OCTOBER–NOVEMBER, 1863
After its defeat by the Confederates at Chickamauga, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland found itself holed up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee holding the high ground of Lookout Mountain to the southwest and Missionary Ridge to the east. Other Confederate forces could interdict the Union supply lines, and it looked as if the Yankees would slowly starve to death or be forced to surrender if they did not break out. Bragg was so confident of eventual victory that he planned to detach Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s corps to move northeast toward Knoxville to drive out a Union force there—the Army of the Ohio, under the command of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside.
Having lost faith in Rosecrans, the Lincoln Administration decided to reorganize its western command system by placing Ulysses S. Grant in charge of all Federal forces from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River with the exception of those along the Gulf Coast. Grant planned to replace Rosecrans with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas; he then made his way to Chattanooga to take charge of affairs. By the time he arrived, Rosecrans, Thomas, and the chief engineer of the Army of the Cumberland, Brig. Gen. William Farrar Smith, had devised a plan to reopen the supply lines, and upon Grant’s arrival the plan was implemented.
Chattanooga sits on the southern side of a bend in the Tennessee River. To the west the river curves into an inverted “S” with a major bend curling to the north around Raccoon Mountain. The city is flanked on the east by a series of mountains that include Tunnel Hill and Missionary Ridge, and to the south loom the heights of Lookout Mountain. The town is the hub of four railroad lines: the Nashville & Chattanooga, Memphis & Charleston, Western Atlantic, and Chattanooga & Cleveland Railroads.
Rosecrans makes a major blunder on September 24 when he pulls his troops off of Lookout Mountain, giving the Confederates possession. Lookout Mountain itself is a wonderful observation point, and possession of Lookout Mountain allows the Confederates to control Lookout Valley, as well as the wagon road and Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, making it very difficult for the Federals to supply Chattanooga. If Rosecrans is going to resupply his army, it has to be done principally by the Wagon Road as it crosses Walden’s Ridge through Anderson’s Crossroads and into Bridgeport—60 miles of hell. When the rains set in, it is particularly difficult to provision the army.
General Grant had serious reservations about General Rosecrans dating to the battles of Iuka and Corinth in the autumn of 1862. Grant rides down from Indianapolis with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Secretary Stanton is not an admirer of General Rosecrans and neither is his assistant, Charles Dana. Lincoln has made remarks about Rosecrans behaving like a duck that has been knocked in the head. Grant brings with him two official orders. He can use either one of them. One retains Rosecrans and one relieves him. He opts for relieving Rosecrans and promoting Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. Then he sends a patronizing order urging Thomas to hold onto Chattanooga, and Thomas will reply, “We’ll hold it until we starve.”
Grant arrives here on October 23, 1863. He comes in with a pair of crutches over the pommel of his saddle, because he is still recovering from the injury that he suffered as a result of a mistake down in New Orleans. His error was in going to Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks’s party. At Banks’s party they probably had a little too much liquor. Afterward Grant was riding very, very rapidly; his horse shied when it saw an omnibus driving along the city streets. Grant’s horse fell and the general ended up with a bruised leg. When Grant arrives at Chattanooga, he wonders why his subordinate commanders don’t get up and greet him. They really are not that glad to see Ulysses Simpson!
Soaring more than 1,600 feet above the Tennessee River, Lookout Mountain occupied one of the highest—and most strategic—points in the Cumberland Mountains.
The plan to reopen the supply line has already been worked out by William Farrar “Baldy” Smith—Baldy Smith has little hair. I have a certain respect for people with that nom de guerre. Grant approves the operation. The plan is to open up a new supply line so they can get the men off a diet of these damn “Lincoln” crackers, which are hardtack four inches square and accompanied by middlings of bacon. The Federal soldiers in Chattanooga claim that they can follow along behind the supply wagons and scavenge the corn that falls out through the bottoms of the wagon beds to subsist themselves.
The army is immobile because of the deaths of about 10,000 horses and mules. That’s five times as many animals as had been killed in battle on the Union side at Chickamauga. Smith’s plan is to open up a shorter line of supply—reduce it from 60 miles to a lesser journey of 27 miles by wagon and by boat.
Already under construction or nearly completed are 50 pontoons. These are flat-bottomed scows, blunt on both ends, which Federal engineers will drift downriver and use to construct a pontoon bridge. Key players include Baldy Smith and Maj. Gen. John M. Palmer, who is put in charge of two brigades. One will be Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen’s; the other will be led by Brig. Gen. John B. Turchin.
