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THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND

» JULY 1863 «

 

At the end of the Tullahoma campaign, Maj. Gen. William Starke Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, was just two months short of his forty-fourth birthday. The son of Crandall and Jemima Hopkins Rosecrans of Homer, Ohio, a village in Licking County northeast of Columbus, he was born on 6 September 1819. The first of four boys to survive infancy, he was the acknowledged leader of his siblings and very early gained a reputation for intelligence and a thirst for the knowledge found in books. Homer offered limited opportunities for schooling, so Rosecrans supplemented his formal training with a vigorous personal reading program. Clerking and bookkeeping in the family store further honed his intellect, but family circumstances precluded entry into a private institution of higher education. Thus young Rosecrans set his sights on gaining an appointment to the United States Military Academy. The path to that appointment was not smooth, but he persevered and entered the Academy in 1838. His classmates were James Longstreet, Daniel Harvey Hill, Earl Van Dorn, and John Pope, all of whom he was destined to encounter again during the great conflict besetting the nation a generation later. Among his roommates at one time or another were Longstreet and another Southerner, Alexander Stewart. Upperclassmen he came to know well were George Thomas and William Sherman, while Ulysses Grant was a member of the class that enrolled in 1839. Known to his friends as “Rosy” or “Old Rosy,” he graduated fifth out of fifty-six in the class of 1842, a standing that merited a brevet second lieutenant’s commission in the Corps of Engineers. The bright but unschooled boy from Homer, Ohio, now had a first-class education and a profession.¹

Rosecrans’s first assignment involved the prevention of shore erosion at Fort Monroe, Virginia, but his ambition pushed him almost immediately to apply for a position at West Point teaching engineering. In 1843 he received both promotion to second lieutenant and the coveted appointment to the engineering faculty under Dennis Hart Mahan. With prospects so favorable, he married Anna Elizabeth Hegeman in August 1843. The teaching assignment was marked by Rosecrans’s forsaking his nominal Methodist upbringing to convert to Roman Catholicism in 1844. Following his teaching tour, Rosecrans moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where he spent five years working on coastal fortifications and designing barracks. The work was important, but it kept Rosecrans from participating in the conflict with Mexico that ended in 1848. At the end of the Newport assignment, Rosecrans moved to Bedford, Massachusetts, to work on harbor improvements, but after less than a year he was loaned to the U.S. Navy as “Civil and Constructing Engineer” at the Washington Navy Yard. By this time William and Anna had two children (two others had died in infancy) and life in the nation’s capital for a family of four on second lieutenant’s pay was becoming difficult. Design and construction work at the Navy Yard kept Rosecrans busy but did not challenge his restless mind. Consequently he searched for other employment, including a failed bid in 1851 to gain an open professorship at the Virginia Military Institute that went to Thomas Jackson. Similarly, Rosecrans unsuccessfully sought the editorship of a Catholic newspaper in Cincinnati in 1853. Even his promotion to first lieutenant in March 1853 did nothing to ameliorate his unhappiness. After his request for a leave of absence during a bout of illness was rejected, Rosecrans decided to leave the army. His resignation became effective in April 1854, just before the birth of his third child.²

For the next seven years, Rosecrans strove to make ends meet as a civilian entrepreneur. He began by using his West Point engineering training in several positions involving canal and coal mining ventures in the mountains of Virginia. Ultimately his mining work led him to gravitate into the business of producing kerosene from coal in a refinery located in Cincinnati. Before he perfected his product, one of his experiments went awry, producing an explosion that damaged the refinery and burned his face badly. Although he recovered, Rosecrans thereafter was cursed with a disfigured face that was twisted into a permanent smirk. Undeterred, he continued to improve his manufacturing processes and eventually produced an acceptable kerosene product for home lighting. Additional experimentation led to improvements in the design of both kerosene lamps and the wicks they utilized. Several of these inventions led to European patents. All in all, by the time the secession crisis swept the nation in 1860–61, Rosecrans had finally begun to make economic headway in the world of business. His company was profitable, his family had grown by two additional children, and the life of a military officer seemed far in the past.³

The war that began in April 1861 instantly changed life for millions of Americans, including William Rosecrans. The Union’s small Regular Army was utterly inadequate to subdue the seceding states, forcing the Lincoln administration to seek a massive influx of volunteers. Those volunteers would need competent officers, placing any sort of officer education at a premium. Rosecrans’s West Point training made him a highly marketable commodity, and he quickly returned to the service as a volunteer aide-de-camp and engineer for the state forces of Ohio. At the same time he lobbied friends still in the army for a brigadier general’s commission in the volunteer service. He was pleasantly surprised to be commissioned brigadier general in the Regular Army, with date of rank established as 16 May 1861. Ordered to the mountains of western Virginia to command an infantry brigade under Maj. Gen. George McClellan, he played a major role in one of the first small actions of the war, at Rich Mountain on 11 July. Although privately disparaged by McClellan as a “silly fussy goose,” Rosecrans persuaded his chief to adopt an aggressive battle plan to outflank Lt. Col. John Pegram’s small Confederate force from its strongly fortified mountain position. Rosecrans led the flanking column, took all the risks, received no assistance from McClellan’s main body, yet forced the enemy from the field. The fight at Rich Mountain showed Rosecrans to be an excellent operational and tactical thinker who brought a great deal of energy to his movements. Neither Rosecrans nor Pegram could know it, but they would meet again on a much larger field in Tennessee two years later.⁴

The tiny Federal victory at Rich Mountain lifted several careers. To Rosecrans’s chagrin, McClellan received most of the credit and was called east to redeem Irvin McDowell’s failure at Bull Run. Rosecrans replaced McClellan as commander of the Department of the Ohio, a regional command embracing parts of three states. Department command placed a premium on organizational and administrative skills, which Rosecrans possessed, but he continued to do the work of subalterns whenever their performance did not meet his exacting standards. Rosecrans’s Confederate counterpart was Gen. Robert E. Lee, and both men struggled to master the mountainous terrain with inadequate resources as all eyes turned to larger armies both east and west. In September 1861, a Federal departmental reorganization designated Rosecrans’s command the Department of Western Virginia, with much smaller geographical responsibilities. As his territory and troop strength declined, Rosecrans appealed to McClellan and the War Department for a larger role. Their response in March 1862 was to create the Mountain Department under Maj. Gen. John Fremont, and absorb Rosecrans’s command within it. Rosecrans thus was effectively out of work, forcing him to report to Washington in person for a new assignment. With no suitable command immediately open, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton gave Rosecrans a temporary mission to supervise the movement of a division of troops from one department to another. This seemingly inconsequential assignment, which ultimately had no effect on the conduct of the war, would have a disproportionate effect on Rosecrans’s subsequent career.⁵

Although his new assignment was unusual for an officer of Rosecrans’s rank and reputation, he readily accepted it. The task involved expediting the movement of Brig. Gen. Louis Blenker’s division from east of the Blue Ridge Mountains through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Allegheny Mountains, where it would be assigned to Fremont’s command. A secondary task involved coordinating the movement with Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks, operating in the Shenandoah Valley. Standing his orders on their head, Rosecrans not only did not join Blenker and push him westward quickly, but after conferring with Banks, forwarded to Washington a rather grandiose plan for a coordinated movement involving three commands larger than Blenker’s. Only three months in office, Stanton was under great pressure to establish his dominance at the beginning of what promised to be a critical campaigning season. Imperious and irascible under the best of circumstances, he wanted only results involving Blenker’s troops, not gratuitous advice offered without appropriate coordination, and his messages to Rosecrans became increasingly peremptory. Seemingly unaffected by Stanton’s strictures, Rosecrans reported that Blenker’s men needed basic necessities such as shelter halves, shoes, and back pay, and that he would not resume their westward trek until the War Department supplied them. Again, Rosecrans substituted his judgment for that of the War Department without reference to larger considerations. Ultimately, Rosecrans put Blenker on the road again, but it was far too late to erase Stanton’s now fixed opinion of Rosecrans as a potentially troublesome subordinate. For his part, Rosecrans remained supremely confident that his strategic vision was superior to that of most officers, and certainly superior to that of an Ohio lawyer like the secretary of war. Thus, the minor incident involving Blenker’s division prefigured future conflicts, when the two strong personalities, Rosecrans and Stanton, met again. Rosecrans had thoughtlessly made an enemy who could hurt him later.⁶

Following an unpleasant final interview with Stanton, Rosecrans was sent west to join the massive group of armies advancing on Corinth, Mississippi, under the command of Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck. Upon Rosecrans’s arrival in late May 1862, Halleck assigned him to the Army of the Mississippi, commanded by his West Point classmate Maj. Gen. John Pope. Just as Rosecrans joined Pope as commander of his Right Wing, the Confederates evacuated Corinth. Halleck ordered Pope’s army to pursue, with Rosecrans in the lead, but the Confederates escaped. Once again, a superior garnered the credit for actions engineered by Rosecrans, and Pope was ordered to the Eastern Theater in June to assume a larger command. Again, Rosecrans profited from the change, taking command of the Army of the Mississippi and reporting directly to Halleck. When Halleck departed for Washington and command of all the Federal armies in July, his second in command, Ulysses Grant, became Rosecrans’s boss. Initially numbering five divisions, Rosecrans’s army in September 1862 dwindled to two with the transfer of three divisions to Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio. With that diminished force, Rosecrans participated in the battle of Iuka, Mississippi, on 19 September. There an effort by Grant to defeat Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Sterling Price failed because of an overly complex plan, bad roads, and an alleged acoustic shadow. Following a hard-fought battle in which only Rosecrans’s divisions engaged the enemy, Price’s forces escaped. Initially positive in his postbattle comments about Rosecrans’s performance, Grant adopted a different stance after Northern newspapers praised Rosecrans highly at Grant’s expense. When both staffs joined the fray on behalf of their respective chiefs, the rift between the two men widened.⁷

Rosecrans gained further acclaim when he successfully resisted a strong attack on Corinth in early October by the combined Confederate commands of Price and Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, a fellow member of the class of 1842. After a slow start, Rosecrans’s pursuit of the retreating Confederates gathered momentum until a cautious Grant ordered its suspension. Fueled by fawning correspondents, Rosecrans’s reputation soared. Thereafter, what had begun as a series of substantive disagreements between Rosecrans and Grant on operational matters quickly degenerated into extreme pettiness over slights both perceived and real. In the midst of it all, Rosecrans received notification that he had been promoted to the rank of major general of volunteers, to date from 17 September 1862. That late date angered Rosecrans so much that he complained bitterly to Halleck in an unofficial letter. Halleck responded soothingly, noting his own positive feelings regarding Rosecrans and the efforts made on his behalf against the “objections” of others in Washington. He closed by promising Rosecrans an independent command in the near future and ultimately succeeded in getting the commission backdated to 21 March 1862. On 24 October Halleck made good on his efforts to find more important work for Rosecrans by ordering him to Cincinnati and placing him in command of a new Department of the Cumberland. The troops in the department were primarily Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, now designated the Fourteenth Army Corps. Buell himself was relieved of command because of his dilatory pursuit of Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee after its failed Kentucky campaign. Buell’s loss was Rosecrans’s gain, and he now had another independent command, in a far more important theater than western Virginia. His departure from Grant’s control no doubt pleased both men immensely.⁸

