Dawn on 5 July 1863 found the Army of Tennessee in a precarious position astride the wide Tennessee River. Polk’s Corps was safely on the east bank, having crossed the river on the pontoon bridge located just upstream from the mouth of Battle Creek. In the lead, Withers’s Division lay at Shell Mound Station on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad adjacent to the river. Polk himself camped with Withers. Four miles behind Withers, Cheatham’s Division rested only a short distance south of the pontoon bridge. The bridge itself was unguarded, except for Capt. George Pickett’s engineers who had built it, because Polk considered it of no further value. The army’s other infantry corps, Hardee’s, was still west of the river, preparing to march upstream into the Grand Canyon of the Tennessee toward another pontoon bridge at Kelly’s Ferry. Elements of Cleburne’s Division led Hardee’s column, followed by Stewart’s Division. Covering Hardee’s rear was Forrest’s Cavalry Division. Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps, supporting Polk, was scattered from the valley of Battle Creek downstream to Bridgeport. At Bridgeport itself, Simon Buckner and two brigades from his Department of East Tennessee awaited railroad transportation back to Knoxville. Also at Bridgeport were Braxton Bragg and his staff, attempting with limited success to coordinate the army’s retreat.1
Bragg’s problems began early, with his usual nemesis Polk. On the previous day, Bragg had directed Polk to leave a brigade west of the river to safeguard the pontoon bridge, but Polk had not done so and now at 5:00 A.M. claimed that the order arrived too late. At 7:30 A.M. Polk directed Withers to march eastward to Whiteside Station, on the railroad five miles nearer Chattanooga. He did not tell Bragg what he had done until two hours later, then raised a litany of problems: Withers needed rations; Withers had dismounted his cannon and ammunition chests from their carriages, and had unloaded his ordnance wagons; Withers had 1,200 sick men unable to continue the march into the mountains. To Polk’s mind, all of these problems required locomotives and rolling stock from the already overburdened railroad. Exasperated by Polk’s attitude, Bragg responded that Chief of Staff William Mackall had sent rations to the pontoon bridge by steamer on the previous day, but Polk had made no use of them. Now Bragg ordered Polk’s Corps to march to Chattanooga, reluctantly agreeing to provide rations for Withers’s Division and guard the ordnance Withers had abandoned at Shell Mound. Behind Withers, Cheatham’s Division advanced only to Shell Mound, thereby protecting Withers’s matériel. Cheatham then ordered his own batteries to dismount their guns and ammunition chests for railroad transport as Withers had done. Late in the day, Polk ordered Cheatham not to dismount his guns, but the order came too late for at least one battery, which already had begun the laborious process. In a 5:00 P.M. message to Bragg, Polk calmly apologized for the misunderstanding about the rations, ascribed the dismounting of the artillery to Withers, and blamed Hardee and Wheeler for the unguarded pontoon bridge. When Cheatham indicated that he needed to halt so that his men could cook rations, Polk acquiesced, permitting Cheatham to remain at Shell Mound for the night.2
Elsewhere, the retrograde movement proceeded more smoothly. Hardee’s Corps made good progress toward Kelly’s Ferry. In the lead, Lucius Polk’s Brigade found a 300-yard pontoon bridge constructed by Capt. Morris Wampler’s engineer detachment. Polk’s regiments crossed during the afternoon, following the corps trains, and the remaining seven brigades camped along the road stretching back to the village of Jasper. At Bridgeport, Simon Buckner and the brigades of Archibald Gracie and Robert Trigg boarded trains for Chattanooga and ultimately Knoxville. Wheeler’s command also gathered at Bridgeport to cross the two massive bridges that carried the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad over the Tennessee River. The first bridge, 1,232 feet in length, used nine truss spans and eight stone piers to reach from the west bank of the river to Long Island. Beyond the island, a 428-foot bridge with a swinging draw vaulted the railroad over the main channel of the Tennessee. Planks had been laid on the bridges to facilitate horse and foot travel but there were no guard rails to prevent a forty-foot plunge into the water, requiring the cavalrymen to walk their animals gingerly across the two structures. At dark, when the last elements of Wheeler’s command were safely across the river, men from Jackson’s Brigade set fire to Bridgeport’s public buildings and torched the westernmost two spans of the railroad bridge, dropping them into the river. According to a correspondent of the Macon Telegraph, it was “a grand pyrotechnical display,” but a costly loss. Alex Morgan, a surgeon with the First Confederate Infantry regiment, was equally appalled: “We crossed just at dark with the town in a blaze + then set fire to the magnificent R. R. Bridge. It reminded me of the night we left Corinth. I did hate to see the fine bridge burnt. … It was new + had cost so much labour + money.” When the remainder of the army resumed its eastward movement on the next day, Jackson established picket posts on Long Island to await the expected Federal approach.3
On 6 July, Withers’s Division of Polk’s Corps resumed its march toward Chattanooga. Leaving the river, the route followed the railroad through a narrow passage cut by Running Water Creek between Raccoon and Sand Mountains. After a few miles, the Running Water Creek defile opened into the much larger Lookout Valley and faced the massive bulk of Lookout Mountain. Turning north and continuing to follow the railroad, Withers’s men passed through Wauhatchie Station and crossed Lookout Creek. Climbing over the lowest elevations of the northern tip of Lookout Mountain, they entered the valley of Chattanooga Creek and halted near the town of Chattanooga. By dark all of Withers’s regiments were in camp. Behind them, the soldiers of Cheatham’s Division waited at Shell Mound for trains to carry Withers’s artillery tubes and ammunition to Chattanooga. Given the necessity of using railroad transportation for Withers’s guns, Polk’s order to Cheatham forbidding further dismounting of cannon was canceled and Cheatham’s artillerymen once more separated their guns, chests, and carriages. When the train arrived, the guns, ammunition, and most of the crews loaded and by 2:00 P.M. were on their way to Chattanooga in style. At one point the weight was too great for the toiling engine, but by dividing the train and moving half the cars up the grade at a time, the trainmen completed the journey before dark. The artillery limbers, carriages, and teams meanwhile made their way to Chattanooga by road. Most of Cheatham’s infantrymen advanced no farther than Whiteside Station and camped for the night, but at least one regiment, the Fifty-First Tennessee Infantry, caught a ride on a passing train and rode into Chattanooga well ahead of its less fortunate peers.4