In the early morning hours of October 27, they embark 24 men in each of the 50 boats. They cast off and drift downriver holding close to the right bank. They are going to drift by Confederate pickets. The Confederate pickets are not keeping a sharp watch as the Federals drift downstream around Moccasin Bend. The Federals pull into the west bank at Brown’s Ferry just north of Lookout Mountain. At the same time, Turchin and his brigade, having crossed at a pontoon bridge up above Chattanooga, move across the peninsula formed by Moccasin Bend and are in position with the planking, anchors, and stringers, the bridging materials, when Hazen’s people land on the river’s opposite side.
Commanding the Confederates in the area is our old friend Gen. James Longstreet. He has in this area the brigade led by Brig. Gen. Evander E. Law, and guarding Brown’s Ferry is the 15th Alabama of Little Round Top fame—or infamy, depending on your views. Downstream he has sharpshooters on Williams Island from the Fourth Alabama. But “they ain’t” many Confederates available.
Having been told of the plan to open the Cracker Line, Maj. Gen. Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker will move from Bridgeport, Alabama, to Kelley’s Ferry, then march through the gap separating Sand and Raccoon Mountains to Brown’s Ferry with a force of 17,000 men, consisting of the XI and XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac. The god of war is on the Yankees’ side as the Federals drift down the river in the early morning hours of the 27th. They pull into the bank at Brown’s Ferry, surprise the Confederates, and secure the bridgehead.
Col. William Oates of the 15th Alabama discovers what has happened and comes up with what would have been a good plan if he had had many men, but he doesn’t. He is outnumbered about four to one. His men will take advantage of the mist and walk up until they get right up against the Yankees, and then throw their guns against them, pull the trigger, and blow them into eternity. Well, that is not going to work. The 15th Alabama is repulsed, and Oates is wounded.
In several hours Turchin’s men build a bridge across the river. Soon they have a bridgehead on the west bank, but the Confederates have now been alerted. To compound the Rebels’ problems, Hooker comes through a gap between Raccoon and Sand Mountains with two divisions of Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard’s XI Corps, led by two good German boys, Brig. Gens. Adolph von Steinwehr and Carl Schurz. However, because Hooker and Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum can’t work together, Hooker has only one of Slocum’s two XII Corps divisions with him, for the other has been sent with Slocum to guard the railroad back to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The division that remains is led by Brig. Gen. John W. Geary.
I like this guy. If you are going to organize a pro football team starting from scratch, and want a big, mean linebacker—overbearing, everything you think you would want in such a person—that is John Geary. If you are from San Francisco, you know him from Geary Street, named for him when he was mayor of San Francisco in the vigilante days of the 1850s. He’s the fellow who puts the squeeze on “Bleeding Kansas” when he becomes the territorial governor. After the war he’ll go on to be governor of his home state of Pennsylvania. He is—at least in his mind—the savior of Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg. I, however, think he is exaggerating there, don’t you?
When Hooker arrives on October 28, the Yankees have a strong force in Lookout Valley. Up there at the pontoon bridge are Howard’s two divisions, led by von Steinwehr and Schurz; down in Lookout Valley, just around the bend at Wauhatchie, Geary halts and camps.
The Confederates decide to attack. You are going to have two great men up there at Sunset Rock that evening: Gens. Braxton Bragg and James Longstreet. They loathe each other by this time. They are each working out a plan, and when it fails, each is going to point a finger at the other. Who screwed up? Longstreet will claim that Bragg allows him to use only one division when he expected to employ two divisions against Hooker’s Yankees.
That reduces him to the one division led by Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins of South Carolina, a Longstreet favorite. The plan is for a night attack on October 28–29. We know that the late evening attack of Maj. Gen. Pat Cleburne on September 19 did not go well at Chickamauga. One can easily recall other examples of night attacks in the Civil War that end up in serious problems for the aggressor.
Awaiting the Confederates at Wauhatchie, just west of Lookout Mountain, is John Geary. Geary has with him Company E, Pennsylvania Light Artillery (also known as Knap’s), in which his son serves as a lieutenant. He has with him, in my opinion, the regiment that does everything the 20th Maine does, and against larger numbers, and is not high profile at Gettysburg—the 137th New York. Unfortunately, its commander, Col. David Ireland, will die in September 1864. His official report on Gettysburg is very brief, and he never had the talents in writing that Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th did. But he does everything on Culp’s Hill, with fewer men and against larger numbers, that Chamberlain does on Little Round Top. With Geary’s force is a wagon train, and a number of horses and mules.