Rosecrans began his new assignment on a sour note when he again ran afoul of Stanton over a small matter. Told that he could select his own staff, Rosecrans appealed directly to President Lincoln when one of his choices was denied promotion. Lincoln referred the matter to Stanton, who forced Halleck to write a scathing note to Rosecrans in which he threatened to withdraw the assignment to command unless Rosecrans behaved more circumspectly. Rosecrans responded with pledges of fealty, but with the national press trumpeting his arrival to save the day in Tennessee, he refused to bend the knee to his superiors in practice. Besides, he had much to do to restore the Fourteenth Corps to fighting trim. His first task was to win the support of his senior subordinate, Maj. Gen. George Thomas. Thomas had outranked Rosecrans until the latter’s commission was backdated, and his strong sense of Army proprieties had left him outraged and seeking a transfer to another theater. Rosecrans mollified Thomas by giving him the largest proportion of troops in what Rosecrans had decided to rename the Army of the Cumberland. Whatever its name, Rosecrans’s army needed rest, refitting, and reorganization after a grueling campaign before it could resume the offensive. From the moment on 30 October 1862 when he formally assumed command, Rosecrans worked tirelessly to rebuild the Army of the Cumberland’s morale and fighting strength. He divided the Fourteenth Corps into three wings: Right, Center, and Left, and placed them under Major Generals Alexander McCook, George Thomas, and Thomas Crittenden respectively. He also gradually concentrated the army around Nashville, facing an equally battle-worn Army of Tennessee. As fall turned into winter, neither army appeared ready to resume campaigning during the cold, wet season that lay ahead.⁹

Halleck’s instructions to Rosecrans when he replaced Buell were breathtakingly brief and suitably general for an officer of Rosecrans’s intellect and experience: “The great objects to be kept in view in your operations in the field are: First, to drive the enemy from Kentucky and Middle Tennessee; second, to take and hold East Tennessee, cutting the line of railroad at Chattanooga, Cleveland, or Athens, so as to destroy the connection of the valley of Virginia with Georgia and the other Southern States.” The manner of accomplishing these tasks was left to Rosecrans’s discretion. The Lincoln administration, however, desired speed in execution. Buell had been relieved in part because he had moved too slowly, and Rosecrans would be judged by the same standard. Yet Rosecrans’s entire career had been constructed upon his unshakable belief in his own competence and his frequent substitution of his own judgment for that of his superiors. When Washington demanded an immediate forward movement and Halleck threatened him with relief, Rosecrans responded in words echoing the Blenker controversy of April. He would not advance until he deemed his army ready, and to threats of removal he was “insensible.” Halleck withdrew the offending words, and Rosecrans continued to gather supplies and drill his men.¹⁰

At last, on 26 December 1862, the Army of the Cumberland advanced upon Bragg’s forces arrayed around Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Rosecrans’s movements were uncharacteristically deliberate, and it took four days for his Right, Center, and Left Wings to reach their start lines for an attack scheduled for the last day of the year. Bragg, however, struck first, his men bursting out of the fog on the morning of 31 December and rolling up McCook’s right flank. As other Confederate units joined the action, the entire right side of Rosecrans’s army reeled backward, bending his command into a U-shape with its supply line to Nashville endangered. Rosecrans himself was in the thick of the fight, so close that his chief of staff, Lt. Col. Julius Garesche, was killed by his side. By nightfall, the Confederate attack was spent, but Rosecrans recognized that a Federal retreat would be disastrous for both his army and his career. He therefore elected to remain on the field and await Bragg’s next move. Neither side took any significant action on New Year’s Day, but when the Confederates renewed battle on the Federal left on 2 January, Rosecrans crushed the thrust decisively. On the following day, Bragg withdrew to the southeast, establishing defensive positions around Tullahoma and Shelbyville. Rosecrans’s victory at Stones River, balancing Federal setbacks in Virginia and northern Mississippi, was welcome news to the beleaguered Lincoln administration. Congratulations flowed to Rosecrans’s headquarters in Murfreesboro from the president, from Halleck, from the Ohio and Indiana legislatures, and, most surprising of all, from Edwin Stanton. Congress was so enthused that it passed an official resolution of thanks. From all indications, it appeared that Rosecrans had finally achieved the acclaim that he had long felt was his due.¹¹

A grateful nation and grateful leaders demanded further triumphs as soon as possible. Rosecrans, however, saw firsthand the battered condition of the Army of the Cumberland. He also knew that the bulk of his supplies came by rail over a single-track line stretching back to Louisville. That line could be easily interdicted by Confederate cavalry, which still had the edge over Rosecrans’s horsemen. Thus Rosecrans importuned the War Department weekly for more supplies, back pay for his soldiers, and, most often, for more and better cavalry. Gradually, these incessant calls for “more” began to drain the reservoir of goodwill he had momentarily stored in Washington after the Stones River victory. This loss of favor accelerated, at least with Stanton, when Rosecrans in one of his responses to the secretary alluded directly to the Blenker episode of the previous year. By declaring himself in the right whenever he asked for something for his troops and denigrating those who denied him the resources, Rosecrans unnecessarily reopened an old wound that this time could not be healed. Nor did he improve his position with his superiors when he responded condescendingly to a clumsy effort by the War Department to induce forward movement by offering a major general’s commission in the Regular Army to the first Federal commander to advance. No matter how often Lincoln or Halleck implored him to begin a forward movement, Rosecrans demurred, and arguments that he needed to distract Confederates from Grant’s army besieging Vicksburg were counterproductive. Finally, on 23 June, Rosecrans sent the Army of the Cumberland forward. In a brilliant campaign of maneuver, hindered by incessant rain and deep mud, he forced Bragg not only out of Middle Tennessee but beyond the Tennessee River to Chattanooga. At very low cost in lives, Rosecrans had met the first part of Halleck’s charge to him in October 1862. On a personal level, his string of victories that had begun at Rich Mountain two years earlier remained intact.¹²

One of the Union’s most successful commanders in the summer of 1863, William Starke Rosecrans was a man of medium build, slightly overweight, with a prominent hooked nose and the disfiguring facial scars from his industrial accident. His rather nondescript physical appearance, however, belied a very strong personality. Highly intelligent, articulate in speech, and vigorous in manner, he never failed to make an impression on those who met him. He was quick to make decisions and firm in defense of them once made. His fervently expressed hatred of the institution of slavery and its supporters was widely known. Similarly, his strong religious convictions were openly displayed through the rosary that he carried, his personal priest who traveled with his headquarters, and his willingness to engage in complex and obscure theological discussions. Rosecrans’s personality, in fact, was an open book to those who encountered him, whether private or general officer. After Stones River, no one doubted his physical courage under fire. His administrative skill was also evident in the way he prepared his command for the rigors of campaigning. Superficial observers were thus convinced of Rosecrans’s greatness as an army commander. Others, more perceptive, were instead taken by Rosecrans’s flaws. Those flaws included an overly boisterous and often profane manner, a volcanic temper expressed in violent outbursts against subordinates, a nervous and excitable demeanor in times of great stress, an extreme simplicity of outlook, and an uncompromising self-righteousness. Even to those who admired him, Rosecrans always seemed to be on the verge of losing control of himself because of his seemingly boundless energy. Worse, he was neither introspective nor a perceptive judge of others. He could relate to other people on a superficial level, but he had no interest in how he appeared to them or understood their motives. He knew how to ingratiate himself with private soldiers, by supporting them against their officers, but he did not understand how that technique displeased midlevel commanders. Supremely self-confident, Rosecrans gave no thought to the possibility that his actions large or small might not win universal approval and acclaim.¹³

To assist him in managing both the Department of the Cumberland and its field army, Rosecrans by July 1863 had gathered a large number of staff officers of varying quality and longevity. The key position, of course, was chief of staff, although the duties of the position varied from army to army. Rosecrans had been much attached to Julius Garesche, who had died by his side at Stones River. In January, Brig. Gen. James A. Garfield had reported to the Army of the Cumberland in hopes of getting a field command, perhaps a division. A volunteer officer from Ohio, Garfield, thirty-one, was an educator, a lawyer, and a state politician. He saw minor action in Kentucky as a colonel, commanded a brigade on the second day at Shiloh, and participated in the advance on Corinth. A strong Republican and abolitionist, he was extremely ambitious, and the slow pace of the war in the West made him restless. Driven from the field by a serious illness, he went to Washington for reassignment and there became a protégé of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase. Nominated for a redrawn congressional district in Ohio in late 1862, he won the seat and expected to remain in the army only until December 1863. Sent to the Army of the Cumberland to fill any vacant command, Garfield was immediately seen by Rosecrans as a compatible personality with whom to while away the evening hours in theological and political discussion. Finally, after a month of intellectual sparring, Rosecrans offered Garfield the chief of staff position. Initially, Garfield had doubts, especially because his religious affiliation, the Disciples of Christ, clashed with the Roman Catholicism of his chief. Ultimately, however, Garfield accepted the position and gradually came to be Rosecrans’s confidant as well as the army’s primary administrator. When Rosecrans polled the army’s senior leaders in early June on the propriety of a general advance, only Garfield strongly favored the movement. He was vindicated by the success of the Tullahoma campaign, but his overt advocacy made him no friends within the army’s hierarchy, except its commander.¹⁴

Rosecrans and his staff, summer 1863. Front: Taylor, Barnett, Goddard, Rosecrans, Garfield, Horace Porter, Bond, Thompson, Sheridan. Rear: Thoms, Wiles, Ducat, Simmons, Drouillard. (Detail, Collections of Maine Historical Society).

Garfield’s role officially was to organize the paper flow at Army headquarters, receiving all reports, drafting the most important messages, and supervising the junior members of the staff as they handled routine business. Much more important, he served as a sounding board for ideas broached by Rosecrans and frequently offered ideas of his own. His lack of formal military education troubled Rosecrans not at all, although it did cause resentment among some of the army’s professional soldiers. Indeed, the month that Garfield spent in Rosecrans’s company debating a wide range of topics before his selection as chief of staff solidified the intuitive bond between the two men. Rosecrans came to trust Garfield implicitly in matters large and small. The latter reciprocated to a degree but privately maintained a certain distance from his chief, perceived closeness to whom could become problematic if Rosecrans’s star should wane. In fact, their differences over religious questions notwithstanding, the two men were alike in many ways. Both were egotistical, ambitious, intelligent, and extremely self-confident. Neither possessed the capacity to regulate his interactions with others based upon a deep and mature understanding of human nature. No doubt any strong chief of staff would have elicited occasional opposition, but Garfield’s lack of a West Point education exacerbated the tendency of the corps and division commanders to denigrate his role and disparage him in private conversations. Garfield spoke for Rosecrans and was obeyed accordingly, but neither man was universally loved by the experienced combat commanders of the Army of the Cumberland.¹⁵

Assisting Garfield in the management of affairs was a relatively large number of staff officers. The staff was divided into two sections, the army commander’s personal staff and the special staff who handled various well-delineated functions. Garfield was part of Rosecrans’s personal staff, as were the aides-de-camp. Army regulations called for an officer of Rosecrans’s rank to be assisted by only two aides-de-camp, but the army commander enjoyed the services of eight aides in the summer of 1863. Their duties were ill-defined, being essentially whatever Rosecrans desired them to do. Senior in rank among the aides was Col. Joseph McKibbin, forty-one, a former California congressman and War Democrat, who had joined Rosecrans in February from Halleck’s staff in Washington. His rank notwithstanding, McKibbin was not the senior aide by title, however. That position was held by Maj. Frank Bond, thirty-three, a Connecticut native and former railroad executive in Ohio and Pennsylvania, who had joined Rosecrans in December 1862. Also serving as aides were Capt. James Drouillard, twenty-three, West Point class of 1861, on the staff since April; Capt. Charles Thompson, twenty-three, a volunteer engineer officer who had come with Rosecrans from Corinth; Capt. Robert Thoms, twenty-nine, a Cincinnati attorney who had been with Rosecrans at Stones River as a civilian and who had been commissioned in April; Capt. William Farrar, thirty-eight, an attorney and volunteer officer detailed from the Sixty-Fifth Ohio Infantry; and two young first lieutenants, William Porter and James Reynolds, detached from their Ohio regiments as acting aides. Four of the eight (Bond, Thompson, Thoms, and Porter) had passed through the crucible of Stones River with Rosecrans, gaining primacy of place thereby.¹⁶