Meanwhile, Hardee’s Corps still had to negotiate Captain Wampler’s pontoon bridge over the Tennessee River at Kelly’s Ferry. The rain, which had plagued the army for several weeks, continued to fall, making the planks slippery, but, unit by unit, Hardee’s men reached the eastern bank of the river successfully. There had been much straggling on the march, and many soldiers had become separated from their parent commands. Some had simply become exhausted and fallen out of line, while others of a more enterprising nature had separated from the column to forage for better food than the army’s commissaries could provide. The pontoon bridge thus represented a choke point where soldiers moving independently could be held until their units crossed, and a provost guard stood at the bridge’s western approach to enforce the edict. When Lt. Robert Collins, who had been permitted to travel independently because of illness, approached the bridge, he found himself forbidden to cross until his regiment, the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry (Dismounted), arrived. While waiting, Collins witnessed an altercation between corps commander Hardee and another straggler. When private and general fell struggling into the river, the guards were so distracted that Collins crossed the bridge without notice. Eventually Hardee’s two divisions completed their crossing and continued forward five miles to Wauhatchie Station on the railroad, where they bivouacked for the night. Wet, weary, and depressed, Hardee relinquished command to Patrick Cleburne and departed for Chattanooga with his staff.5
While the infantry made its way slowly toward Chattanooga, Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps set a slightly different course. After crossing the Tennessee River on the Bridgeport railroad bridge, Wheeler’s two divisions turned east and toiled up Sand Mountain. The top of the mountain was a wide plateau, stretching more than eight miles before the abrupt descent into Lookout Valley. Wheeler’s immediate goal was the town of Trenton, nestled in the narrow Lookout Valley just under twenty miles from Chattanooga. The Tullahoma campaign had been hard on Wheeler’s command. He desperately needed to rest his men and horses and, if possible, recruit their strength by an extended period of inaction. Yet there would certainly be a requirement to guard the river line and provide early warning of any further Federal advance. Trenton therefore represented a momentarily quiet location not too far from the Tennessee River where the cavalry could pause and rest while the army commander pondered his next move. Thus Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps made its way southeast across the broad Sand Mountain plateau on 6 July and halted for the night several miles from the small village that served as the governmental seat of Dade County, Georgia.6
On 7 July the Army of Tennessee began to consolidate around Chattanooga, a city of approximately 2,500 people before the war. Bragg established army headquarters at the commodious house of Reese Bowen Brabson, several blocks east of the city center and a similar distance south of the river. Withers’s Division of Polk’s Corps, having completed its concentration at Chattanooga, established its camps in Chattanooga Valley just south of the city. Cheatham’s Division also entered Chattanooga Valley and bivouacked near the city as well. Polk’s artillerymen gathered their guns and ammunition from the railroad depot and united them with their carriages and limbers. Hardee’s Corps, temporarily under Cleburne’s command, remained in its temporary camps around Wauhatchie Station in Lookout Valley on 7 July but during the next few days gradually moved to more permanent cantonments around Tyner’s Station on the Chattanooga branch of the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad. Most of the regiments moved by rail, a pleasant change from the long, arduous, and rainy marches in Tennessee. Tyner’s Station itself lay ten railroad miles east of Chattanooga. Momentarily, Wheeler’s two cavalry divisions remained near Trenton, Georgia, while Forrest’s Cavalry Division rested in the Chattanooga area.7
The peculiar geography of the territory between Bragg’s position at Chattanooga and the Federal positions in Middle Tennessee offered many aspects to be considered as Bragg pondered his next move. By withdrawing to Chattanooga Bragg had placed several obstacles between himself and the Federals. From west to east, the first barrier was the wide Cumberland Plateau, a wild desolate region of mountains, forests, rushing streams, and deep canyons. Sparsely populated, the region was generally known as “the barrens.” Oriented from southwest to northeast, the plateau was no less than twenty miles across at its most likely crossing point. Few roads traversed it and they were little more than rocky tracks through the forest, damaging travelers’ conveyances at every step. Neither an invading army nor a friendly one could sustain itself in the area from local resources alone. The plateau had been penetrated by the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad in 1852, when a 2,228-foot tunnel was driven from near Cowan, Tennessee, on the west side to the eastern portal in the valley of Crow Creek. Even with the tunnel, the railroad was plagued by steep grades on the tunnel’s approaches, limiting tonnage capacity. Still, the railroad made it possible to surmount the Cumberland Plateau. East of the plateau lay the valley of the Tennessee River. Unbridged at Chattanooga and seldom less than 1,000 feet wide, the Tennessee presented another serious obstacle to the passage of an invading army. The Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad had conquered the river by completing the spans at Bridgeport in 1854. One of those bridges now lay partially in ruins, and Chattanooga would see no more trains from Nashville until the span was rebuilt. These two obstacles, the Cumberland Plateau and the Tennessee River, would assist any defense Bragg might make if the Federals chose to continue their advance toward Chattanooga. They could be surmounted—the railroad had proved that—but the cost would be great in both effort and time.8
Several other geographical features had to be factored into Bragg’s calculations. The Cumberland Plateau was only the most westerly of a series of mountain ridges, all following generally the same southwest-northeast orientation. Each of these ridges stretched for more than 100 miles on either side of Chattanooga. Complicating any defensive scheme was the Tennessee River, which at Chattanooga cut through all the ridges except the Cumberland Plateau on its generally southwesterly course. The largest of these ridges, but not the tallest, was the ridge next east of the Cumberland Plateau. South of the Tennessee the ridge was called Sand Mountain, with its northern extension known as Raccoon Mountain; north of the river it was called Walden’s Ridge. In a series of sinuous curves, the Tennessee River breached the ridge complex, creating a deep and narrow canyon. Studded with rocks in the canyon, the river in seasons of low water represented a challenge to steamboat navigation but not an insurmountable problem. Shortly before entering its canyon, the river curled around the tallest of the mountain ridges, Lookout Mountain, which rose 2,400 feet in elevation above sea level and towered more than 1,000 feet above the valley floor. Both Lookout Mountain and the Sand/Raccoon Mountain ridge separated Chattanooga from the Tennessee River downstream from the city, and few roads crossed the two mountains in an east-west direction. Forces defending the river line southwest of Chattanooga would have difficulty communicating with the city and even greater difficulty being reinforced from it. Northeast of the city, the defensive problem was less difficult to solve. There the defensive barriers were the Cumberland Plateau, Walden’s Ridge, and the Tennessee River. Northeast of Chattanooga, the Tennessee’s broad valley stretched all the way to Knoxville.9