Brig. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, shown here with his staff, oversaw construction of the pontoon bridge at Brown’s Ferry that allowed Sherman and Hooker to come to the aid of Federal troops.
Jenkins’s plan is to throw his old brigade against the Yankees at Wauhatchie and destroy the detached Union force. Two other brigades, one from Alabama and one from Texas, will block Yankee attempts to save Geary by keeping Hooker and Howard from coming to his aid. The Confederates gain the advantage of surprise. Unfortunately General Geary’s son, other officers, and a large number of men in Knap’s battery become casualties, but the bluecoats hold firm. The Confederates are checked in a confused engagement in which stampeding mules break toward the Rebels. Grant later remarked that he intends to make these mules brevet horses for their performance. Meanwhile, Howard’s people bulldoze their way through Law’s Alabamians and the Texas Brigade blocking force. Victory results in the Federals securing possession of Lookout Valley and opening the Cracker Line. With the use of steamboats and wagons they build up the health and welfare of the Army of the Cumberland invested in Chattanooga.
The Battle of Wauhatchie ends in more acrimony between Longstreet and Bragg. In fact, they get a divorce. They are mutually delighted when Longstreet with his corps, composed of Jenkins’s and McLaws’s divisions, entrains and starts toward East Tennessee, headed for Knoxville. There they hopefully will defeat and disperse Burnside’s Army of the Ohio. Before long Longstreet is joined by Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry. Bragg will soon start Brig. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson and Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne to East Tennessee.
Even as Bragg detaches forces for an operation against Burnside at Knoxville, more reinforcements are earmarked for Grant’s command, most notably a corps from the Army of the Tennessee led by Grant’s successor as that army’s commander, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.
Sherman has to send his men from Vicksburg to Memphis by boat; during that move Sherman’s son Willie gets typhoid and dies. A lot of people will say this deeply moves Sherman, because Willie is his favorite son. General in Chief Henry W. Halleck directs Sherman to rebuild the railroad as he marches east from Memphis. This is an easy task around Corinth because the Yankees hold that rail center, but it’s tougher as you move east because of Rebel raiders. Too bad for the Rebels that Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest isn’t there at this time, because he damn sure would have snared Sherman when Confederate cavalry raided the railroad at Collierville, Tennessee, on October 12. Where would Grant and the Union have been without Sherman?
But Confederate cavalry commander Brig. Gen. James R. Chalmers is no Forrest; he’s injured early in the fight, and Sherman with a handful of men escapes capture at Collierville. Sherman then moves on to Corinth, where he has his men rebuilding railroads, and they are going slower than molasses in January. They finally reach Cherokee, Alabama. Grant, who has been at Chattanooga since October 23, wonders where in the hell is Sherman? He’s just barely inside the Alabama line. Grant tells him to forget about rebuilding the railroad and get here as fast as you can. Detaching one division to rebuild the Decatur & Nashville Railroad, Sherman pushes on with the rest of his men and finally arrives at Bridgeport on November 13.
Grant’s plan to lift the Rebel siege of Chattanooga calls for Sherman to take his four divisions, cross the Brown’s Ferry pontoon bridge, move northward, and camp in the hills north of Chattanooga where the Rebels can’t see him. He will then cross the Tennessee River downstream from the mouth of North Chickamauga Creek, which comes in from the north, and take position to assault the Confederate right along northern Missionary Ridge. General Hooker is to take possession of Lookout Mountain.
The Army of the Cumberland can look on. They are having a bad time; these bandbox soldiers from the East with their polished buttons and their celluloid collars are looking at them and they are laughing. Even worse are the guys in the Army of the Tennessee, who are sloppier looking than they are. These soldiers wear hats rather than kepis. They also brag, “We have never lost a battle.” It is getting on the Cumberlanders’ nerves.