Also classed as part of Rosecrans’s personal staff were the assistant adjutants general and the assistant inspectors general. The officers in the army’s assistant adjutant general’s office managed correspondence, orders, and personnel actions. Lt. Col. Calvin Goddard was Rosecrans’s principal assistant adjutant general. Goddard, twenty-five, had been with Rosecrans since the latter’s western Virginia campaigns and had served variously as aide, assistant adjutant general, and chief of staff since early 1862. He was trusted implicitly and was noted for his exactitude and efficiency in the operation of his office. Goddard’s assistants were Maj. William McMichael, twenty-two, assigned since February 1863; Capt. Henry Thrall, twenty-four, another veteran of the western Virginia campaigns, whose assignment also dated to February 1863; Capt. Jonathan Dickson, thirty, a Cincinnati native serving in the office since December 1862; and Capt. David Swaim, twenty-nine, formerly a Garfield aide but assigned to the assistant adjutant’s office since April 1863. A close friend of the army’s chief of staff, Swaim managed a group of secret agents with the assistance of Capt. William Farrar, one of Rosecrans’s aides. Capt. John Young, a Mexican War veteran and Regular Army officer, held the specific title of commissary of musters, maintaining the army’s unit records and serving as an assistant adjutant general or aide-decamp as needed. The assistant inspector general’s office surveyed and reported on the army’s discipline, training, equipment, and unit administration. Rosecrans’s primary assistant inspector general was the highly competent Lt. Col. Arthur Ducat, thirty-three. An Irish immigrant, Ducat had been a civil engineer and insurance underwriter before the war and a volunteer officer in the Twelfth Illinois Infantry. He had been with Rosecrans since Corinth and had held the inspector’s position since early April 1863. Capt. Andrew Burt, twenty-three, Eighteenth United States Infantry, and Capt. Gurdon Hubbard Jr., twenty-five, Eighty-Eighth Illinois Infantry, served as Ducat’s assistants.¹⁷

The special staff of the Department and Army of the Cumberland consisted of those agencies that dealt with the technical issues common to the administration of a large and complex organization. Many of these sections were required by army regulations, but some came into being because Rosecrans saw an unfilled need and created a staff position on his own authority. As the army advanced farther from its advanced base of operations at Nashville, many of these sections split into two groups, with officers stationed both in Nashville and the army’s field headquarters. Several of the functional areas involved supply of basic necessities: quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance. Others, such as chief of artillery, were purely administrative. Medical support to the troops required both a department medical director and a medical inspector. Engineering functions in the Department of the Cumberland were split between engineers and topographical engineers, even though the two separate corps had been merged by the War Department in March 1863. The recent advances in communication nationwide required both a chief signal officer and a superintendent of the military telegraph. Similarly, the relatively new railroad transportation required specialized managerial skills and thus its own section. Proper discipline within the army required a provost marshal and a judge advocate, while a similar requirement in the Department of the Cumberland caused Rosecrans to establish an army police separate from the provost marshal function. Finally, the army required a paymaster. Many of these staff sections, especially quartermaster, commissary, and railroad, required a large number of officers, clerks, and civilian workers to operate efficiently, making the Federal government a large employer in Middle Tennessee.¹⁸

The leaders of the staff departments that clothed, equipped, and transported the Army of the Cumberland, that fed it, and that provided weapons and ammunition were arguably the most critical personnel on Rosecrans’s special staff. Rosecrans’s chief quartermaster was Lt. Col. John Taylor, forty-six, a native of the state of New York and son of a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. A businessman residing in Iowa when the war began, Taylor entered service as a quartermaster captain and soon found himself chief quartermaster of Pope’s command in the campaign against Corinth. When Rosecrans replaced Pope, he retained Taylor and arranged for him to be transferred to the Army of the Cumberland when he moved to Tennessee. Taylor’s duties involved providing the clothing, camp equipage, transportation, fuel, and incidental needs for all personnel in the department, and the management of the more than 3,000 personnel needed to supply those needs. Taylor’s primary assistant was Capt. Henry Hodges, who managed the Nashville quartermaster depot with the assistance of six junior officers. Taylor’s counterpart, the chief commissary of subsistence, was Lt. Col. Samuel Simmons, thirty-seven, a native of Pennsylvania and an attorney in Missouri before the war. Beginning his career with Federal volunteers in St. Louis, he later saw service with Grant at Shiloh and Pope around Corinth. Like Taylor, he had served Rosecrans in Mississippi and had accompanied him to Tennessee in the fall of 1862. Also like Taylor, he had been advanced from captain to lieutenant colonel at Rosecrans’s request. Simmons’s portfolio revolved around one thing: feeding the troops in the Department of the Cumberland. Less fortunate in rank than his compatriots was Rosecrans’s chief of ordnance, Capt. Horace Porter, twenty-six. A Pennsylvania native, Porter had graduated from West Point in 1860 as an ordnance officer. After service on the Atlantic coast at Port Royal, the siege of Fort Pulaski, and the battle of Secessionville, where he was slightly wounded, Porter had spent brief tours with the Army of the Potomac and the Department of the Ohio. In February 1863, he joined the Army of the Cumberland as its chief of ordnance. It was his task to keep track of the army’s weapons and provide enough quantities of pistol, rifle, carbine, and artillery ammunition to fight multiple battles.¹⁹

Unlike the quartermaster and commissary departments, some staff positions were manned very lightly. Col. James Barnett, forty-two, was Rosecrans’s chief of artillery, a purely administrative position. A native New Yorker but a long-time resident of Cleveland, Barnett raised a battery at the outbreak of the war and served briefly with it in western Virginia before being appointed colonel of the First Ohio Artillery regiment. He then served in various administrative artillery positions in the Army of the Ohio until Rosecrans took command of the Army of the Cumberland and named Barnett his chief of artillery in October 1862. As such, Barnett kept track of the physical condition of the many batteries assigned to the army, advised Rosecrans on general artillery matters, and also served as an advocate at army headquarters for the corps and division chiefs of artillery. Because the army’s batteries were apportioned to individual brigades and reported to infantry brigade commanders, Barnett exercised no tactical control of the artillery and thus could not mass fires if the tactical situation demanded it. In contrast to Barnett, Rosecrans’s chief of cavalry, Maj. Gen. David Stanley, commanded the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. Stanley, thirty-five, was an 1852 graduate of the United States Military Academy. Long service on the frontier, in Missouri in 1861, and as a division commander under Rosecrans at Iuka and Corinth had seasoned him. A favorite of Rosecrans’s, he had been named cavalry chief in November 1862 and promoted to major general not long thereafter. Unlike Barnett, who had no tactical role with the army’s artillery, Stanley’s field duties as commander of the army’s mounted arm occupied him fully, leaving him no time for purely staff functions.²⁰

Rosecrans’s special staff also included a medical director, Surgeon Glover Perin, thirty-nine. A native of Ohio and a graduate of the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati in 1846, Perin had been a Regular Army surgeon since 1847. His service record was extensive, commencing with the Mexican War, continuing with frontier duty at various posts, and in the Civil War. He joined the Army of the Cumberland in February 1863 as its medical director, with the rank of major. Finding the army’s medical affairs in disarray, Perin worked diligently to improve his department’s efficiency. His most notable subordinates were Asst. Surgeon Dallas Bache, assistant medical director; Surgeon Alfred Thurston, who managed the Nashville hospitals in the army’s rear; Surgeon Henry Seys, thirty-three, medical inspector; and Surgeon Robert Fletcher, medical purveyor. By mid-1863, the medical department of the Army of the Cumberland consisted of 159 surgeons, 260 assistant surgeons, 84 contract physicians, and 2,500 stewards, clerks, cooks, and nurses scattered throughout the Department of the Cumberland. The primary general hospitals serving the army were in Nashville, where 3,000 beds were available, but other general hospitals deeper in the rear raised the total number of beds to nearly 12,000. At the other end of the system of care, every regiment had an assigned ambulance, with additional ambulances assigned at higher echelons. Finding the ambulance system in place upon his arrival to be utterly unsatisfactory, Perin had worked to bring greater organization to the process of transporting sick and wounded soldiers. By July 1863, he had made some progress, but problems remained, particularly in regard to the maintenance of the ambulances, which was still in the hands of the army’s quartermasters. Rosecrans’s acknowledged interest in the care of his soldiers’ health worked in Perin’s favor, as he continued to improve the army’s medical services.²¹

Army discipline was another function that required personnel on Rosecrans’s special staff. The army’s provost marshal was Lt. Col. William Wiles, twenty-six, of Columbus, Indiana. A businessman in the pharmaceutical trade before the war, Wiles was instrumental in the raising of a company in the Twenty-Second Indiana Infantry regiment and served with it until being posted to Rosecrans’s staff in May 1862. Appointed provost marshall of the Army of the Mississippi as a lieutenant in July 1862, he followed Rosecrans to the Army of the Cumberland in October of that year and rose steadily in rank thereafter. Wiles’s chief subordinates were Capt. Elias Cosper, thirty-nine, prewar banker and member of the Seventy-Fourth Illinois Infantry, first assistant provost marshal, and Capt. Robert Goodwin, twenty-seven, prewar attorney and member of the Thirty-Seventh Indiana Infantry, second assistant provost marshal. Although his office was small, Wiles had many tasks. The provost marshal maintained law and order within the department among soldiers and civilians alike; took charge of prisoners of war captured by the tactical units; was responsible for general rear area security; and controlled the flow of personnel to and from the army, both military and civilian. Manpower came from tactical units detailed as necessary. As part of his duties, Wiles attempted to generate an order of battle for the Confederate Army of Tennessee, relying upon the unit identification and unguarded statements of prisoners. Assisting Wiles in legal matters was Capt. Hunter Brooke, thirty-two, acting judge advocate. Brooke, a long-time resident of Cincinnati and a practicing attorney since 1851, had accompanied Brig. Gen. Robert McCook when that officer was mortally wounded in a notorious incident in August 1862. Taken prisoner, paroled, and exchanged in December, Brooke reported to the Army of the Cumberland as an aide-de-camp to Rosecrans in February 1863 and was assigned as acting judge advocate in April.²²

Another key staff officer for Rosecrans was Brig. Gen. James St. Clair Morton, his chief engineer. Born in Philadelphia in 1829, Morton was an 1851 graduate of West Point, ranking second in his class. At age thirty-three he possessed an extensive and illustrious record as an army engineer but was considered by some to be quite eccentric. A man of brilliant mind, he wore his hair shoulder length and had a reputation for being too outspoken for his own good. Although he had been Buell’s chief engineer in the Army of the Ohio, he endeared himself to his new chief so greatly by his actions at Stones River that Rosecrans obtained his promotion to brigadier general in April 1863. Oddly enough, the promotion was not related to Morton’s engineering talents but was a reward for the combat performance of the Pioneer Brigade, which Morton led. The Pioneer Brigade was an ad hoc response to a perceived need in the Army of the Cumberland. Unable to gain engineer assets from Washington, Rosecrans in November 1862 had ordered that two laborers and mechanics be selected from every regiment in the Army of the Cumberland to serve as engineers. Commanded by officers similarly selected, the men were divided into battalions that would serve their respective corps or be amalgamated into a brigade controlled by the army’s chief engineer. The brigade thus combined aspects of both engineer and infantry troops, with the emphasis on the former. They had performed well enough as infantry at Stones River, but Rosecrans preferred their engineer skills to be primary, leaving both infantry skills and discipline to suffer. Morton personally commanded the Pioneer Brigade and was thus responsible for its reputation within the army as an undisciplined rabble. A strong rivalry existed between the Pioneers and the army’s other engineer force, the First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics regiment, commanded by Col. William Innes.²³