Although shielded by the mountain ranges and the river, an army defending Chattanooga could not sustain itself without secure lines of communication linking it to the remainder of the Confederacy. In 1863 those lines were represented by the three railroads that entered the city. Formerly important, the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad now was in Confederate hands only to Long Island across from Bridgeport. Much more important was the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad, which ran from Knoxville, Tennessee, 110 miles to Dalton, Georgia. This line connected to Chattanooga via a thirty-mile branch from the main stem at Cleveland, Tennessee. At Knoxville, the East Tennessee & Georgia met the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad, which ran 130 miles to Bristol, Virginia, and connected with the railroads of the latter state. Thus the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad not only permitted communication with the Confederacy’s Eastern Theater but also traversed the Department of East Tennessee, a potential source of reinforcements. In addition, it transported 90 percent of the Confederacy’s copper ore from mines around Ducktown, Tennessee, ore that was critical in the production of percussion caps and other ordnance. Nevertheless, the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad was not Bragg’s most critical railroad. That honor went to the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which ran from Chattanooga 138 miles south to Atlanta, the army’s logistical base. Completed by the state of Georgia in 1850, this railroad carried rations, equipment, and ordnance from Atlanta’s warehouses, mills, foundries, and arsenal northward to support Bragg. Although the terrain crossed by the Western & Atlantic was not quite as severe as that facing the Nashville & Chattanooga, the route included many significant bridges and a 1,447-foot tunnel west of Dalton. Bragg found the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad very useful; he could not remain in Chattanooga if he lost the Western & Atlantic Railroad. All of the railroads shared a common five-foot gauge, facilitating interchange.10
Bragg moved quickly to posture his army for defense. On 7 July he issued assignments for protecting the army’s flanks. From Kelly’s Ferry southward, Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps was to guard the river line, while Forrest’s Division was given the same task above Chattanooga. Both officers were instructed to arrest any deserters attempting to cross the river. Closer to the city, the responsibility for guarding the river, keeping order in the town, and protecting nearby railroad bridges was assigned to John Jackson, commander of the District of the Tennessee. Now that the parent army had arrived, Jackson’s authority was modified on 8 July by General Orders, No. 147, which named Jackson military governor of Chattanooga. Informed that such wording was inappropriate for friendly territory, Bragg changed Jackson’s title to “commandant of the post” three days later. Jackson’s portfolio not only encompassed the city but also included guarding the river line all the way to Bridgeport, including the railroad bridges over Chattanooga, Lookout, and Running Water Creeks. That sector was soon deemed too large and, on 12 July, Bragg instructed Polk to assign a brigade to replace Jackson’s units around Bridgeport and Shell Mound. Polk assigned Anderson’s Brigade of Withers’s Division to the task. At the same time, Bragg instructed Hardee’s Corps to send a brigade to Harrison, twelve miles upstream from Chattanooga, to bolster the army’s right. Wood’s Brigade from Cleburne’s Division received the call. To secure his connection with the Department of East Tennessee, Bragg on 9 July ordered Hardee’s Corps to send a brigade to Loudon, on the Tennessee River eighty-five miles from Chattanooga. Acting corps commander Cleburne selected Johnson’s Brigade of Stewart’s Division and dispatched it by rail the next day. Johnson’s specific task was to secure all the railroad bridges between Loudon and Chattanooga from possible Federal incursions.11
Sending single infantry brigades to distant flanks was a gesture only. Each brigade was too small to block a serious Federal advance and not mobile enough to cover the vast distances involved. Thus Bragg had to rely primarily on his cavalry to provide useful intelligence on Federal activity beyond the river, and early warning of a Federal advance. Wheeler especially was ordered to place “a small force and many scouts” on the Federal right flank to glean information from beyond the river. Even after this admonition, Wheeler seemed not to take the intelligence mission seriously. Instead, he focused on resting and recruiting his men and horses. On 12 July, Wharton’s Division left Trenton for Rome, Georgia, sixty-five miles to the south. It reached Rome two days later after a leisurely march via LaFayette and Trion Factory. Wharton left behind only Col. William Estes’s Third Confederate Cavalry regiment from Harrison’s Brigade. Estes was told to spread his small regiment along the river from Kelly’s Ferry all the way downstream to Gunter’s Landing, Alabama, a distance of eighty miles. Momentarily remaining at Trenton was Martin’s Division. Martin departed Trenton for his assigned rest area around Gadsden and Alexandria, Alabama, on 22 July. Gadsden was twenty-five miles from the river and seventy-five miles from Chattanooga. Martin, too, left one regiment, Capt. James Field’s Eighth Confederate Cavalry, to picket the river from Gunter’s Landing downstream to Decatur, a distance of fifty miles. Numbering only 230 men, Field’s command was armed mostly with sabers and pistols. Beyond Decatur, Roddey’s Brigade watched the river. Formerly, Roddey had reported directly to army headquarters, but on 22 July his command was brought under Wheeler’s authority. The same message ordered Wheeler to make Gadsden his headquarters. While Roddey maintained a small presence north of the Tennessee River to observe Federal activity, Wheeler apparently did not.12
North of Chattanooga, Forrest held the intelligence mission in higher esteem than did Wheeler. Geography favored Forrest because the axis of the Federal advance during the Tullahoma campaign had followed the line of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. Extended beyond Middle Tennessee, that line reached the Tennessee River at Bridgeport, Alabama, downstream from Chattanooga. If the Federals followed the axis of the railroad, they would probably approach Chattanooga from the southwest, making Wheeler’s sector the critical one. North of the city and beyond the river, Walden’s Ridge and the even broader Cumberland Plateau, with their vast stretches of wilderness, gave Forrest a greater buffer of terrain between his command and the nearest Federal forces beyond the mountains. Always aggressive in pursuit of current information on his enemy’s location and intentions, Forrest certainly was not content with a passive line of observation posts scattered along the river upstream to the mouth of the Little Tennessee near Loudon. Even though his command had also suffered severely in the previous campaign, Forrest permitted only a minimal rest period before seeking the nearest Federals he could find. On 27 July he ordered one of his brigade commanders, Col. George Dibrell, to take a regiment across the Tennessee River, Walden’s Ridge, and the Cumberland Plateau to Sparta, Tennessee. Sparta lay at the western foot of the plateau and was Dibrell’s birthplace. It was also the locality where he had raised the Eighth (Thirteenth) Tennessee Cavalry regiment in the fall of 1862. Thus it was no coincidence that Dibrell selected the Eighth (Thirteenth) Tennessee for his expedition to Sparta. If the men needed to recuperate, they could rest and recruit at their own homes. Simultaneously, they could watch the growing Federal presence southwest of Sparta. Certainly their circumstances were different, but Forrest’s approach contrasted strongly with Wheeler’s.13
