7

 

BRAGG BIDES HIS TIME

» 30 JULY–14 AUGUST 1863 «

 

Cherokee Springs, Georgia, had long been a place where people sick in body or mind went for recuperation. Located little more than two miles east of Ringgold in a secluded valley, it was watered by Cherokee Branch and several natural springs. In prewar times the springs were known for their alleged medicinal value, but the primary balm may have been the pastoral quality of the small valley. Two miles to the east was a similar establishment, Catoosa Springs. Important enough to have their own small station on the Western & Atlantic Railroad, the two spas were recognized in 1862 as ideal places for sick and wounded Confederate soldiers to recuperate. Thus by the summer of 1863 both Cherokee Springs and Catoosa Springs contained Confederate convalescent camps supervised by Dr. Cary Gamble, surgeon in charge at Ringgold. Campbell rented quarters at a house midway between the two camps, near a stone church erected in 1850 for his wife, Edwarda, and their two young daughters. It was to Cherokee Springs that Elise Bragg came in June to complete her recovery from typhoid fever. Unlike Catoosa Springs, which boasted a three-story main building, Cherokee Springs was primarily a tent hospital. It consisted of three wards, all under canvas, erected in the midst of a grove of large trees. Each ward had a small frame cabin of light construction associated with it to house the sickest patients. Other cabins of similar size served as support facilities, a bakery, and a large kitchen. A covered shelter with open sides was used as the main dining room. There was also a library, and a chapel was under construction. In August 1863, the camp had a capacity of 500 patients but was only half full. Managed by Dr. Samuel Bemiss, who directed three assistant surgeons and numerous orderlies, Cherokee Springs was an effective rehabilitation center. According to Kate Cumming, a nurse who arrived in mid-August, the camp was “one of the most lovely spots I ever beheld.” It was to Cherokee Springs that Braxton Bragg had come in late July to recover his own health.¹

Although Bragg himself was at Cherokee Springs, the bulk of his staff remained in Chattanooga handling the normal administrative tasks of a field army and a department headquarters. Bragg had known for several weeks the general dispositions of the Army of the Cumberland on the far side of the Cumberland Plateau. He also had excellent rail and telegraph communications to Atlanta, and from there to Joseph Johnston’s headquarters at Morton, Mississippi, to Simon Buckner’s headquarters at Knoxville, and ultimately to Richmond. On 1 August the network delivered a short telegram from Adj. Gen. Samuel Cooper: “If we can spare most of Johnston’s army, temporarily, to re-enforce you, can you attack the enemy?” Bragg responded quickly, on the next day telegraphing Cooper with his initial thoughts. If Bragg correctly understood the size of Johnston’s force, he thought using most of it to augment his command would offer a reasonable chance for success, everything else being equal. Still, there were difficulties to be considered. It would be hard to cross the Tennessee River and the Cumberland Plateau again, especially in view of the broken Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. Also, it would take some time for Johnston’s troops to arrive at Chattanooga, even before an advance could be considered. If those difficulties could be surmounted, Bragg thought a flank move might be the way to approach the Federals. He promised to consult with Johnston in person and then write Richmond more fully. He wrote to Johnston requesting such a meeting, and Johnston replied on 4 August that he would be willing to meet Bragg in Montgomery, Alabama, to discuss possible cooperation. Within twenty-four hours, however, Bragg telegraphed to both Cooper and Johnston that he was no longer considering an advance. To Cooper, Bragg said the Federals were already across the Cumberland Plateau in strength, but that the deciding factor was an insufficiency of resources. Johnston was told simply that after “full information and reflection” the movement was “inexpedient.”²