On November 22, Lt. Col. Aquila Wiley of the 41st Ohio, part of Hazen’s brigade, reports that he sees three columns of Confederates moving north along Missionary Ridge. Grant becomes concerned that the Rebels are detaching more men either to reinforce General Longstreet by rail or else they know that Sherman is hiding among the hills north of the river preparatory to crossing the Tennessee. What Wiley saw was Pat Cleburne’s division withdrawing prior to entraining to join Longstreet. Other reports reinforce Wiley’s observations. Grant decides he’s got to disrupt any attempt to further reinforce Longstreet at Knoxville, so he decides to have Thomas press forward against the Confederate outer line along Orchard Knob, just west of Missionary Ridge.
Gen. George H. Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga,” succeeded Rosecrans as commander of the Army of the Cumberland shortly before the Battle of Chattanooga.
On Orchard Knob the Confederates have no significant earthworks. Their defenses on the crest of Missionary Ridge are equally unimpressive and poorly sited. Rather, they’ve rested, content with digging a line of rifle pits at the foot of Missionary Ridge. The Federals determine to advance a strong skirmish line and conduct a reconnaissance in force to see what reaction they can get from the Confederates. Thomas designates two divisions of his IV Corps, headed by Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood and Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, to conduct the operation.
Wood’s skirmish line takes the lead in advancing to drive in the Confederate skirmishers. Rebel pickets watch; they’re not planning to stay there. It’s quite a sight. The Confederates think they are watching a pass in review as the Yankees come out in front of their works. Bands are playing as the two divisions form up. Suddenly the bluecoats deploy skirmishers and start moving toward Orchard Knob. Since there is an overwhelming force of Federals advancing, the Confederate skirmishers fall back, abandoning Orchard Knob, and withdraw to their line of rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge. The Yanks are surprised. They’ve taken Orchard Knob; they are safe. They decide to hold it. The Union has scored an important success.
General Bragg is alarmed. He lacks significant earthworks up on Missionary Ridge. He’d better recall Pat Cleburne and fast. So the wages of sin are coming back to haunt Bragg. He has to spend all day and all night looking for a new place to establish his defensive line. He’ll find out too late that the crest of Missionary Ridge is very narrow. At the top there may be 50 feet of level ground; in some places it’s going to be even less. That means that on short notice he’s not going to be able to select a good defensive position.
He has two options. The topographical crest is the highest point on the ridge. The military crest is that point on the ridge where you command the entire slope before you so there is no dead space. If you have your druthers you want to be on the military crest and not the topographical crest. But in many places the top of Missionary Ridge is so narrow that the Rebels will have to hold the topographical crest; a lot of ravines can’t be seen from there, and as a result the artillery cannot be placed to the best advantage to control the slope. So that’s part of the problem.
After Chickamauga the Federal Army of the Cumberland retreated to Chattanooga and the Confederates besieged the city. Grant united his forces and reestablished supply lines to the city. On November 23 the Army of the Cumberland took Orchard Knob and, on the following day, Hooker seized Lookout Mountain. On the 25th, Sherman attacked the eastern end of Bragg’s line against stubborn resistance while on the left Hooker’s advance was blocked by a wrecked bridge over Chattanooga Creek. At 3:30 p.m., Grant ordered Thomas to advance against a Confederate line at the base of Missionary Ridge. Without orders, Thomas’s men stormed the ridge, forcing Bragg to order a retreat to Dalton.
The other part of the problem is that Bragg doesn’t like to call his people together. He doesn’t like Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge in particular. But Breckinridge commands three divisions posted at the army center. Nor does Bragg value B. Franklin Cheatham. He breaks up Cheatham’s Tennessee division, and sends his reconstituted division to reinforce the Rebel left on Lookout Mountain and in Chattanooga Valley. Cheatham is one helluva fighter as well as one helluva drinker, but he is on Bragg’s purge list. So the Confederates have a lot of troop movement going on during the night of November 23.
The following day, November 24, Hooker embarks on his assault up Lookout Mountain.
But Lookout Mountain is not impregnable. The flat-topped mountain rises to a height of 2,200 feet above sea level and 1,600 feet above the Tennessee River. Near the crest there is a steep rock escarpment 50 to 60 feet in height, through which there are few passages giving access to the crest. About two-thirds of the way up to the escarpment on the northeast front of the mountain is a five- or ten-acre plateau, the site of the Robert Cravens Farm and his white house. The slopes of Lookout Mountain up to the escarpment from the Cravens Farm Plateau are steep but climbable. Access to the top of the mountain for the Rebels is by a wagon road connecting with Chattanooga Valley.