Having momentarily secured his flanks, Bragg turned to a controversy of long standing in Atlanta. To Bragg’s mind, the problem lay with Maj. George Lee, commandant of the post of Atlanta. Bragg and Lee shared a long and unhappy history. At Pensacola in early 1861 Bragg had forced Lee to resign company command in the face of charges that included embezzlement. Lee then was elected lieutenant colonel of the Thirty-Eighth Georgia Infantry regiment. Promoted to colonel in June 1862, he resigned a month later, just as the regiment was becoming heavily involved in the fighting in Virginia. At the same time, he was appointed captain and provost marshal by the War Department and assigned to command the post of Atlanta. Bragg protested Lee’s elevation strongly in August, but to no avail. Despite his low social status as a slave overseer and probable illiteracy, Lee developed a web of political connections in the city, and enlisted a private army of citizens exempt from the conscription laws. After the battle of Stones River, several thousand wounded soldiers from the Army of Tennessee crowded facilities in Atlanta. Believing that Lee had neither the managerial skill nor the moral authority to supervise his men, Bragg in February 1863 selected a new commander for the post. A week later, under pressure from Richmond, he suspended the change. Next, Bragg sent John Jackson, commander of the District of the Tennessee, to Atlanta to bring some order to the chaos there. As Jackson began to dismantle Lee’s petty empire, Lee responded by threatening resignation. He also directed a letter-writing campaign to the Davis administration that began with the commissary, quartermaster, and ordnance officers stationed in Atlanta, progressed to members of the Confederate Congress, and eventually included Vice President Alexander Stephens. When Davis himself favorably endorsed one of the letters to Secretary of War James Seddon, Bragg was beaten and knew it. Indeed, Lee was promoted to major in the adjutant general corps in late June.14
In July this petty squabble assumed greater significance because the Army of Tennessee’s retreat to Chattanooga showed that the war was much closer to Atlanta than previously thought. Col. Abel Streight’s raid in April indicated that Atlanta was an extremely vulnerable target. The city was Bragg’s logistical base, and Bragg wanted someone more competent that Major Lee to organize its defenses. In July, scouts and citizens reported a large Federal cavalry force gathering near Huntsville, Alabama, hardly farther from Atlanta than the Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Rebuffed by the War Department in his efforts to replace Lee, Bragg became increasingly anxious about the Federal threat. On 22 July he wrote directly to Davis, complaining that the War Department’s arrangements at Atlanta were “totally inadequate and unreliable.” At the same time he penned a private letter to Adj. Gen. Samuel Cooper, laying out Lee’s inadequacy in detail and hinting that Cooper might want to weigh in on the subject. Apparently unknown to Bragg, several prominent Atlanta residents had already importuned the Richmond authorities to make a change, arguing that Lee’s social standing prevented him from succeeding as post commander. The citizens proposed that Maj. Moses Wright, twenty-seven, the efficient commander of the Atlanta Arsenal, be promoted into the position, and the War Department grudgingly acquiesced on 16 July. Having solved the problem to their satisfaction, Davis and Seddon both responded sharply to Bragg’s complaint of 22 July, reminding him that the defense of Atlanta remained his responsibility. Promoted to colonel, Wright quickly opened communication with Bragg’s chief of staff and began to calm the bureaucratic waters. He retained Lee as provost marshal but stripped him of his other powers. Bragg, meanwhile, sent Edward Walthall’s Brigade from Withers’s Division to bolster Wright’s 800 “reliable men.” He also sent an engineer, Capt. Morris Wampler, to assist in laying out fortifications around the city.15
Although the situation in Atlanta was worrisome, other issues also required Bragg’s attention. Hardee had become noticeably disaffected and desired a change in his situation. Bragg and Hardee had worked together harmoniously in early 1862, but since the Kentucky campaign Hardee had made common cause with Polk in opposition to Bragg. On 14 July, Hardee suddenly received orders from Richmond transferring him to Mississippi, where he would join Joseph Johnston’s command. This surprising order was the result of discussions within the Davis administration about how to resolve the situation in Mississippi, not the situation in Tennessee. By mid-July Johnston’s small command was momentarily defending Jackson against the Federal army that had conquered Vicksburg earlier in the month. Certain elements in the Richmond government wanted Johnston removed from command, but Davis was not quite ready for that drastic step. Nevertheless, action was required, so on 13 July Davis nominated Maj. Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill for a third star and ordered him to join Johnston. Just as Hill started, Davis changed his mind and ordered Hill to replace Hardee in Chattanooga, with the latter going to Mississippi instead. This sudden personnel change apparently was triggered by Davis’s exasperation with Johnston’s performance during the Vicksburg campaign, which generated a verbal war between the two men for the next month. The groundwork, however, had long been laid because of earlier arguments between Davis and Johnston, and through efforts of some of Davis’s advisors. Hardee, who longed for a change, departed for Mississippi at once, most likely without knowing he was a pawn in a subtle plan for Johnston’s eventual removal. Ironically, within a few days of his arrival, Hardee was writing privately to Polk that he regretted the transfer and wished he was back in the Army of Tennessee. Bragg’s views on Hardee’s departure are unrecorded, but they could hardly have been negative, given the recent history between the two officers.16
Hardee’s replacement, Daniel Harvey Hill, arrived in Chattanooga and reported personally to Bragg on Sunday, 19 July. Born into modest circumstances in South Carolina in 1821, Hill turned forty-two a week before his arrival in Tennessee. He graduated from West Point in 1842, along with William Rosecrans and Alexander Stewart. An artilleryman, Hill served in garrison until hostilities neared with Mexico. Joining Zachary Taylor’s force on the Mexican border, he spent a brief time in Bragg’s battery. Transferred to another unit just as hostilities commenced, he participated with distinction in the battles of Monterrey, Contreras, and Chapultepec. Ending the war as a first lieutenant and brevet major, Hill resigned from the army in 1849 to become professor of mathematics at Washington College in Virginia. Five years later he assumed a similar position at Davidson College in North Carolina. In 1859 he left Davidson to become superintendent of the North Carolina Military Institute in Charlotte. In 1861 Hill offered his services to his adopted state and soon became the colonel of the First North Carolina Infantry regiment. He led the regiment at Big Bethel, one of the first actions of the war, which propelled him to a brigadier’s star in July. Similar good fortune around Leesburg, Virginia, a few months later brought Hill promotion to major general in March 1862. Thereafter, he led a division at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, and several battles in the Seven Days campaign. After a brief stint as commander of the Department of North Carolina, Hill returned to his old division in the Army of Northern Virginia. During the Maryland campaign he fought skillfully at South Mountain and heroically defended the Bloody Lane at Antietam. Not seriously engaged at Fredericksburg, Hill proposed to resign from field service because of poor health. Asked to resume command of the Department of North Carolina instead, he accepted the position in February 1863. He was serving in that capacity when Jefferson Davis offered him promotion to lieutenant general and transfer to the West in July.17