While Morton was the army’s chief engineer, in practice his writ did not extend to the army’s topographical engineers, led by Capt. William Merrill, twenty-five. The War Department had combined the two types of engineers into one branch earlier in 1863, but Rosecrans had not implemented the change beyond an informal understanding that Morton would give general directions only and pass any orders to topographical engineers through Merrill. Merrill himself, an 1859 West Point graduate, remained jealous of his prerogatives and conducted the topographical engineer department independently of the army’s chief engineer. Merrill’s freedom perhaps stemmed from the fact that he had known Rosecrans since 1861 in western Virginia, where he was a staff engineer until his capture. Upon his release, he made a name for himself at the siege of Yorktown, where he was wounded, and with John Pope at Second Manassas. Transferred to Kentucky, he built fortifications until his command joined the Army of the Cumberland in March 1863. Upon arrival, he found the topographical engineer section in disarray. Rosecrans had decreed in December 1862 that every division and brigade in the army detail an officer for topographical duty, but the chief topographical engineer at that time, Capt. Nathaniel Michler, had resisted full implementation of such a decentralized system and had felt Rosecrans’s wrath as a result. By the time Michler was forced from the command under the pretense of ill health in May, his office was larger but in Rosecrans’s view remained unsatisfactory. Rosecrans then turned to Merrill, a known quantity, and issued minute instructions on the creation of a chain of topographical officers extending from brigade to army. The primary result of Merrill’s ascendancy by July was the adoption of an ingenious system of “quick maps,” widely reproduced throughout the army using a method initially devised by one of Merrill’s assistants, Capt. William Margedant, twenty-seven.²⁴

Capt. Jesse Merrill was the Army of the Cumberland’s chief signal officer. Merrill, twenty-seven, a volunteer officer from Pennsylvania, was one of the first graduates of the signal camp of instruction in 1861. He was assigned to Buell’s army in Kentucky in early 1862 and remained with it as commander of the army’s signal detachment. As chief signal officer, Merrill controlled the personnel attached to the normal signal flag detachments and the field telegraph trains. The latter consisted of wagons carrying up to ten miles of gutta-percha-clad copper wire that could be strung across country and connected to Beardslee telegraph instruments, magneto-electric devices that required no galvanic batteries to operate. By the summer of 1863, Captain Merrill commanded a force of thirty-six officers and 125 men. He had detachments at army-and corps-level headquarters and could deploy up to five field telegraph trains within the department. Merrill’s chief competitor on Rosecrans’s staff was Capt. John Van Duzer, thirty-six, a New Yorker. Initially a printer and newspaper publisher by trade, Van Duzer early saw the potential of the electric telegraph and switched careers to become a railroad telegrapher. In 1861 he was employed by the Federal army in Missouri and soon became a manager of telegraph services. Working first for Halleck, then for Grant, he had been present at Corinth with Rosecrans. The latter connection may have been his undoing. After Rosecrans’s departure, Grant arrested him on specious charges and banished him from west Tennessee in December 1862. His superiors in Washington sustained him, however, and in January 1863 he was appointed second assistant superintendent of U.S. military telegraphs and assigned to the Department of the Cumberland. Van Duzer did not yet have military rank but Rosecrans made him an honorary captain to facilitate his work. So titled, Van Duzer managed the army’s electric telegraph lines from the front to their interface with the civilian system, using a corps of civilian operators and a construction team.²⁵

Another civilian, John B. Anderson, forty-five, managed Rosecrans’s railroad lines. A Pennsylvania native, Anderson had begun a career in education but had gravitated into the field of railroad management during the 1850s. In April 1861 he was the superintendent of transportation for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, a critical link in the transportation network supporting Federal forces in Kentucky and Tennessee. Anderson was appointed military superintendent of railroads in the Department of the Ohio in November 1861, continued in that post under Buell, and was retained in the same capacity in the Department of the Cumberland by Rosecrans in November 1862. Accused by some of inefficiency and mismanagement, he remained in charge of the railroad lines south of Nashville with the honorary rank of colonel.²⁶

Two members of Rosecrans’s staff illustrate the contradictions in his personality. Converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult, Rosecrans had a strong spiritual bent, manifest in his theological discussions with Garfield and the retention of a personal chaplain, Father Jeremiah Trecy, at army headquarters. A native of Ireland, Trecy, thirty-eight, was ordained in 1851. An advocate of Western colonization, he founded several congregations in the Iowa-Nebraska region before the war but moved to Huntsville, Alabama, for health reasons before the outbreak of hostilities. There he had turned to ministering to Confederate wounded after the battle of Shiloh. Visiting Corinth in the fall of 1862, he met Rosecrans and so impressed the army commander that Rosecrans took Trecy with him when he moved to the Army of the Cumberland. Serving first without pay, Trecy was on the verge of leaving the army until he was offered the chaplaincy of the Fourth United States Cavalry regiment. Thus he remained at headquarters, ministering to the spiritual needs of the Roman Catholics in the army, most notably its commander. Rosecrans’s final principal staff officer, William Truesdail, the chief of army police, was a man of quite different mold. A native of New York, Truesdail, forty-eight, was involved in police work, banking, and railroad construction prior to the Civil War. Not long after the war began, he became associated with Pope’s command in Missouri as a beef contractor and organizer of police, scouts, and spies. He also developed the distribution of the army’s mail. When Pope departed, Truesdail continued his activities under Rosecrans’s supervision. Making himself useful to Rosecrans, especially as a spymaster, he accompanied his chief to the Army of the Cumberland. Truesdail was established in Nashville as chief of army police with the purely honorary rank of colonel. He and his detectives not only kept order in the urban areas in the army’s rear but also executed counterintelligence missions and acquired military intelligence through a network of scouts and spies. Using methods often more high-handed than legal, Truesdail soon found himself under attack by many parties, including Governor Andrew Johnson. Rosecrans successfully resisted all efforts to discipline Truesdail’s operatives, although he did transfer Truesdail from Nashville to the army’s field headquarters in June.²⁷

Although there were notable exceptions, many of the army’s staff officers shared three characteristics. Most were young men in their twenties, many had a strong connection to the state of Ohio, and a significant number had served with Rosecrans in Mississippi. The army commander presided over his retinue with energetic abandon, albeit with an unusual daily schedule. Rosecrans’s preferred manner of operation was to rise late, often as late as 10:00 A.M., eat breakfast near noon, go on inspection rides or receive visitors until 4:00 P.M., eat dinner, then throw himself vigorously into paperwork until past midnight. He would then relax with senior staff members until well beyond 2:00 A.M., finally ending his day around 3:00 in the morning. The staff at the field headquarters generally conformed to this pattern, with little business being conducted early. Like Rosecrans himself, the staff was boisterous and electric with energy. The general’s supporters found the frenetic pace bracing and indicative of brilliant minds at work, but some line officers privately were appalled at the rowdy spectacle. For example, Col. Emerson Opdycke, commanding the 125th Ohio Infantry regiment, in a letter to his wife, noted that the atmosphere at army headquarters “reminded one of the bar room of a country tavern! This is no exaggeration.” Similarly, brigade commander William Hazen disparaged the character flaws and incompetent behavior of many of Rosecrans’s primary advisors. As long as the army was in camp, the unusual work schedule and weaknesses of individual officers did not exert a particularly detrimental effect on business, the private complaints of more straitlaced officers notwithstanding. A long and arduous campaign, however, would severely test an organization so constructed and manned. Stones River had been a very short campaign, as had Tullahoma; any advance beyond the Cumberland Plateau and the Tennessee River would necessarily last far longer.²⁸

If the army commander and his staff represented the brain of the Army of the Cumberland, its major tactical formations comprised the army’s muscular body. Prior to January 1863, the army’s infantry and artillery components collectively had been styled the Fourteenth Army Corps, and subdivided into a Right, Center, and Left. On 9 January, Rosecrans reorganized his infantry into three army corps, the Fourteenth (formerly Center), Twentieth (formerly Right), and Twenty-First (formerly Left). In May 1863 he established a Cavalry Corps. As additional infantry and artillery units arrived in the department, many of them from the defunct Army of Kentucky, they were organized into a Reserve Corps on 8 June. Rosecrans’s own headquarters was guarded by a regiment and a battalion of infantry, and a regiment of cavalry. Finally, various miscellaneous units, mostly artillerymen in the Nashville defenses, engineer troops like the Pioneer Brigade, and convalescents rounded out the command. In July 1863, the strength of the Army of the Cumberland stood at 4,886 officers and 76,438 men present for duty, a total of 81,324 soldiers present with their commands. The aggregate present, a figure that included detailed men, guardhouse prisoners, and sick soldiers still with the army, numbered 95,682 officers and men. As an indicator of how many soldiers assigned to the Army of the Cumberland were not with it in the field, the aggregate present and absent number stood at 131,636 officers and men. During the same month, the army’s artillery contingent manned 22 heavy artillery pieces and 239 light guns.²⁹

The largest infantry corps in the Army of the Cumberland was the Fourteenth, consisting of four divisions. The corps reported 22,873 officers and men present for duty and an aggregate present of 27,036 in July 1863, with seventy-two field guns. Its commander was Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas. Nearly forty-seven years old, Thomas was a native of Southampton County, Virginia. A graduate of the United States Military Academy in 1840, he served in the artillery branch for fifteen years, winning two brevet promotions during the Mexican War. Transferring to the cavalry in 1855, he saw hard service on the Texas frontier until the outbreak of the Civil War. Although he was offered a position in the Confederate Army, Thomas remained steadfast in adherence to the Union. He was rewarded with a commission as brigadier general of volunteers and served briefly in the Valley of Virginia before being transferred to the Kentucky front. There he won the small battle of Mill Springs before becoming part of Buell’s Army of the Ohio. Thomas served with Buell at Shiloh, participated in the advance on Corinth, and was Buell’s deputy during the Kentucky campaign in the fall of 1862. Along the way he was promoted to major general of volunteers, with date of rank established as 25 April 1862. Offered command of Buell’s army before Perryville, Thomas declined, but when Buell was finally removed he briefly contested Rosecrans’s right to replace him because of a date of rank issue. Assured that Rosecrans’s commission antedated his, Thomas cheerfully acquiesced until he learned that Rosecrans’s seniority had been established purely by administrative fiat. Nevertheless, his strong sense of duty kept him in place and Rosecrans rewarded him with command of what became the Fourteenth Corps. At Stones River he had fully justified both Rosecrans’s confidence in him and his own strong reputation as a combat leader.³⁰