The morning ushers in a foggy, drizzling day. General Geary’s reinforced division inaugurates the day’s action. His troops cross Lookout Creek at Light’s Mill, east of Wauhatchie, and work their way up the west face of Lookout Mountain. His right flank brigade—Col. George A. Cobham’s—anchors its right on the escarpment, with Ireland’s on his left, and Col. Charles Candy’s on Ireland’s left. Whitaker’s brigade of Charles Cruft’s division is in reserve. Hooker’s command today constitutes a diverse force: Geary’s Army of the Potomac people, being joined by Cruft’s Army of the Cumberland Division and Brig. Gen. Peter Osterhaus’s division of the Army of the Tennessee, which was stranded here when there were delays crossing at Brown’s Ferry when the bridge broke.
As Geary’s men advance, pivoting on the escarpment, driving a handful of Confederate skirmishers before them, they uncover a crossing of Lookout Creek used by two of Cruft’s brigades, 800 yards upstream from the ruins of the railroad and railroad bridge. They eventually uncover the area south of the bridge ruins to allow Osterhaus’s men to cross. Like a gate, the bluecoats round the mountain, anchoring the right flank on the palisade. Down on Orchard Knob, where the Union high command is, they hear the firing and occasionally see the flash of an exploding shell. Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs is there and calls the engagement the “Battle Above the Clouds.”
As Geary’s men come around the point of the mountain and approach the Cravens Farm Plateau, they encounter Confederates behind breastworks. There are too many Yankees, and they push the Rebs back by the Cravens House and beyond. The Confederates bring up reinforcements. The Federals run short of ammunition. They send Brig. Gen. William P. Carlin’s brigade, of the Army of the Cumberland, up there. By late afternoon the Confederates are driven from the Cravens Farm Plateau.
Bragg has been focusing on what Sherman is doing. Sherman by mid-morning has crossed the Tennessee with two divisions. He squanders four hours waiting for Brig. Gen. Hugh Ewing to get his division across. Bragg has a difficult choice. Do you leave Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson with the rest of his division up on Lookout Mountain or do you abandon Lookout Mountain? The decision is to abandon Lookout Mountain, and that means pulling off the three brigades that have been fighting there. Bragg pulls the men off the top of the mountain, and they retreat across Chattanooga Creek, botching the job of destroying the bridge before falling back to Missionary Ridge.
All this makes it easy for a team from the Eighth Kentucky to go up to the top of Lookout Mountain on the morning of the 25th and unfurl the U.S. flag, which the Army of the Cumberland can see—particularly the important people up on Orchard Knob. This has a tremendous psychological impact and causes Union morale to soar. The mountain has been engulfed in fog and clouds until now. Officers and men—particularly the Cumberlanders—knew fighting was under way here. They could see exploding shells but they didn’t know who was in possession of the crest of Lookout Mountain until the clouds broke and they saw Capt. John Wilson unfurl the colors of the Eighth Kentucky.
On the Union left, William T. Sherman prepares to advance against the Confederate line on north Missionary Ridge.
On the night of November 23–24 Sherman crosses the Tennessee below the mouth of North Chickamauga Creek. By 6:30 a.m., two of Sherman’s divisions, led by Brig. Gens. Morgan L. Smith and John E. Smith, are across. But Sherman doesn’t do anything. He stays there until noon waiting for Ewing’s division to get over. Then he moves forward. He advances against what he believes to be the northern end of Missionary Ridge. By dusk the Yankees are atop Billy Goat Hill, overlooking the Western & Atlantic Railroad at the northern end of Missionary Ridge. At first the Yankees do not realize that there is a deep gorge between Billy Goat Hill and Tunnel Hill to the south. Tunnel Hill gets its name because at this point the Chattanooga & Cleveland Railroad passes through a tunnel. Sherman has reached Billy Goat Hill, but it is too late: Pat Cleburne’s elite division, having been recalled by Bragg at the last moment, has reached Tunnel Hill ahead of Sherman.
What are Grant’s plans for November 25? His plan calls for General Thomas and his army to have a supporting role. Grant and Sherman have little confidence in the Army of the Cumberland. They see it as a force they have come to rescue, an army that had been defeated at Chickamauga and driven back into Chattanooga. Sherman’s men have had to come all the way from Vicksburg to relieve them.