From his earliest youth, Hill suffered from a variety of maladies, most notably a spinal condition that made sitting for long periods extremely painful. Indeed, he claimed that he had never experienced a day free from pain while in the army. Hill was noted for his extremely acerbic personality, and if his chronic pain was not its only cause, it was certainly a contributing factor. He freely criticized most of his superiors, including Robert E. Lee, and by 1863 had become known army-wide as a “croaker.” His reputation as a complainer and disruptive force in command circles had as much to do with his departure from the Army of Northern Virginia in early 1863 as his frail health. So prevalent was this view of Hill as a commander that it prompted Robert Kean, a War Department bureau chief, to comment at the time of his assignment to the West: “Harsh, abrupt, often insulting in the effort to be sarcastic, he will offend many and conciliate none. Nor has he talents to reduce this disadvantage, though brave and loyal.” Indeed, none questioned Hill’s devotion to the Southern cause, or his personal courage. He was simply not a commander who could work harmoniously with peers and superiors. Hill’s association with Bragg as a young lieutenant in 1845 was remembered fondly by the army commander upon Hill’s arrival in Chattanooga, Bragg no doubt seeing him as an improvement over the duplicitous Hardee. Yet Hill was instantly unimpressed with his chief, writing years later that Bragg seemed “gloomy and despondent” and “prematurely old.” Having just been through a harrowing retreat marked by many disaffected senior commanders, Bragg was clearly showing the strain, but Hill could not empathize with his new chief. From Hill’s perspective, the interview ended unsatisfactorily and, though neither officer realized it at the time, the sour note thus struck would prove to be a harbinger of things to come. On 24 July Hill formally assumed command of what was now officially known as Hill’s Corps.18
The Hardee-Hill exchange was not the only major personnel decision facing Bragg in July. Jones Withers had submitted his resignation from the army in late May because of his failing health. Withers had long been known as an officer favorably disposed to Bragg during the army’s recent internecine squabbles, and Bragg was loath to lose his services. He therefore suggested that Withers be offered a position less physically rigorous than division commander in order to recruit his health. The matter was not taken up by the War Department until 9 July, and Secretary of War Seddon did not approve the resignation until six days later. In the interim, Bragg offered Withers’s services to Governor John Shorter of Alabama as commander of that state’s local defense forces. Shorter was amenable to employing Withers, and Withers accepted the position. Accordingly, his resignation was canceled on 21 July, and Withers departed for his new command. Because the division’s senior brigadier, Patton Anderson, was on detached service with his brigade, Polk gave Zachariah Deas the interim command. However practical this decision may have been, it nevertheless angered Anderson, who protested from his headquarters at Taylor’s Store, across the river from Bridgeport. A solution was already apparent, however, because the War Department’s Special Orders, No. 167, on 15 July assigned Maj. Gen. Thomas Carmichael Hindman to the Army of Tennessee. Hindman was in Richmond serving as president of a court of inquiry on the fall of New Orleans and would not be available for a few weeks. He was a close friend of Patrick Cleburne from prewar days and thus would add that factor to the mix of personalities in the senior leadership of the army. Meanwhile, Deas continued in temporary command of Withers’s Division.19
Personnel reassignments aside, Bragg during July was involved in an administrative reorganization of the commands on either side of his own Department No. 2. Since November 1862 Bragg’s department nominally had been subordinate to Joseph Johnston and his Department of the West. Whatever Jefferson Davis had hoped to achieve with Johnston’s super-department had not be realized. When the administration ordered Johnston to Mississippi in May 1863 because of the Vicksburg crisis, the general construed the order as severing his connection to the Army of Tennessee. That construction was not intended by Davis, as evidenced by a long, caustic resume of events he shared with Johnston on 15 July. Sending Hardee, a proven if troublesome commander, to assist or possibly supersede Johnston was Davis’s first response. His patience with Johnston fraying, Davis followed on 22 July with a reorganization of departments. In a curt message from Adj. Gen. Samuel Cooper, Johnston’s command responsibilities in regard to Bragg’s department were abolished. In the same message, Cooper placed Simon Buckner’s Department of East Tennessee under Bragg’s authority. The latter decision had been under consideration for some time, and indeed had been recommended by Johnston in January and Buckner himself in May. Buckner, of course, was another Bragg opponent, stretching at least as far back as the unhappy Kentucky campaign of 1862. Still, Buckner had brought some of his troops to assist the Army of Tennessee during the Tullahoma campaign, for which Bragg had graciously thanked him. Buckner had often promised cooperation, and now the opportunity to match words with deeds was at hand. Nevertheless, the process of integrating the two departments was just beginning and would not play out for another month.20
On 25 July, War Department Special Orders, No. 176, made official the changes summarily outlined by Adjutant General Cooper. Bragg’s old Department No. 2 was now named the Department of Tennessee, into which the Department of East Tennessee was merged. The boundaries of the new department were as follows: the territory west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina down to the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad; thence southward along the Western & Atlantic Railroad to Atlanta; west along the Atlanta & West Point Railroad to the Alabama state line; northward to the Tennessee River; thence along that stream to its mouth. In a clarification issued two weeks later, Cooper added several counties stretching along the south bank of the Tennessee River in Alabama, including the Gadsden area. As a result, most of Alabama and a large portion of Georgia were placed outside Bragg’s area of responsibility. Operationally, that delineation was momentarily of little concern. Much more important was the official denial of resources, especially food and forage, from the excluded localities to the Army of Tennessee. That army was much larger than either Johnston’s small command in Mississippi or Beauregard’s coastal defense troops in the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. To make matters worse, the reserve food stocks held in warehouses in Atlanta were allocated to the Army of Northern Virginia. Nevertheless, the Army of Tennessee somehow successfully drew upon these stocks in times of need. Thus when the Department of Mississippi begged for 250,000 pounds of bacon from the Atlanta stockpile in late July, there was none to be had. Still, rations remained short in Chattanooga for the Army of Tennessee and would continue to be scarce for some time to come.21