Bragg’s sudden change of heart was the result of information he had received from Leonidas Polk. Corresponding privately with William Hardee, Polk had received Hardee’s strongly negative assessment of Johnston’s force. Not anxious to endure another battle under Bragg’s leadership, Polk saw the mountains ringing Chattanooga as a defensive asset, while a hasty advance courted disaster. Thus Polk shared Hardee’s dismal view of Johnston’s command with Bragg, knowing the effect it would have on the latter’s deliberations. Even if not so intended, Polk’s input succeeded in quashing Bragg’s idea of an offensive. After telegraphing his decision to both Cooper and Johnston, Bragg wrote to each officer at length. As he explained to Cooper, it was mostly a question of numbers. The strength return of 31 July 1863 placed the army’s “aggregate present” at 52,429 officers and men. Of that number Bragg considered only his 40,000 infantry and artillerymen to be effective in a fight. He had an additional 10,000 horsemen, but their condition was such that he expected little from them. In contrast, Bragg believed that Rosecrans could deploy at least 60,000 effectives, and Burnside 30,000 more. Therefore, an advance beyond the Tennessee River and Cumberland Plateau against a larger foe would be very risky. When the sorry state of Confederate logistics and the lack of rail support beyond the Tennessee were factored into the equation, an advance would be sheer folly. In contrast, if the Federals incautiously advanced beyond the river and the mountains, Bragg believed the odds favored the Army of Tennessee. Writing to Johnston, he summarized the argument succinctly: “To ‘fight the enemy’ is a very simple operation when you have the means and can get at him. But with less than half his strength and a large river and fifty to one hundred miles of rugged, sterile mountains, destitute even of vegetation, between you and him, with our limited commissariat, the simple fighting would be a refreshing recreation.” Bragg thus rejected an advance as long as the armies’ relative positions remained unchanged. When he saw Bragg’s answer to Cooper, Jefferson Davis wrote, “However desirable a movement may be, it is never safe to do more than suggest it to a commanding general, and it would be unwise to order its execution by one who foretold failure.” Unlike the Lincoln administration’s incessant prodding of Rosecrans, Davis would leave matters to his field commander.³

Having summarily dismissed any plans for an advance, Bragg resumed his quiet recuperation at Cherokee Springs. Unfortunately, his rest was broken by a swelling cry for furloughs from both officers and men. Bragg had long been loath to authorize furloughs, but during the first weeks of August at least two division commanders, Frank Cheatham and Alexander Stewart, were absent from their commands. Harvey Hill quickly saw that furloughs were necessary to maintain morale. In late July he had proposed a system to distribute furloughs equitably. Bragg had responded favorably, permitting one man out of every twenty to receive a furlough for ten days. Unfortunately, Hill soon reported a serious desertion problem in his corps. Angered, Bragg revoked Hill’s authority to manage his own furlough policy. Nor did John Wharton’s proposal to permit furloughs in the Eighth Texas Cavalry regiment receive approval. Wharton sought the dispensation for his old regiment, whose men earnestly desired to return to Texas. Knowing that men whose homes were beyond the Mississippi might never return, Bragg denied Wharton’s request. The stiff policy on furloughs, as well as the discouraging war news, led to a steady dribble of men from the ranks. To staunch the flow, Bragg sent Capt. Robert Allison’s Tennessee cavalry squadron to augment Hill’s guards along the Tennessee River. He also ordered Capt. Guy Dreux, commanding his escort, to sweep the riverbank from Chattanooga to the mouth of Chickamauga Creek for deserters. When his inspector general found laxity among the sentinels on the army’s left flank, Bragg directed Polk to increase the guards in that sector also. Finally, on 6 August he published General Orders, No. 1, which outlined the War Department policy of amnesty toward those currently absent without permission. Absentees who returned to their commands within twenty days of the proclamation’s publication would be welcomed without penalty. Although it was too early for such measures to have much of an effect, the army’s trimonthly strength return for 10 August placed the “aggregate present” at 53,418 officers and men, a gain of almost 1,000 soldiers.⁴

Another issue troubling Bragg in early August was the status of Simon Buckner. Special Orders, No. 176, issued in Richmond on 25 July, had renamed Bragg’s Department No. 2 as the Department of Tennessee, and Buckner’s smaller Department of East Tennessee had been merged into it. Accordingly, Bragg on 6 August issued an order announcing the creation of the Department of Tennessee. It also abolished Buckner’s department and designated Buckner’s troops as the Third Army Corps. Buckner, however, would continue to administer the district that had formerly been his department. For Bragg, the document resolved the previously problematic relationship between Bragg’s army and Buckner’s command. Unfortunately, the order displeased Buckner, who on 8 August specified his concerns to Chief of Staff William Mackall. If he had to continue administering his former department, Buckner wanted the full powers of a department commander, especially the authority to convene courts-martial. If that authority was denied, he wished to be relieved of all territorial administration. Although he claimed not to care how the situation was resolved, Buckner would later prove by both word and deed that he cared very deeply about the result. What he really wanted was to retain de facto independence under the distant yet protective wing of the Army of Tennessee. Buckner argued that precedent for such an arrangement was the District (or as Buckner styled it, Department) of the Gulf, which Buckner had commanded before coming to East Tennessee. While within Bragg’s command, the District of the Gulf was so geographically isolated that Bragg had essentially left its commander alone. The Department of East Tennessee was inextricably linked to the Department of Tennessee by geography, rail connections, and strategic focus in ways Mobile and its environs never had been, but Buckner refused to recognize the differences between the two commands. He couched his argument in terms of technical issues like court-martial authority, but his pride and status were what was really at stake. His intense dislike of Bragg also inspired his plea for a more independent role.⁵