No more than six feet tall, Thomas had a large frame that contributed to the initial impression of an impassive, dull individual hardly fit for his rank. Anyone who remained in his presence for more than a few moments, however, quickly learned otherwise. Thomas was well schooled in his profession, had an extreme sense of honor, and exuded strength of purpose that prevented even his friends from wasting time with small talk. No one who knew him pronounced him brilliant, but all acknowledged his thorough competence in managing thousands of men on campaign and in combat. He had a well-deserved reputation as an officer who could be counted on to keep his head in the most difficult circumstances. The very opposite of Rosecrans, whose excitability in crisis sometimes affected his judgment, Thomas remained firmly in command of his emotions in good times and bad. The troops under his command sensed this steadiness and repaid his leadership with great devotion. To them he was “Old Pap,” although he never spoke familiarly to them or curried their favor in any way. To all but his most inner circle, Thomas maintained a reserve of great severity, and even his few confidants knew their place and did not trespass beyond the boundaries Thomas set. Hardly dour, however, he was noted for his lavish and hospitable headquarters establishment. His baggage train was legendary throughout the army, as was the table he set for staff and visitors alike. His general reputation in the Army of the Cumberland was uniformly high with both regular and volunteer officers. Although he was on occasion excessively deliberate in his actions, Thomas was an officer of substance and a leader of men, and all who came in contact with him knew it instantly.³¹

Thomas’s First Division numbered 5,066 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 6,010, in July 1863. The division commander was Maj. Gen. Lovell Harrison Rousseau, forty-four. A native of Kentucky, Rousseau rose from common laborer to attorney and state legislator by 1860, with meritorious service as a Mexican War volunteer. After he raised a regiment, his political connections gained him a brigadier generalship in 1861 and promotion to major general in the fall of 1862. He led a brigade at Shiloh and a division at Perryville and Stones River, always with more impetuosity than skill. Flamboyant in speech and attire but devoid of technical military training, Rousseau was idolized by his men because of his extreme personal courage and his brash demeanor. A more discerning observer, however, disparaged him as “an ass of eminent gifts,” and even a friend noted the disparity between Rousseau’s words and his deeds. His three brigade commanders were a mixed lot. Col. Benjamin Scribner, thirty-seven, an Indiana native, commanded the First Brigade. A druggist and a veteran of the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War, Scribner raised the Thirty-Eighth Indiana Infantry regiment in 1861 and was a brigade commander since November 1862. An earnest, diligent, but colorless leader, he offered basic competence but nothing more. The Second Brigade was commanded by Col. John Starkweather, thirty-three, a native of New York and a Wisconsin attorney. Starkweather was the original colonel of the First Wisconsin Infantry regiment and a brigade commander since September 1862. As such, he fought in the battles of Perryville and Stones River. Known for his strong political connections and stentorian voice, Starkweather awaited his pending promotion to brigadier general. In contrast to his other brigades, Rousseau’s Third Brigade was led by a Regular Army officer, Brig. Gen. John King, forty-three. His long career dated from 1838, with service in the Seminole and Mexican Wars and duty on the Texas frontier. King participated in the actions at Shiloh, Corinth, and Stones River, where he received a serious wound in the hand. Promoted to brigadier general in April 1863, he commanded the Regular Brigade of five battalions.³²

Maj. Gen. James Scott Negley, thirty-six, commanded Thomas’s Second Division, which listed 4,699 officers and men present for duty and 5,635 aggregate present in July 1863. Born near Pittsburgh, he served as an enlisted volunteer during the Mexican War, and maintained a strong affiliation with the state militia while pursuing a career in horticulture. Instrumental in raising several Pennsylvania regiments in 1861, he was rewarded with a brigadier general’s commission in October. Transferred west, he served on occupation duty in central Tennessee and led Buell’s advance on Chattanooga in June 1862. When Buell withdrew to Kentucky, he left Negley to garrison Nashville. At Stones River, Negley satisfactorily led a small division and was promoted to major general in March 1863. Large and rather portly, he was generally affable with all who met him and often regaled his staff with obscure facts on roadside flora. A sensitive man, he did not follow Regular Army rules and conventions. His prior enlisted service made him a strong advocate of the common soldier, and his men responded with equal affection. This openness and democratic style, however, set Negley apart from most of his fellow division commanders, especially those educated at West Point. His First Brigade was led by Brig. Gen. John Beatty, thirty-four, an Ohio banker. An erudite and intelligent personality, Beatty began his military career in western Virginia but quickly moved west, where his success at Perryville brought him a brigadier general’s star in November 1862. He gained further accolades at Stones River as a brigade commander. Col. Timothy Stanley commanded Negley’s Second Brigade. Descended from an old New England family, Stanley, fifty-three, was an Ohio attorney, industrialist, and politician. The original colonel of the Eighteenth Ohio Infantry regiment, Stanley was promoted to brigade command prior to Stones River. Commander of the Third Brigade was Col. William Sirwell, forty-three. A Pennsylvania businessman and militia officer, Sirwell raised the Seventy-Eighth Pennsylvania Infantry regiment and commanded it through Stones River. He assumed brigade command on 19 June.³³

The Third Division of the Fourteenth Corps was led by Brig. Gen. John Milton Brannan. Born in Washington, D.C., Brannan, forty-four, was a member of the West Point class of 1841. Commissioned as an artilleryman, he held routine coastal postings until the Mexican War, where he distinguished himself in the battles of Contreras, Churubusco, and Mexico City, gaining one brevet for gallantry and suffering a serious wound. He spent most of the 1850s in Florida, where the outbreak of the Civil War found him. Promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in September 1861, Brannan served in the Department of the South until early 1863. In April he transferred to the Department of the Cumberland as commander of an infantry division. By this time, his private life was a shambles and a subject for soldier gossip. In 1858, Brannan’s wife of eight years, Eliza Crane, disappeared, and initially foul play was suspected. She was discovered in Italy, living with Powell Wyman, another artillery officer. By the spring of 1863, Wyman was dead, and the sordid facts revealed in Brannan’s divorce proceedings were becoming common knowledge to the troops in the Department of the South. Thus Brannan no doubt was relieved to transfer to the Tennessee front. After a few weeks in the Twenty-First Corps, he received the Third Division of the Fourteenth Corps, a total of 6,343 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 7,231. The Tullahoma campaign was his first experience as an infantry division commander. Brannan’s First Brigade was commanded by Col. Moses Walker, forty-four. An Ohio attorney, Walker raised the Thirty-First Ohio Infantry regiment at the outbreak of the war and led it until gaining brigade command in 1862. His brigade was present at Perryville and Stones River but not heavily engaged. Brig. Gen. James Steedman, forty-six, commanded the Second Brigade. A large, powerful man, Steedman had little formal education but a wealth of practical experience as a printer, forty-niner, editor, and Democratic politician in Ohio before organizing the Fourteenth Ohio Infantry regiment in 1861. His combat résumé began in western Virginia and extended through the battle of Perryville. He had been a brigadier general with a reputation for boldness since July 1862. Brannan’s Third Brigade was led by Col. Ferdinand Van Derveer, forty, also from Ohio. An attorney who had distinguished himself as a volunteer in the Mexican War, Van Derveer led the Thirty-Fifth Ohio Infantry regiment at Corinth and Perryville, but missed Stones River. He was promoted to brigade command early in 1863.³⁴

Maj. Gen. Joseph Jones Reynolds, forty-one, of Flemingsburg, Kentucky, headed Thomas’s Fourth Division. Moving to Indiana as a youth, he graduated from West Point in 1843 as an artilleryman. He served uneventfully in garrison until joining the West Point faculty, where he spent almost nine years. Sent to frontier duty in 1855, he resigned two years later and took an academic position at Washington University. The outbreak of war found him engaged in the grocery business in Indiana with his brother. Appointed brigadier general in the summer of 1861, he served under Rosecrans in western Virginia but resigned early in 1862 because of his brother’s death. He assisted in recruiting Indiana units until again commissioned brigadier general in September 1862 and major general two months later. Given a small infantry division, he futilely chased Confederate cavalry in the army’s rear until the Tullahoma campaign. His overly cautious decisions at Hoover’s Gap, his only fight of consequence, bespoke Reynolds’s irresolute view of his own abilities. He was Thomas’s least experienced division commander. In July his division numbered 6,465 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 7,745 soldiers. Reynolds’s First Brigade commander, Col. John Wilder, thirty-three, was everything that Reynolds was not. An aggressive and self-assured man, Wilder had early left his New York home and by 1861 was a successful industrialist in Greensburg, Indiana. Joining the Seventeenth Indiana Infantry regiment, he served with it under Reynolds and Rosecrans in western Virginia. Promoted to colonel, he participated in the operations around Corinth, made a gallant but unsuccessful defense of Munfordville, Kentucky, and was given a brigade. By the summer of 1863, he had turned his command into mounted infantry armed with the Spencer rifle, giving his brigade unique capabilities. Less flamboyant was the Second Brigade commander, Col. Milton Robinson, thirty-one. A prewar attorney and colonel of the Seventy-Fifth Indiana Infantry regiment, Robinson gained brigade command in June. Finally, Brig. Gen. George Crook commanded the Third Brigade. Crook, thirty-four, was an 1852 West point graduate with extensive service on the Pacific coast. Appointed colonel of the Thirty-Sixth Ohio Infantry regiment in 1861, he led it in western Virginia. Promoted to brigadier general, he held brigade command at South Mountain and Antietam before transferring west in February 1863. In Reynolds’s division since June, Crook was Reynolds’s most experienced brigade commander.³⁵

Unlike the Fourteenth Corps, Rosecrans’s Twentieth Corps consisted of only three infantry divisions. Commanded by Maj. Gen. Alexander McDowell McCook, the corps in July numbered 13,913 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 16,056 men and 54 artillery pieces. Only thirty-two in the summer of 1863, McCook was an Ohio native and a 1852 West Point graduate. Commissioned into the infantry, McCook spent five years in the American Southwest, participating in various expeditions and skirmishes in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado Territories. Posted to West Point in 1858 as an assistant professor of tactics, he was there in April 1861 when the Civil War erupted. He quickly received command of the First Ohio Infantry regiment and led it at First Manassas. Commissioned brigadier general to rank from September 1861, McCook transferred to the western theater, where he led first a brigade then the Second Division of the Army of the Ohio. As a division commander he participated in the capture of Nashville, the second day of the battle of Shiloh, the siege of Corinth, and the advance on Chattanooga. Promoted to major general in July 1862, he received command of a corps in the early stages of the Kentucky campaign and played a major role at Perryville. Upon Buell’s relief, Rosecrans retained McCook in corps command as leader of the army’s Right Wing. As such, he participated in the battle of Stones River at the end of 1862. In the reorganization of the army that followed Stones River, McCook’s command was designated the Twentieth Corps. When the army resumed its advance in the Tullahoma campaign, the Twentieth Corps served as a fixing force while other elements of the army maneuvered to outflank the Confederates. After a hard-fought but minor action at Liberty Gap, McCook and his men simply followed the other corps as they ushered Bragg’s army beyond the Elk River. There they remained in July, staring at the heights of the Cumberland Plateau and garrisoning the towns of Tullahoma, Winchester, Decherd, and Cowan along the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad.³⁶

A heavy-set man approaching 250 pounds (and thereby called “Old Big bellyed McCook” by his men), McCook betrayed his relative youth in his soft facial features. Friendly and boisterous, he participated fully in the drinking and cursing that seemed to pervade the army’s officer corps. Nevertheless, many officers harbored grave doubts about McCook’s capacity for command at the corps level. His years as a tactics instructor at West Point and his small role in the war’s first major battle gained him early promotion and a reputation as a tactician. The list of campaigns and battles in which he participated was also impressive. A closer look at his performance as a corps commander at Perryville and Stones River, however, was troubling. At Perryville, McCook gave ground, lost heavily, barely held his own against a determined attack, and was censured by Buell for not informing him of the deteriorating situation. At Stones River, McCook’s corps was surprised, routed, and barely survived, a strikingly similar performance to its actions in Kentucky. Physically courageous and a hero to his staff, Alex McCook was dismissed by many perceptive officers in the Army of the Cumberland. Brigade commanders William Hazen and John Beatty spoke disparagingly of McCook, Hazen deriding his “boastful over-confidence” and Beatty calling him a “chucklehead” and a “blockhead.” The caustic reporter William Shanks called McCook “an overgrown school-boy, without dignity.” In fact, the genial and well-meaning commander of the Twentieth Corps was grossly immature, unsuited for the high position he occupied. Nevertheless, his membership in the clan of “Fighting McCooks,” with its strong Ohio political connections, had raised him to corps command. James Garfield early recognized McCook’s incapacity and argued for his replacement, but Rosecrans demurred, even as he agreed with the judgment. Thus Alexander McCook remained commander of the Twentieth Corps in July 1863.³⁷