The personnel turbulence, bureaucratic turmoil, and logistical shortfalls that plagued Bragg throughout the month of July harmed his already shaky health and left little time to contemplate the largest issue of all—what to do next. Upon reaching Chattanooga Bragg had sought to find a way to regain the initiative. Initially asking Richmond for guidance, he received none. Thus, on 17 July Bragg proposed to Johnston a bold plan for concentrating their respective forces. Bragg believed that the geographical barriers between the Army of the Cumberland and Chattanooga would necessitate a delay of some weeks before Rosecrans resumed his offensive. During that window of opportunity, Bragg proposed to move the bulk of the Army of Tennessee to join Johnston and have the combined force strike hard at the Federals in the Mississippi Valley. In Bragg’s formulation, the Army of Tennessee’s cavalry and several infantry brigades would remain to guard Chattanooga, while as many as fourteen infantry brigades would make the journey west. If Johnston preferred that Bragg not accompany the troops to Mississippi, Bragg was content to remain at Chattanooga; he left the choice to Johnston. The proposal bore considerable similarity to Bragg’s 1862 strategic rail movement from Tupelo, Mississippi, to Chattanooga, prior to the disastrous Kentucky campaign. Its operative principle was the rapid concentration of scarce Confederate resources in order to achieve a momentary numerical superiority over an opposing Federal army. Defeat of the Federal army would in turn permit either further offensive operations or a return to the status quo. Unbeknownst to Bragg, his proposal would reach Johnston just as the latter was evacuating Jackson, Mississippi, in the face of Federal pressure. It also occurred at the moment that the Davis administration abolished Johnston’s supervision of the Army of Tennessee.22
Beset by so many adverse developments, Johnston never responded to Bragg’s proposal. In his postwar memoirs, he acknowledged Bragg’s offer but dismissed it as being “too late.” Nevertheless, the proposal bespeaks Bragg’s aggressive attitude, even after the crushing loss of Middle Tennessee. As the days passed with no word from either Johnston or the Confederate government, Bragg felt keenly that an opportunity was slipping away. On 21 July he expressed those feelings in a private message to fellow department commander Beauregard at Charleston. Beauregard had long advocated the principle of concentration and often offered gratuitous advice on the subject to both the War Department and adjacent commanders. Most recently, in May, he had proposed to Johnston a concentration built around Bragg’s army that would destroy the Army of the Cumberland, regain Tennessee and much of Kentucky, block the Mississippi River, and force Grant’s army to withdraw from Mississippi or be destroyed. Beauregard had sent a copy of his plan to Bragg, who thanked him and disparaged the timidity of both the government and Johnston. Bragg noted that his army lay within five days’ travel from Johnston’s command and that he could have nearly been there by the time of his writing. He also argued that holding cities was for detachments only, leaving field armies free to maneuver against an aggressor. This criticism was a clear slap at John Pemberton, whose army had been trapped at Vicksburg and forced to surrender less than three weeks earlier. Bragg closed, “These things are too sad to dwell on.” There would be no concentration in Mississippi, and Johnston would soon have no power to direct one, so Bragg’s proposal died without a trial. Nevertheless, he still believed in two principles inextricably linked in his mind—concentration followed by aggressive maneuver, and refusal to be tied to particular geographical locations at the expense of freedom of action. Perhaps there would be other opportunities to implement these principles, but not in July 1863.23
Bragg received no assistance in the formulation of strategy from his corps commanders. Hardee had departed, and Hill was too new to be of much aid. Polk was not about to offer advice, strategic or otherwise, to a man he scorned. Yet Polk fancied himself a strategist, and he could not refrain from offering solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of the western theater. Characteristically, Polk went straight to the top, penning a long private letter on 26 July to Jefferson Davis. After cunningly linking himself to Bragg’s decision to evacuate Middle Tennessee, Polk laid the foundation for the next offensive move by the army. He believed the summer heat would preclude activity in Mississippi by either Johnston or Grant for at least six weeks. When the Federals did stir, Polk believed that Johnston’s small command could not check them successfully. If, however, Johnston were to leave a detachment to watch Grant’s troops around Vicksburg and bring his remaining forces to Chattanooga, they would represent a formidable reinforcement to the Army of Tennessee. Further, if Buckner’s small command from East Tennessee could be added to the mix, the combined Confederate army could destroy the Army of the Cumberland. The victorious Army of Tennessee could then drive to the Mississippi River at Memphis, thereby forcing Grant to withdraw from Mississippi. Admittedly, the Confederates would have to assume considerable risk in Alabama while they implemented their scheme, but Polk believed that risk was worth taking. He reiterated his plan in a letter to Hardee four days later, suggesting that Hardee might share it with Johnston. Polk’s plan was the same as that offered by Beauregard in May, and it received the same chilly reception in Richmond. Unbeknownst to Polk, Bragg had already offered to relinquish command to Johnston if their respective forces united. Polk was also apparently unaware that Johnston’s superdepartment had just been abolished. No matter; his campaign to have Bragg removed from command of the Army of Tennessee would continue unabated.24
As the Army of Tennessee settled into its camps at Chattanooga and Tyner’s Station, many men expressed strong opinions on the recent campaign in letters home. There was, however, no common assessment of the performance of the army’s leaders. Lt. Joshua Callaway appraised the recent campaign in a letter to his wife, Dulcinea, on 7 July: “My dear, you would doubtless feel disappointed if I were not to give you my opinion of Braggs retreat. A great many are down on him for it, but I confess that, if I understand it & know anything of the comparative strength of the two opposing armies, he has displayed more of the general than in all his former career.” Similar views were expressed by Capt. Irvine Walker: “Bragg will be again censured by the country for failing to do what was impossible, not only for him, but for the greatest general of the age had he been in his place.” Blacksmith Daniel Kelly was more ambivalent. Writing on 10 July, Kelly commented, “The soldiers of this army are now verry much disatisfied with there Gen. … as for my self I am no Geneal therefore I find no fault.” Pvt. John Magee wrote in his diary on 9 July, “All confidence in Genl Bragg is lost, and I do not believe this army can win a victory under his superintendence.” In a letter to his parents on 12 July, Pvt. J. P. Kendall was equally judgmental: “Have lost all confidence in Gen. Bragg—never had much.” Within some units, differences of opinion were extreme. Pvt. George Turner of the Eighth Texas Cavalry regiment had a positive view of Bragg’s generalship, which he expressed in a letter on 7 July to his father: “Bragg will be censured much for this move but there was no alternative for him. And the manner in which he brought off his army stores, waggons, &c, &c deserves the highest commendation.” In contrast, on the same day in the same unit, Chaplain Robert Bunting told a Houston, Texas, newspaper: “I do know that the army has been greatly demoralized by it, and Gen. Bragg has been universally cursed. To say the truth, he was out generaled in every sense of the word.”25