Thomas’s troops, during the day, will form from left to right with Brig. Gen. Absalom Baird’s division, then Thomas J. Wood’s, then Philip Sheridan’s, and last but not least the division led by Brig. Gen. Richard Johnson. They will form up, but all they are going to do is focus the Confederate attention on their lines, while Sherman assails the Confederates, drives them from Tunnel Hill, and rolls them up from the Rebel right to the left. Hooker will press forward from Lookout Mountain, cross Chattanooga Valley, and seize Rossville Gap.
If you were teaching terrain appreciation, you would fail the Union leadership here, particularly Sherman and Baldy Smith. There is a deep ravine between Billy Goat and Tunnel Hills, and they are unaware of its existence. Once he gets on Billy Goat Hill, Sherman assumes all he has to do is march southward and roll up those Rebels. When Sherman realizes he isn’t on Tunnel Hill, it’s too late on November 24 to do anything about it.
Opposite Sherman on Tunnel Hill are Pat Cleburne’s men, along with a battery of artillery, six 12-pounder Napoleons of the Warren County Mississippi Artillery, supported by Brig. Gen. James Argyle Smith’s Texas Brigade, with another brigade in support. Remember, Sherman is center stage. If we were at an opera, all lights would be on him. He has three divisions of the proud Army of the Tennessee who think they are the best the Union has. He has one division of the Army of the Cumberland, led by Brig. Gen. Jefferson Columbus Davis, and access to Howard’s corps. So he has what you would call an overwhelming force.
On November 25, 1863, forces under Thomas and Grant stormed up this slope to the summit of Missionary Ridge, routing Bragg’s defending Confederate Army.
Sherman, a cautious combat leader, decides not to commit an overwhelming force. When the Yankees attack, they will have to come across that deep gorge, up a steep grade, and then across open ground against James A. Smith’s boys supported by Lieutenant Shannon’s six guns. They are going to attack twice, and they are going to be repulsed twice. Three later attacks suffer the same fate.
By early afternoon Sherman “ain’t” doing well. His attacks are piecemeal, and he only commits two brigades of his own command in the morning and three brigades in the afternoon. That is about a third of his force. Hooker moves slowly also. He has trouble rebuilding the bridge across Chattanooga Creek. Finally, by late afternoon, he approaches Rossville Gap.
On Orchard Knob, Grant is getting very, very nervous. He’s got reports that the Confederates are rushing reinforcements to Tunnel Hill—pure baloney! The Rebels are not sending any reinforcements up here to bolster Cleburne, but we have to go on what Grant thinks. So he decides to have a demonstration. He directs Thomas to advance his four divisions—21,000 men—and drive in the Confederate skirmishers, who are out about 200 yards in front of the line of rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge. What’s supposed to happen next is unclear. Some people, particularly in Wood’s division, think that that will be only step one. People in other divisions, Johnson’s and Baird’s, say later that no one gave them a clear idea of what to do after they took those rifle pits, so they conclude they’ll halt there. So there is a poor understanding of what they are going to do.
As Thomas’s men get ready to move, Grant is unhappy. He looks over and sees IV Corps commander Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger sighting a cannon. Granger thinks he’s back in the artillery, where he’d been a lieutenant. Grant goes over and chews on Granger awhile. Now, the signal guns will fire the salvo. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! That is the signal, and Thomas’s men advance. Among the Confederates is Maj. Gen. James Patton Anderson’s division, some of whose brigade commanders understand that when the enemy advances, they are to fall back onto the main line of resistance atop Missionary Ridge. Others believe that they are to fight like hell in the rifle pits at the foot of the ridge.
The Union troops advance. They have little problem until they come out of the woods about a half mile before they hit the Confederate rifle pits at the base of the ridge. Now, Rebel skirmishers are falling back on the rifle pits. Rebel cannon open fire. You see Yankees falling. But, on they go. Now, as they get closer, Tennesseeans of Brig. Gen. Otho F. Strahl’s brigade stay in their rifle pits and let the Yankees come on and on. And they’ll battle the Yankees in the rifle pits. Soldiers of the Florida Brigade to their right have not understood their mission, and they retreat up the mountain. Before long the Yankees carry the pits. Grant now feels better. That’s what they are supposed to do.
Federal troops of Company B, 9th Pennsylvania, atop Lookout Mountain. While the summit held little tactical value, “the Battle Above the Clouds” inspired dramatic stories and art.