McCook’s First Division contained 4,307 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 4,973. Its commander was probably the most notorious officer in the Army of the Cumberland, Brig. Gen. Jefferson Columbus Davis, thirty-five, of Indiana. A youthful volunteer in the Mexican War, Davis received a direct commission in the Regular Army as an artillery officer at age twenty. A lieutenant at Fort Sumter in 1861, he participated in the action that began the war. A connection to Indiana governor Oliver Morton, gained while serving as a mustering officer, led first to a colonel’s appointment and in December 1861 a brigadier general’s commission. Davis commanded a division at Pea Ridge in March 1862 and again in the operations around Corinth. While on sick leave, he learned of the Confederate invasion of Kentucky and rushed to offer his services at Louisville. Assigned to organize new units, he quickly came into conflict with the imperious giant Maj. Gen. William “Bull” Nelson, who temporarily banished him beyond the Ohio River. Equally aggressive but small in stature, Davis returned to Louisville and confronted Nelson, then in front of numerous witnesses assassinated the much larger but unarmed officer. Never brought to account for this shocking act, Davis soon returned to duty as a division commander. He fought in that capacity at Stones River and participated in the Tullahoma campaign but remained a marked man. Davis’s First Brigade commander was Col. Sidney Post, a New York native. An attorney in Illinois and Kansas Territory before the war, Post in 1861 joined the Fifty-Ninth Illinois Infantry regiment, rising ultimately to command it. Seriously wounded at Pea Ridge, he attained brigade command in September 1862 but illness kept him from seeing action until Stones River. Leading the Second Brigade was Brig. Gen. William Carlin, thirty-three, Davis’s most experienced subordinate. An Illinois native and 1850 West Point graduate, Carlin participated in numerous frontier campaigns and rose to captain by 1861. Commissioned colonel of the Thirty-Eighth Illinois Infantry regiment, he quickly gained command of a brigade, leading it at Corinth, Perryville, and Stones River. Col. Hans Heg, thirty-three, commanded Davis’s Third Brigade. Born in Norway in 1829, he came to America in 1840 and settled in Wisconsin. A forty-niner, farmer, merchant, and minor Republican officeholder, Heg played a major role in rallying Norwegian Americans to the Union cause in 1861. Appointed colonel of the Fifteenth Wisconsin Infantry regiment, he saw heavy action at Perryville and Stones River and was rewarded with brigade command in May 1863.³⁸

McCook’s Second Division numbered 5,183 officers and men present for duty in July, with an aggregate present of 6,007. Its commander, Brig. Gen. Richard W. Johnson, thirty-six, had an uneven record. Born in Kentucky to parents of Virginia heritage, he graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1849. He spent the bulk of his prewar career on frontier duty in Texas, first in the infantry, later as a cavalryman. A captain at the outbreak of the war, he began his service in western Virginia but soon transferred to Kentucky, where he gained promotion to brigadier general in late 1861 and command of a brigade in McCook’s division. Missing Shiloh because of illness, he participated in the siege of Corinth and Buell’s advance on Chattanooga. Sent by Buell with a mixed force to intercept Confederate raider Col. John Morgan in August 1862, Johnson was routed and forced to surrender with part of his command near Gallatin, Tennessee. Exchanged in December, he received command of a division. At Stones River, his division was the first Federal unit to be crushed. The subject of a whispering campaign insinuating treason, he nevertheless retained McCook’s and Rosecrans’s favor and remained in command. Johnson’s First Brigade was led by Brig. Gen. August Willich, fifty-two. Born in Prussia, he was a professional soldier until the revolutionary turmoil of 1846–48. A committed communist, he fled Europe, reaching the United States in 1853. The crisis of 1861 found him editing a German-language newspaper in Cincinnati. As colonel of the all-German Thirty-Second Indiana Infantry regiment, he performed heroically at Shiloh. Promoted to brigadier general in July 1862 and given a brigade, he missed Perryville but was unhorsed and captured at Stones River. Exchanged after four months, “Papa” Willich retained his reputation as a hard-fighting disciplinarian. Less distinguished was Col. Joseph Dodge, thirty-three, commander of the Second Brigade. A teacher, Dodge began his military career as the lieutenant colonel of the Thirtieth Indiana Infantry regiment. Upon the death of the regimental commander at Shiloh, Dodge was promoted to colonel. He missed Perryville and was part of the division’s rout at Stones River. The mortal wounding of his brigade commander in that battle raised Dodge to his place. Fellow brigade commander John Beatty called Dodge “a very industrious talker, chewer, spitter, and drinker,” implying that he was something of a braggart. Not so Col. Philemon Baldwin, twenty-six, the Third Brigade commander. Beginning the war as a captain in the Sixth Indiana Infantry regiment, Baldwin became colonel of the regiment after participating in the battle of Shiloh. Missing Perryville, he became brigade commander just days before Stones River. A strong performance in that fight brought the young and impetuous Baldwin a recommendation for promotion by Johnson.³⁹

Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, thirty-two, commanded the Third Division of the Twentieth Corps, which numbered 4,414 officers and men present for duty in July 1863 and had an aggregate present of 5,067. The son of Irish immigrants to New York, Sheridan gained appointment to West Point from Ohio and graduated, after a year off for fighting, in 1853. Standing only five inches over five feet and weighing no more than 130 pounds, he had the pugnacity often seen in men of small stature. Other than a slight wound, his prewar career on the frontier was unremarkable. Sheridan began his war service as a quartermaster, first in Missouri and later during the advance on Corinth. Chosen colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry in May 1862, he won several small actions in Mississippi. By September he was a brigadier general commanding an infantry brigade sent to counter the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. Unexpectedly promoted to lead a division prior to the battle of Perryville, he performed adequately at best in that confused fight. At Stones River, Sheridan’s division lost 40 percent of its soldiers but was prominent in the Union victory. Profane and self-assured, by July Sheridan had gained a reputation as a fighter and was a favorite of Rosecrans. His First Brigade commander, Brig. Gen. William Lytle, thirty-six, was one of the best-known figures in the army. A Cincinnati lawyer, politician, and minor poet, Lytle parlayed brief Mexican War service and political connections into the colonelcy of the Tenth Ohio Infantry regiment. Wounded at Carnifex Ferry in western Virginia in 1861, he gained brigade command in early 1862, only to be more seriously wounded and captured at Perryville in October. After exchange and a lengthy convalescence, he was promoted to brigadier general in March 1863. Sheridan’s Second Brigade belonged to Col. Bernhard Laibold, thirty-six, a native of the German state of Baden. A resident of St. Louis since childhood, Laibold was prominent in the militia and entered the war as lieutenant colonel of the Second Missouri Infantry regiment. The absence of his colonel gave Laibold regimental command at Pea Ridge and brigade command at Perryville, both of which earned him commendation. He again took brigade command at Stones River when his colonel was killed and retained the brigade as colonel in January 1863. Sheridan’s Third Brigade commander was Col. Luther Bradley, forty, a Connecticut native and resident of Illinois. Another prewar militiaman, Bradley began his service as lieutenant colonel of the Fifty-First Illinois Infantry regiment in 1861 and was present at Island No. 10, Corinth, and the defense of Nashville. Promoted to colonel and regimental command in October 1862, he first saw major action at Stones River, where his brigade commander was killed, elevating Bradley to the position. Handling the brigade creditably, Bradley remained in command into 1863.⁴⁰

Like the Twentieth Corps, the Twenty-First Corps contained only three divisions. Led by Maj. Gen. Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, the corps in July 1863 numbered 14,394 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 17,034 men and fifty-eight cannon. Crittenden, forty-four, was a native of Kentucky and the son of powerful Senator John Crittenden, a prewar voice for compromise between the sections. Educated as an attorney, Thomas Crittenden gravitated into politics until the Mexican War, when he enlisted as an aide to Zachary Taylor. Finishing the war as lieutenant colonel of a Kentucky volunteer regiment, Crittenden parlayed his war service and political connections into a position as U.S. consul in Liverpool, a position he held until 1852. Thereafter he practiced law and engaged in business in Louisville until the crisis of 1861. Although his older brother George joined the Confederacy as a general officer, Thomas held steadfast to the Union, as did his father. Active in the Kentucky State Guard, he became the commander of the loyal faction when Simon Buckner took the remainder into the Confederate Army. In September 1861 Crittenden received an appointment as brigadier general of volunteers, although his formal military education was nonexistent. Later that year the troops under his command were organized into a small division, which he commanded at Shiloh and throughout the operations around Corinth. Promoted to major general in July, he gained corps command in Buell’s Army of the Ohio in September. Crittenden led the Second Corps at Perryville in October 1862 and retained corps command when Rosecrans replaced Buell. He commanded the Left Wing of the Army of the Cumberland at Stones River in December 1862. In Rosecrans’s January 1863 reorganization of the army, Crittenden’s Left Wing became the Twenty-First Corps. As such, it participated in the Tullahoma campaign in June.⁴¹

A full beard, lank hair falling to his collar, and a penetrating gaze gave Crittenden the physical appearance of a decisive leader, but his actual persona belied such an assessment. In truth, Crittenden was a mild-mannered and inoffensive personality who shrank from controversy and confrontation. Throughout his life he had stood in the long shadow of his father, desperately seeking the older man’s approval for his every action. The failure of George Crittenden to rise above his affinity for alcohol placed an even greater burden on his younger brother. Fear of personal failure thus caused Thomas Crittenden to avoid risk wherever possible and remain passive in situations where a more confident individual might have seized an opportunity. His desire to please his father was also reflected in his relationships with other authority figures, especially his military superiors. Despite his obvious personal bravery and exalted rank, Crittenden was a born follower, not a leader. The prominence of his father in national affairs, and the key role of Kentucky early in the war, had much to do with his initial rise in the ranks of general officers. He had neither formal military education nor command experience at regimental or brigade level when he found himself commanding a division in late 1861. After only one day in serious combat at Shiloh, he rose to corps command at Perryville but did not participate seriously in the battle. At Stones River, Rosecrans piecemealed the Left Wing’s troops into action, leaving Crittenden few opportunities to lead his command as a unit. A lax administrator between campaigns and a weak disciplinarian, he was nevertheless a favorite with the men in the ranks who saw only his kindliness toward them, not his indecisiveness. James Garfield was not fooled and lumped Crittenden with McCook, but Rosecrans liked Crittenden’s accommodating personality and inoffensive demeanor and retained him in command of the Twenty-First Corps.⁴²