Soldiers recently assigned to the Army of Tennessee tended to give Bragg the benefit of the doubt when they assessed the campaign just concluded. Surgeon Alex Morgan of Jackson’s Brigade wrote, “Every body is abusing Bragg now for falling back without a fight, + very unjustly I think. I am not one of his admirers, but I would like to see him have a fair chance one time.” Another unbiased observer of the Army of Tennessee, its commanders, and its morale during this period was Lt. Col. Bolling Hall Jr. in Simon Buckner’s command. Having temporarily reinforced the Army of Tennessee during the latter stages of the Tullahoma campaign, Hall and his battalion witnessed the retreat from the perspective of the army’s rear guard. Even though his unit had suffered severe hardship, Hall had lost only two men from his command of 360 Alabamians. Back in Knoxville, Hall replied to a letter from his father enclosing newspaper commentary savaging Bragg. On 18 July he responded, “I do not believe the army so badly demoralized as the [Montgomery] Advertizer would have us think. … You would be surprised to go into Bragg’s army to find really how much his men like him, & the confidence they have in his ability even surpasses their friendship for him. I certainly was surprised after reading the papers.” In the same letter, Hall then identified the crux of the Army of Tennessee’s command problems: “There is one very remarkable fact which is, that as a general rule the best officers of his army like him while the poorest ones dislike him. Whenever you find an officer who never attends to his duty or who is incompetent he abuses Bragg. I found this a very good rule to judge the qualifications of Braggs officers by.”26
As the rank and file settled into their camp routines and the unpleasant memories of the retreat from Tullahoma faded, issues other than Bragg’s ability as a general rose to greater prominence. For many, the scarcity of rations was a serious and nagging concern. On picket near Bridgeport, Pvt. John Roberts, Seventh Mississippi Infantry regiment, recorded in his diary on 13 July, “We get very little to eat, not half enough.” Writing to his wife from Trenton on the same day, Pvt. Nimrod Long of the Fifty-First Alabama Cavalry regiment lamented that his daily beef ration was only one-third of a pound. “We are not having a good time here,” he concluded. On 21 July, First Sgt. John Crittenden of the Thirty-Fourth Alabama Infantry regiment was pleased to report to his wife, Bettie, that the daily beef ration had improved to three-fourths of a pound, still inadequate but better than before. Those stationed near Chattanooga and other towns, with money to spend, fared somewhat better. Men like Pvt. Thomas Bigbie of the Thirty-Third Alabama Infantry regiment, who guarded the river at Harrison, Tennessee, found potatoes, cabbage, chickens, and milk available from the locals—but at a steep price because most of the sellers were Unionists. When Wharton’s Cavalry Division moved to Rome, Georgia, for rest and recuperation, its men also complained about the locals—not their politics but their price-gouging. Irrepressible Sgt. William Heartsill of the Seventeenth Texas Cavalry (Dismounted) noted both the scarcity of rations and the exorbitant prices charged by citizens, including $2 for single chickens and $10 for a watermelon. In his diary on 22 July, Quartermaster Sgt. John Sparkman of the Forty-Eighth Tennessee Infantry regiment worried that the lack of rations would affect discipline. That discipline was already fraying in some quarters because of the illicit availability of whiskey, according to Lt. Hubert Dent of Dent’s (formerly Robertson’s) Alabama Battery.27
Still, soldiers being soldiers, the most inventive among the lower ranks found ways to supplement what Bragg’s commissary issued. Pvt. Nimrod Long at Trenton, who complained about short rations and high prices, also believed that the soldiers he knew lived reasonably well through irregular methods liberally applied. A perfect example of this behavior was described by Pvt. John Roberts on 20 July: “Two of the boys went out and killed a hog. They got an armful of cane and wrapped the cane all around the hog and fetched it up to camp. Going to make a bed of the cane. So said they[,] they brought it in, no one suspicionned a thing. Now this is what I call chicanery. What will soldiers get at next. Hunger makes soldiers do things wrong[,] if they were fed would never be guilty of this.” Indeed, Roberts proved quite adept at gathering useful items on the sly, writing on 23 July: “I walked through many a corn field and several young pumpkins stuck to my fingers and when I got to camp I fried them. O how good.” Still another dodge was described by Sgt. William Heartsill in his diary entry of 28 July: “Col [Roger] Mills is trying to guard all the corn fields in this County, one hundred from this Regiment on guard to day, I am thinking the remedy will prove more fatal than the disease; for the guards will bring an armful into camp every time they come and will manage to have considerable business on hand that will require their presence quite often.” Heartsill also railed against an order prohibiting the men from eating cabbage, a plot, he believed, to save that scarce item for the regiment’s officers.28
If the inadequacy of rations was a nearly universal complaint, equipment shortages were also a concern. While few men had been lost during the recent campaign, numerous units had been forced to abandon clothing, knapsacks, personal items, and shelter. July was a rainy month in the Tennessee River valley, and units without tents were exposed often to the elements. Until the Quartermaster Department could eradicate the shortfalls in tentage, clothing, and shoes, the men had both their patience and patriotism sorely tried. Pvt. John Roberts, picketing near Bridgeport, rejoiced on 25 July to receive a new pair of shoes, of which only the heel and toe were leather, with the remainder cloth. Nevertheless, such shoes would protect his feet from rocks on the march, if only briefly. First Sgt. John Crittenden wrote to his wife on 9 July: “Bettie I have lost all my cloths. … By borrowing I can manage to have my clothes washed.” Equally destitute was 2nd Lt. William Cole of the Thirty-Eighth Alabama Infantry regiment. In a plaintive letter to his wife on 18 July, Cole explained the hardships he was enduring: “I have seen more hardships in the last month than I have ever seen in all my previous life. … I have lost near all of my clothes. … I have not shifting clothes at this time. … I have not but one pair of pants. … I have one domestic shirt and my striped shirt[,] two pair of old socks and no drawers. … So you see that I have lost allmost all that I had. We have no tents and when it rains we have to take it just like the dumb brutes and every thing that we have gets wet and it remains wet for two weeks at the time[,] no clothes to change and it raining all the time.” For reasons unknown, Cole focused his anger upon the state of Tennessee, which to his mind was the worst of all Confederate states, Mississippi excluded. Other soldiers complained of a lack of ovens for baking bread.29
