he found that the main Confederate Army had halted directly in his front. In order to unite his scattered corps, he moved northward to concentrate in front of Chattanooga. Bragg attacked on the morning of 19 September in the valley of Chickamauga Creek, about ten miles from Chattanooga. The effective strength was Confederate, 66,000; Union, 58,000.

The fighting began with a series of poorly coordinated attacks in echelon by Confederate divisions; these were met by Union counterattacks. On the second day, the battle was resumed by the Confederate right, threatening the Union communications line with Chattanooga. A needless transfer of troops to the Union left, plus a blundering order which opened a gap in the center, so weakened the right that it was swept from the field by General James Longstreet's attack. Rosecrans and his staff were carried along by the routed soldiers. General George H. Thomas, commanding the Union left, held the army together and after nightfall withdrew into Chattanooga. Rosecrans held Chattanooga until November, when the Confederate siege was broken by reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac under General U. S. Grant.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cozzens, Peter. This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Spruill, Matt, ed. Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993.

Theodora Clarke Smith

Andrew Rieser

See also Chattanooga Campaign; Civil War; Tennessee, Army of.