Crittenden’s First Division numbered 4,558 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 5,245 soldiers. The division’s commander, Brig. Gen. Thomas John Wood, thirty-nine, was the antithesis of Crittenden. A Kentuckian like his chief, Wood graduated from West Point in 1845. Initially a member of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, he served with distinction in the Mexican War, winning a brevet for gallantry at Buena Vista. Transferring to the cavalry, he spent the next ten years on the frontier with various cavalry regiments. Upon returning from a two-year leave of absence in Europe, he found the nation in crisis and was sent to Indiana to organize that state’s volunteers. Promoted to brigadier general in October 1861, he, like Crittenden, received command of a division in the Army of the Ohio late that year. He arrived at Shiloh too late to affect the outcome, and his division had little to do at Perryville, but at Stones River his command was heavily engaged and he was painfully wounded in the left foot. Small in stature yet feisty in demeanor, Wood was known throughout the army for his experience, erudition, and an especially salty vocabulary. He was considered by at least one observer to be Crittenden’s mentor, furnishing all of the corps commander’s “military brains.” Wood’s First Brigade was led by Col. George Buell, twenty-nine, a native of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and first cousin of Don Carlos Buell. A graduate of Norwich University, Buell worked briefly as a civil engineer before joining the Fifty-Eighth Indiana Infantry regiment in December 1861. Promoted to colonel in June 1862, he led the regiment at Perryville and Stones River. He attained brigade command in January 1863 when his superior transferred to another department. Brig. Gen. George Wagner, thirty-three, commanded Wood’s Second Brigade. A native of Ohio but long associated with Indiana, Wagner was a prewar Republican Party stalwart. Appointed colonel of the Fifteenth Indiana Infantry regiment in June 1861, he gained brigade command in February 1862. Present but only lightly involved at Shiloh and Perryville, the brigade participated vigorously in the first day’s fight at Stones River. Wagner gained promotion to brigadier general in April 1863. Commander of the division’s Third Brigade was Col. Charles Harker, twenty-seven. An orphan from New Jersey, Harker by dint of hard work gained an appointment to West Point, graduating in 1858. After brief frontier service, he organized Ohio troops, receiving command of the Sixty-Fifth Ohio Infantry regiment in November 1861. Arriving too late to fight at Shiloh, Harker ascended to brigade command in July 1862 when his superior, James Garfield, took sick leave. The brigade saw no action at Perryville but was seriously engaged at Stones River. Afterward, Wood recommended him for a brigadier’s commission despite his youth and naked ambition.⁴³

The Second Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. John McAuley Palmer, forty-five, in July contained 5,165 officers and men, with an aggregate present of 6,233 soldiers. Palmer, a native of Kentucky but resident of Illinois, was an attorney and politician. Initially a Democrat with strong antislavery views, he played a major role in the formation of the Republican Party, unsuccessfully running for Congress on that ticket in 1859. A delegate to the Republican Convention in 1860, he supported the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for president. Such connections brought him the colonelcy of the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry regiment in May 1861 and a brigadier’s star in December of the same year. He commanded a brigade and a division in the Army of the Mississippi, performing well at Island No. 10 and the siege of Corinth. His division remained in Nashville during the Kentucky campaign, thus missing Perryville. At Stones River his command played a key role in stabilizing the army’s left. As a reward, he was promoted to major general in March 1863. Like George Thomas, Palmer was a steady performer of solid reputation, but his lack of West Point credentials was a source of friction between him and those more classically educated. Leading Palmer’s First Brigade was Brig. Gen. Charles Cruft, thirty-seven, from Terre Haute, Indiana. A lawyer and railroad president, Cruft entered the war as colonel of the Thirty-First Indiana Infantry regiment in September 1861. Gaining brigade command soon thereafter, he saw action at Fort Donelson (one wound), Shiloh (three wounds), and the siege of Corinth. Promoted to brigadier general in July 1862, he performed heroically during the rout at Richmond, Kentucky (one wound), but was not engaged at Perryville. At Stones River, Cruft again was in the midst of the heaviest fighting, making him one of the army’s most experienced brigade commanders. Equally proficient was the Second Brigade commander, Brig. Gen. William Hazen, thirty-two. A Vermont native raised in Ohio, Hazen graduated from West Point in 1855. After frontier duty in Oregon and Texas (one wound), Hazen was a tactics instructor at West Point when the war broke out. Appointed colonel of the Forty-First Ohio Infantry regiment in September 1861, he soon attained brigade command. Heavily involved on the second day at Shiloh but not engaged at Perryville, Hazen’s command was the keystone of the army’s defense at Stones River. His performance gained him promotion to brigadier general. Col. William Grose, fifty, led Palmer’s Third Brigade. Born in Ohio but a Hoosier since infancy, Grose was an attorney, minor politician, and judge. Joining the Republican Party in 1856, he received the colonelcy of the Thirty-Sixth Indiana Infantry regiment from his patron, Governor Oliver Morton, in October 1861. Grose led the regiment at Shiloh in April 1862 (one wound) and advanced to brigade command when his superior was promoted in August. Not engaged at Perryville, he participated fully at Stones River. An average commander, his record paled in comparison to that of Cruft and Hazen.⁴⁴

The Third Division of the Twenty-First Corps in July numbered 4,506 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 5,067 soldiers. Its leader was Brig. Gen. Horatio Phillips Van Cleve, fifty-three, a native of New Jersey and West Point graduate in the class of 1831. After uneventful garrison duty in Wisconsin, Van Cleve resigned his second lieutenant’s commission in 1836. Thereafter he pursued a variety of occupations—farmer, teacher, civil engineer, surveyor, stockman—in the upper Midwest. The outbreak of war found him in Minnesota, where he became the colonel of the Second Minnesota Infantry regiment in July 1861. He commanded the regiment in the small battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky, in January 1862. Promoted to brigadier general in March, he missed Shiloh but commanded one of Crittenden’s brigades in the advance on Corinth. He remained a brigade commander until just before the battle of Perryville, when he succeeded Crittenden in division command. Van Cleve saw no action at Perryville but was heavily engaged at Stones River until wounded in the right leg on the first day of the battle. The oldest division commander in the Army of the Cumberland, his bald head, glasses, and gray beard caused his troops to call him “grand pap.” His First Brigade commander was Brig. Gen. Samuel Beatty, forty-two, a Pennsylvanian long associated with Ohio. A farmer with little formal education, Beatty gained military experience as a volunteer officer in the Mexican War. Postwar he served two terms as sheriff of Stark County, Ohio. Forming a company of the Nineteenth Ohio Infantry regiment, he soon was elected colonel. Successful regimental command at Rich Mountain and Shiloh gained him a brigade in May 1862. Unengaged at Perryville, he received a brigadier’s star in November. After heavy fighting on the first day at Stones River, he briefly succeeded to division command during Van Cleve’s convalescence. Col. George Dick, thirty-four, commanded Van Cleve’s Second Brigade. A tobacconist from Ohio, Dick raised a company in the Twentieth Indiana Infantry regiment in July 1861. He shared the fortunes of that regiment on the Atlantic seaboard and in the Army of the Potomac until October 1862, seeing much action and rising to major. In November he was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Eighty-Sixth Indiana Infantry regiment and rose to command it at Stones River when its colonel was relieved. In January 1863 he gained promotion to colonel and in March attained brigade command. Col. Sidney Barnes, forty-two, led Van Cleve’s Third Brigade. A Kentucky attorney, Barnes raised the Eighth Kentucky Infantry regiment and was elected colonel in August 1861. The regiment spent the next year peacefully guarding railroads. Barnes and his unit were present but unengaged at Perryville, after which he took an extended leave of absence to tend to personal affairs in Kentucky, thereby missing Stones River. Without significant combat experience, he nevertheless gained brigade command in April 1863.⁴⁵

Anticipating the need to garrison Middle Tennessee before resuming his advance in the summer of 1863, Rosecrans on 8 June created a Reserve Corps of three divisions. In July it consisted of 17,085 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 20,359 men and forty guns. It was commanded by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, forty, a native of New York and an 1845 West Point graduate. Granger began his career in the Infantry but transferred to the Mounted Rifles just prior to the war with Mexico. During Winfield Scott’s advance on Mexico City, he won brevets for gallantry at Contreras/Churubusco and Chapultepec. Postwar, he spent the bulk of his time on frontier duty in Texas and New Mexico. Promoted to captain in May 1861, he was a staff officer at Wilson’s Creek, where he received another brevet. Appointed colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry regiment in September 1861, he joined Pope’s force attacking New Madrid, Missouri, and Island No. 10. Promoted to brigadier general in March 1862, he commanded Pope’s cavalry in the Army of the Mississippi during its advance on Corinth. When Rosecrans replaced Pope, Granger added an infantry division to his command in August. The following month he and his troops were sent to Kentucky in response to the Confederate invasion of that state. There he was promoted to major general and assumed command of three divisions of mostly new regiments styled the Army of Kentucky. Subsequent reorganizations reduced Granger’s command to little more than a division by January 1863. With the threat to Kentucky receding, Granger’s command moved to Nashville in February to augment the Department of the Cumberland. From that nucleus Rosecrans created the Reserve Corps. Dour, plain-spoken, and rude to a fault, inflexible of thought, and something of a martinet, Granger was utterly fearless and considered by many of his men to be a strong leader. Others chafed under his draconian disciplinary measures. He also was untried in battle, having seen no combat since Wilson’s Creek in the summer of 1861.⁴⁶

Granger’s First Division in July 1863 numbered 5,355 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 6,611 soldiers. It was commanded by Brig. Gen. Absalom Baird, thirty-eight, a Pennsylvanian and a West Point graduate in the class of 1849. An artilleryman by branch, Baird served in Florida, Texas, and at West Point as an instructor prior to 1861. Transferring from line to staff when the war began, he was present at First Bull Run and was an inspector general in the Fourth Corps during the Peninsula campaign. Promoted to brigadier general in April 1862, he commanded a brigade in the Army of the Ohio until October, a district in the Department of the Ohio until November, and a division in Granger’s Army of Kentucky until it became part of the Reserve Corps in June 1863. Short in stature but sporting a magnificent mustache and beard, Baird had seen no significant combat action after two years at war. None of his brigade commanders were professional soldiers. Baird’s First Brigade commander, Col. Smith Atkins, twenty-seven, of the Ninety-Second Illinois Infantry regiment, was a newspaperman and attorney. He had seen action at Fort Donelson with the Eleventh Illinois Infantry regiment and had been a staff officer at Shiloh. The Second Brigade commander, Col. William Reid, thirty-eight, an attorney, had raised the 121st Ohio Infantry regiment in September 1862, and had witnessed his ill-trained unit’s disgrace at Perryville. The regiment’s training and discipline had improved little by the time Reid ascended to brigade command in early 1863. The Third Brigade commander, Col. John Coburn, thirty-seven, of the Thirty-Third Indiana Infantry regiment, was an attorney and politician. A brigade commander since October 1862, he and most of his command had been captured in March 1863 at Thompson’s Station and only recently exchanged.⁴⁷