To keep the men busy, officers instituted regular unit drills and inspections, broken by periodic reviews. The more educated read whatever books and newspapers came to hand, while at least one learned to play chess. The most common occupation was writing letters to loved ones at home. The writers asked for clothing and food, inquired about the health of those at home, and begged their correspondents to write more often. Some offered instructions for maintaining their farms and advice on child raising, but others only shared news of common acquaintances in the army. Indicative of the strong feelings of most married soldiers is a letter Pvt. Benjamin Jackson penned to his wife, Martha, on 8 July: “I will say to you, not to give yourself any trouble about me, for I have gone through with many hardships and am still alive and if it is the will of the Lord we will meet again. Tell the children I want to see them. Tell Missouri to kiss Jimmy Tommy for me. Tell Pa and Ma and all of the family I would like to see them. I remain your husband as ever till death.” Unlike Arthur Manigault, who was visited by his wife and son on 25 July, more junior officers were like Lt. Hubert Dent, who sought in vain for lodging for his wife in Chattanooga. Still, some wives who lived in nearby areas of Alabama and Georgia managed to make the arduous trip to the army during July. Other soldiers sought furloughs, which were almost universally denied, with a resultant drop in morale. For example, Lt. Joshua Callaway on 24 July requested a twenty-day furlough to return to his home in Dallas County, Alabama, and had it denied four days later. Momentarily crushed, Callaway rallied and took his case all the way to the army commander, who finally acceded to the lieutenant’s request in August. Many supplicants were not so lucky and had to content themselves with corresponding with loved ones whenever paper, ink, and stamps were available. Others availed themselves of army visitors, who agreed to carry their letters home either for free or a nominal fee.30
Only a few events broke the monotony of camp life. Regiments with active chaplains were favored with protracted camp meetings. Chaplains in Stewart’s Division were especially vigorous. The movement apparently began with the chaplains in Bate’s Brigade, spread next to Brown’s Brigade, and ultimately led to a coordinated effort by all of the army’s chaplains by the end of the month. In addition to holding open meetings for preaching and prayer, the chaplains also ordered Testaments and copies of the Army and Navy Messenger for distribution to the faithful. This revival fervor even spread to the cavalry camps, where Chaplain Robert Bunting led a series of meetings that lasted from 21 July to the end of the month. For those not so religiously inclined, other amusements filled the spare hours. Sgt. Maj. James Searcy used some of his free time to walk around Chattanooga, while officers of Wharton’s Cavalry Division organized a ball. When news arrived that twenty Whitworth target rifles had been acquired from Great Britain and would be allocated to winners of shooting competitions, many soldiers took a great interest in the events. Ten rifles went to the best marksmen from each corps, and units competed keenly for the honor of having a sharpshooter drawn from their ranks. Even though the number of weapons was miniscule, the competitions occupied the minds of hundreds as the spectators cheered their favorites. Individuals not inclined to collective pursuits spent their spare time exploring their surroundings or simply walking in the woods. One such was Sgt. Talbert Holt, who explained to his sisters on 19 July, “For some time have been all alone in the deep recesses of the woods. I come to such a place for several reasons, as follows. I wanted to be away from the stir of camp, where I hear little else than vulgarity, profanity and foolishness instead of the greatness, goodness, mercy, and majesety [sic] of our God.” Others visited nearby civilian homes. For example, Pvt. John Roberts found simple delight in repairing broken clocks for citizens near his picket post.31
No matter how they filled their time, Bragg’s soldiers spent the month of July 1863 in a valiant fight to maintain their morale. Even if the retreat from Tullahoma was necessary, the loss of territory rankled. That loss was especially hard on the army’s Tennesseans, who found themselves severed from their homes and families, now behind enemy lines. Events elsewhere also contributed to the army’s malaise in early July. As the news of the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson shifted from rumor to fact, many soldiers spoke of the detrimental effect on morale. Less concern was felt about the activities of Confederate forces in the Eastern Theater, first because news was less easy to acquire and, second, because almost no units in the army hailed from that locale. As garbled accounts of Morgan’s raid into Indiana and Ohio reached the troops, they cheered Morgan’s audacity, if not his judgment. Similarly, news of draft riots in New York City prompted rejoicing, as did a persistent rumor that European nations were on the verge of officially recognizing the Confederacy. By the end of the month, the loss of Middle Tennessee and the shock of Vicksburg’s fall had diminished somewhat. On 21 July Sgt. Maj. James Searcy told his mother that he tried not to dwell on the recent defeats, and he counseled her to do the same. Five days later he was more emphatic, writing, “We are not whipped nor any where near it. The Yankees may overrun the whole country that will not be whipping us—and they will find out so, before they do much more.” Writing in similar vein was Maj. Isaac Scherck, commissary of Hill’s Corps. Scherck had been away briefly and was pleasantly surprised at the army’s state of mind upon his return. In a letter to a friend on 29 July Scherck wrote, “The Army is in fine spirit & defys any of the northern threats & scorns Sewards proposals for peace as read in the late papers by sacrificing our leaders. I felt really refreshed when I returned from home & found the troops who had every reason for being despondent, show their intelligence & determination to resist to the last.”32
While soldier morale slowly began to rise above the despondency of early July, by the end of the month Bragg’s physical and mental condition was deteriorating at an alarming rate. As early as 22 July he had written privately to Samuel Cooper, “For two months my health has been anything but good. Long continued and excessive labor of mind and body have produced its natural result on a frame not robust at best. Were it possible, I should seek some repose, but at present I see no hope.” Four days later he reorganized part of his staff, returning Lt. Col. Harvey Walter to his original position of judge advocate and welcoming Lt. Col. George Brent once more as assistant adjutant general. Brent had held the position once before but had been absent from the command for several months. His even-tempered personality had served Bragg and the army well during his earlier tenure, and his return must have relieved at least part of Bragg’s administrative concerns. Elise Bragg was still nearby, continuing her convalescence at Cherokee Springs, a spa near Ringgold, less than twenty miles from Chattanooga. On 28 July she suggested to her husband that he come for a visit or, alternatively, she could visit him. With Brent now available to manage the army’s paperwork on a daily basis, Bragg elected to join Elise for a few days at Cherokee Springs. Having successfully extricated his army from Middle Tennessee, orchestrated the defense of the Tennessee River line, and weathered major personnel and administrative changes, Bragg clearly needed a few days of relaxation. Even while away from the army, however, he could not leave army business behind. Finding two of Wheeler’s units, the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry regiment and Allison’s Tennessee Cavalry squadron, in a state of gross indiscipline at Cherokee Springs, “doing some harm and no good,” on 30 July he sharply brought the matter to Wheeler’s attention. At the end of July Bragg was away from his headquarters, but he was still the commander of the Army of Tennessee.33