The rank and file in the Army of the Cumberland feel patronized. They have been in a supporting role. They have heard remarks about the Army of the Tennessee having to come to their rescue, and their popular leader General Rosecrans was unceremoniously sacked. They halt, maybe five minutes, perhaps ten minutes, and then they start up the slope. Sheridan, as he looks to his left, sees Wood’s men moving out first. Sheridan reaches into his vest, pulls out his decanter, and, as he puts it up to his lips, a shell bursts nearby. He then takes his flask and hurls it toward the Confederates. Now he can start fighting.
Back on Orchard Knob, watching what’s going on, Grant is beside himself. He’s concerned that the advance up the steep ridge will end in a repulse when Thomas’s brigades get up to the Confederate main line of resistance. He turns to Thomas and asks, “Thomas, who ordered those men up the ridge?” Thomas responds, “I don’t know, I did not.” Grant inquires of Granger, “Did you order them up?” “No,” Granger assures, “they started without orders. When those fellows get started all hell can’t stop them.” This is one the troops have done on their own. Grant will want to see what happens to Thomas’s Cumberlanders. The decision to go on is made by the soldiers, the people who must make the ultimate sacrifice.
They are not going to come up in lines of battle. Usually the color guard and the colors are out in front along with certain junior officers, like 18-year-old First Lt. Arthur MacArthur of the 24th Wisconsin, carrying its flag and shouting to his men, “On Wisconsin.” The Confederates who choose to fight are overwhelmed and start running up the slope, forming a shield that prevents many of their comrades from firing at the upcoming bluecoats. The Yankees, using the folds in the terrain and screened by retreating Rebels, find that many of the Confederates entrenched at the top of Missionary Ridge can’t fire downslope. Too many of them are posted on the topographical crest. The Yankees surge upward in scores of “flying Vs.”
A number of Union commanders claim that they are first to reach the crest. Handsome Col. Charles Harker, one of Sheridan’s brigade leaders, gains the top near Bragg’s headquarters. He reports, “though officers and men were constantly falling, the command moved forward taking advantage of every depression in the ground—or tree or stump—to rest for an instant and then reload.” With a surge the Yanks storm ahead and capture a battery whose “gunners were still at their posts.” In the excitement Harker sprang astride the hot tube and then off even faster.
To Harker’s left the Second Minnesota of Baird’s division vied with Harker’s brigade for the honors of being first up and captured several hundred prisoners. To the Minnesotans’s left skirmishers of the Eighth Kansas of Wood’s division closed to within a dozen yards of the enemy breastworks, when the foe “broke in wild confusion and fled.”
Bragg grabs a flag in an effort to rally his men, calling, “Here’s your commander.” The men flee past him, some of them shouting and jeering with epithets such as “General, here’s a mule for you!” The collapse runs along the line beginning in Anderson’s division. The Confederate right stands firm. Cleburne and W. H. T. “Shot Pouch” Walker are confident that the Confederates down here at Bragg’s headquarters on Missionary Ridge are going to repulse the Yankees just like they have on Tunnel Hill. But the line is crumbling. Making things worse is the arrival of Hooker’s force in the Rossville Gap sector. The Confederate left and center give way; finally the right follows suit. The only Union soldiers that will pursue, and will pursue a very short distance, are General Sheridan’s.
The Federals have won the Battle of Chattanooga. Bragg has lost only 6,000 men out of 50,000, far fewer than Lee suffered at Antietam, but the army is in much worse condition. Any confidence the soldiers had in Bragg is gone. After a half-hearted pursuit, Grant dispatches Sherman to rescue Burnside at Knoxville, only to find that, by the time Sherman arrives, Burnside has already beaten Longstreet back.
So Union arms have reversed the tide in the West that had seemingly turned against them in their bitter Chickamauga defeat. What would have happened without Thomas and his brave Cumberlanders here we don’t know. But in Washington they’re looking for a new general in chief for the Union Army. General Halleck has proved himself a good clerk, nothing more. The road that began for Grant at Fort Donelson, continued on to “Bloody Shiloh,” on to Vicksburg, and then to Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga, will lead to the position of general in chief of the Union Army. Ulysses S. Grant receives his third star as lieutenant general on March 9, 1864, and from there the road will lead through bloodier campaigns and ever lengthening casualty lists of dead and wounded before ending in Wilmer McLean’s parlor at Appomattox Court House on the afternoon of April 9, 1865, at 3:30 p.m.