Brig. Gen. James Dada Morgan, fifty-two, commanded Granger’s Second Division, which in July consisted of 6,638 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 7,632 soldiers. Originally from Boston, Morgan originally was a merchant seaman but left that profession after a harrowing two weeks in an open boat following a mutiny. He moved to Quincy, Illinois, and began a successful career there as a merchant. Active in militia affairs, he served in an Illinois volunteer regiment during the Mexican War, participating in the battle of Buena Vista. Commissioned colonel of the Tenth Illinois Infantry regiment in the summer of 1861, Morgan in early 1862 gained brigade command in Pope’s expedition against New Madrid and Island No. 10, and the operations around Corinth. Promoted to brigadier general in July 1862, he and his brigade transferred to the Army of the Ohio, where they garrisoned Nashville during the Kentucky campaign. Similarly, his brigade guarded the rear of the Army of the Cumberland during the battle of Stones River. For several months during the first half of 1863, Morgan commanded a division in the Fourteenth Corps but by May was only in charge of the post of Nashville. He again attained division command with the formation of the Reserve Corps, but his experience as a combat commander was extremely limited. His First Brigade was commanded by Col. Robert Smith, fifty-six, a farmer who had raised the Sixteenth Illinois Infantry regiment in 1861. Smith’s war experience mirrored Morgan’s. The Second Brigade was led by Col. Daniel McCook Jr., twenty-nine, younger brother of the Twentieth Corps commander. A law partner of William Sherman, he saw action at Wilson’s Creek, served on Alex McCook’s staff at Shiloh, then became colonel of the Fifty-Second Ohio Infantry regiment in July 1862. Attaining brigade command two months later, he saw limited action at Perryville and Stones River. Gaunt and in poor health, he nevertheless retained brigade command in July 1863. Col. Charles Doolittle, thirty-one, commanded Morgan’s Third Brigade. Born in Vermont, by 1861 he was working in the glass business in Michigan. Joining the Fourth Michigan Infantry regiment as a company officer, he served with the unit during heavy fighting on the Virginia Peninsula (one wound). Appointed colonel of the Eighteenth Michigan Infantry regiment in August 1862, he gained brigade command in November.⁴⁸

The Third Division of the Reserve Corps was led by Brig. Gen. Robert Seaman Granger, forty-seven, a native of Ohio unrelated to Gordon Granger. In July 1863 the command contained 4,694 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 6,018 soldiers. A West Point graduate in 1838, Granger participated in brief operations against the Seminole Indians, taught at West Point, and served in the occupation of Mexico. He spent the 1850s at several posts in Texas, which did not improve his often precarious health. Captured with most of the regulars in Texas at the outbreak of the Civil War, he was paroled under terms prohibiting service in the field until exchange. He therefore marked time in Ohio and Kentucky until formally exchanged in August 1862. Commissioned brigadier general of volunteers in October, he commanded a brigade in the Army of the Ohio that garrisoned Bowling Green, Kentucky, thereby missing both Perryville and Stones River. Transferring to Nashville in early 1863, Granger filled various interim brigade and divisional commands in the Fourteenth Corps until assigned to command the post of Nashville and a division in the Reserve Corps in June. His combat experience at brigade and division levels was essentially nil. Granger’s First Brigade was commanded by Col. Sanders Bruce, thirty-seven, of Kentucky. Brother-in-law and erstwhile business partner of Confederate cavalry commander John Morgan, Bruce formed the Twentieth Kentucky Infantry regiment in late 1861 and gained brigade command shortly thereafter. He led the brigade in the second day’s fighting at Shiloh, where he was injured by the fall of his horse. He continued in brigade command during operations around Corinth and until the unit’s return to Kentucky in August 1862. Thereafter he commanded several posts in rear areas, most notably at Clarksville, Tennessee. Brig. Gen. William Ward, fifty-four, led Granger’s Second Brigade. A native of Virginia long associated with Kentucky, Ward was an attorney and politician. Brief service in the Mexican War and political prominence brought him a brigadier general’s commission in September 1861. He became a brigade commander in November and thereafter garrisoned a series of posts in Kentucky and Tennessee, never seeing major combat action.⁴⁹

In addition to the four infantry corps, the Army of the Cumberland also contained a Cavalry Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. David Sloane Stanley, thirty-five. In July 1863 the Cavalry Corps numbered 10,883 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 12,636 soldiers and nine cannon. A native of Ohio, Stanley graduated from West Point in 1852 as a cavalryman. He spent the 1850s on frontier duty in Texas, Kansas Territory, and Indian Territory, narrowly escaping death or serious injury several times. He participated in the army’s efforts to keep the peace in eastern Kansas in 1856, privately supporting the Free State faction although later in Indian Territory he briefly owned three slaves. Upon the outbreak of war he participated in several small skirmishes in Missouri and guarded the Federal trains at Wilson’s Creek in August. Promoted to brigadier general in September 1861, he was out of action for several months with a fractured ankle. In early 1862 he commanded a division in Pope’s campaign against New Madrid and Island No. 10. He then moved with Pope to join the siege of Corinth. When Rosecrans replaced Pope, he retained Stanley in division command and relied heavily upon him in the battles of Iuka and Corinth. When he moved to Tennessee, Rosecrans specifically asked that Stanley be transferred to command his mounted units. Reporting in late November 1862, Stanley commanded the Cavalry Corps at Stones River in December, in several minor actions during the first half of 1863, and in the Tullahoma campaign. As a result of his performance, he was promoted to major general. Well-proportioned physically, he wore a full beard and had a serious demeanor that belied his prewar reputation for droll wit. Outspoken and fearless in battle, Stanley was one of the most battle-tested commanders in the Army of the Cumberland.⁵⁰

Stanley’s First Division was commanded by Brig. Gen. Robert Byington Mitchell, forty, another Ohio native. In July 1863 the division numbered 5,693 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 6,763 soldiers. An attorney, Mitchell parlayed service as a junior officer in the Mexican War into a political career in Kansas Territory during the latter half of the 1850s. A delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1860, he organized the Second Kansas Infantry regiment upon the outbreak of war. Seriously wounded at Wilson’s Creek in August 1861, he was slow to recover. Appointed brigadier general in April 1862, he commanded a brigade at Ft. Riley, Kansas, in May and took it to Kentucky in June. The following month his brigade became part of the Army of the Mississippi at Corinth. Gaining division command when his superior became ill, Mitchell joined the Army of the Ohio during the Kentucky campaign but was not seriously engaged at Perryville. He next led a division in the Fourteenth Corps, but it remained at Nashville during the battle of Stones River. Thereafter, Mitchell commanded the Nashville garrison until assigned to the First Cavalry Division in May. Known for his mercurial temper and general pomposity, he was disparaged by at least one contemporary. Stanley himself detested Mitchell, claiming he was foisted on the cavalry by Garfield for political reasons. The division’s First Brigade was led by Col. Archibald Campbell, thirty-four, a native of Scotland. Campbell entered the war as a captain in the Second Michigan Cavalry regiment and rose to lieutenant colonel by the time of Perryville, where he was wounded. Promoted to colonel in early 1863, he gained brigade command in March, extricating his command from the Thompson’s Station debacle that same month. Col. Edward McCook, thirty, commanded Mitchell’s Second Brigade. A first cousin of Alex and Daniel McCook, he was an attorney and politician in the Colorado portion of Kansas Territory. Joining the Second Indiana Cavalry regiment in 1861, he was promoted to colonel in April 1862. Gaining brigade command in September, he was present but barely engaged at Perryville. Taking leave in December after suffering a slight head wound, he missed Stones River but returned to brigade command in early 1863. Flamboyant in dress and notorious for rakish behavior, McCook profited from his family’s political connections. The Third Brigade was commanded by Col. Louis Watkins, twenty-nine, a Florida native long associated with the District of Columbia. Watkins joined the Regular Army in 1861 as a first lieutenant. While serving in the Fifth U.S. Cavalry, he was severely wounded at the battle of Gaines’ Mill in June 1862. Commissioned colonel of the Sixth Kentucky Cavalry regiment in February 1863, he attained brigade command when the Third Brigade was organized early in July.⁵¹

Brig. Gen. John Basil Turchin, forty-one, commanded the Second Cavalry Division, whose strength in July 1863 stood at 5,187 officers and men present for duty, with an aggregate present of 5,870 soldiers. A native of Russia, Turchin was an 1841 graduate of the Imperial Military School at St. Petersburg. Serving variously as artilleryman, staff officer, and engineer, he participated in the Hungarian War of 1848 and the Crimean War before leaving the Russian Army as a colonel. Immigrating to the United States in 1856, he worked as a civil engineer for the Illinois Central Railroad. Appointed colonel of the Nineteenth Illinois Infantry regiment in June 1861, Turchin perfected his unit’s drill, while mounting a vigorous campaign for higher rank. In the spring of 1862 Buell elevated Turchin to brigade command. During an advance into northern Alabama, his troops pillaged the town of Athens. A court-martial convicted Turchin of neglect of duty, conduct unbecoming an officer, and violation of an order to bar females from camp. Accordingly, he was dismissed from the service in August. Powerful friends in Illinois quickly interceded with President Lincoln, who not only reinstated Turchin to command but promoted him to brigadier general. Assigned to the Army of the Cumberland in March 1863, he gained command of the Second Cavalry Division upon its organization in May. No horseman, seriously overweight, and accompanied in the field by his imperious wife, Nadine, Turchin stood even lower in Stanley’s estimation than Mitchell. Another foreigner, Col. Robert Horatio George Minty, thirty-one, commanded Turchin’s First Brigade. A native of Ireland, Minty initially served in the British Army as an ensign. Immigrating to Michigan in 1853, he was in the railroad business when the war came. By September 1861, he was lieutenant colonel of the Third Michigan Cavalry regiment and served with that unit through the New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Corinth campaigns. Appointed colonel of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry regiment in July 1862, he missed Perryville but participated in the pursuit to Nashville. He gained brigade command in late December and participated fully in the Stones River and Tullahoma campaigns. The Second Brigade was led by Col. Eli Long, twenty-six, a Kentuckian. Educated at the Frankfort Military Institute, Long was appointed a second lieutenant in the First U.S. Cavalry in 1856. He spent most of the next five years on escort duty in Kansas Territory. Transferred to Kentucky as a captain in February 1862, he was part of the escort for both Buell and Rosecrans. Wounded in the left shoulder at Stones River, he was appointed colonel of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry regiment in February 1863. His promotion to brigade command came in June.⁵²

Such was the Army of the Cumberland and such were its senior leaders on the eve of their greatest, and last, independent campaign. Led by a seasoned and supremely self-confident commander, supported by a large and generally efficient staff, the army was less well-served by its subordinate leaders at corps-level and below. Thomas had a successful record of achievement as a corps commander, but McCook, Crittenden, Granger, and Stanley either had little experience at that echelon of command or had been tried in the crucible of battle and found wanting. The division commanders were also a mixed bag, with each corps having at least one who was weak, inexperienced, or both. At the brigade level, there were both outstanding combat leaders and political appointees lacking military skill, in more or less equal numbers. Almost to a man, the troops came from the Midwest. Of the 242 individual regiments and batteries in the army in July 1863, Ohio furnished 66, Indiana provided 50, and Illinois rostered 48. Kentucky came next, with 21 units, followed by Michigan with 15 and Wisconsin with 12. The Regular Army provided ten units to the Army of the Cumberland, and Pennsylvania, the only Eastern state represented, sent seven. Loyalist Tennessee units numbered six, Missouri added three, Minnesota sent two, while Kansas and Iowa provided one each. In general, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps contained the most combat-tested regiments, while most units of the Twenty-First Corps had seen less fighting, and the Reserve Corps formations mostly lacked serious battle experience. The relatively new Cavalry Corps had yet to prove itself equal to its Confederate opponents. Most of the 172 infantry regiments were armed with either the .58-caliber Springfield rifle musket or the equivalent British Enfield rifle, but a smattering of units carried either 1842-pattern rifled muskets or European imports of varying calibers, and only one brigade was armed with the powerful Spencer repeating rifle. The forty-seven field artillery batteries contained approximately 240 guns, with 118 smoothbore and 122 rifled pieces. Unfortunately, forty-two of the smoothbores were obsolescent six-pounders and twelve-pounder howitzers, while forty-four rifles were the inefficient James pattern. The twenty-four cavalry regiments were equipped with a wide variety of single-shot carbines and revolvers, and they had yet to abandon the saber. All in all, the Army of the Cumberland was a formidable fighting force, especially when compared with its opponent, the Confederate Army of Tennessee.⁵³