What initially appeared to be a simple administrative reorganization that would rationalize command relationships in eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama generated controversy at both ends of Bragg’s now enlarged domain. When he received no immediate response from Bragg, Buckner wrote on 11 August to Adjutant General Cooper, as earlier correspondence had permitted him to do. In that letter he argued that he should either regain department command, with its concomitant technical authority, under the general umbrella of the Department of Tennessee, or he should become simply a corps commander with no other responsibilities. Again, he claimed that he sought only administrative efficiency and had no personal interest in mind. He took the liberty to append his letter to Mackall to the correspondence with Cooper. For the moment the Davis administration did not answer Buckner’s plea. In the meantime, both Bragg and Johnston raised another issue over the boundaries of Bragg’s expanded command. Special Orders, No. 176, had defined the western boundary of Bragg’s department as a line running north from West Point, Georgia, to the Tennessee River, then along that river all the way to its mouth in Kentucky. This boundary meant that Bragg’s territory included only the land on the right bank of the Tennessee. Thus, Patton Anderson’s brigade watching the Federals at Bridgeport, Joseph Wheeler’s pickets along the river to Gunter’s Landing, Wheeler’s headquarters and Will Martin’s division at Gadsden, and Philip Roddey’s command in western Alabama would all be outside of the Department of Tennessee. To correct the problem, the War Department on 4 August issued Special Orders, No. 184, which added nine Alabama counties, all of them either on the left bank of the Tennessee River or around Gadsden, to Bragg’s command. This modification permitted Bragg to operate legally in the northernmost counties of Alabama all the way to the Mississippi state line, and Johnston was so notified.⁶

Boundary questions aside, Bragg was most concerned in early August with keeping track of the Army of the Cumberland. On his left flank, Wheeler had assigned only two small regiments of cavalry to watch the river from Bridgeport to Decatur, where Roddey’s brigade extended the picket line across northern Alabama. Roddey was told to place scouts north of the river, but no such order to Wheeler is extant. At Bridgeport and Shell Mound, Anderson’s Mississippians occasionally crossed the river clandestinely to supplement their observations from the left bank. On Bragg’s right flank, Forrest had stationed part of Dibrell’s command around Sparta, where it could watch the Federal division at McMinnville. Still, much of the Federal activity in the center of Bragg’s front was shielded by the massive Cumberland Plateau and Walden’s Ridge. Thus Bragg used various means to penetrate that area. When Col. Benjamin Hill proposed to take part of his Thirty-Fifth Tennessee infantry regiment into the mountains to protect Confederate sympathizers, Bragg saw an opportunity. Both Hill and his regiment were native to the McMinnville area and knowledgeable about the territory from the Sequatchie Valley to the west side of the Cumberland Plateau. For several weeks, beginning in early August, Hill’s detachment operated west of the Tennessee River. Similarly, Maj. Charles McDonald’s battalion, sometimes styled the Eighteenth Tennessee Cavalry Battalion, also scouted into the mountains west of Chattanooga. Writing to his uncle on 7 August, Pvt. P. B. Clark reported, “We are here on detached service as scouts for Gen Bragg. We have a pleasant time—the easiest time we have had since I have been out. We send out a scout every fourth or fifth day. Our last scouts report the main body of the enemy at Tulahoma.” Finally, Alexander McKinstry, Bragg’s provost marshal, managed the activities of a series of agents who passed between the lines of the opposing armies. Like Rosecrans, Bragg had no intelligence staff and had to make his own assessments from these disparate sources.⁷

In addition to intelligence gathering, Bragg was also concerned about intelligence denial. According to Rosecrans’s intelligence journal, a steady stream of army deserters and disaffected workers from Chattanooga’s industries reached the Federal lines during July and August. Many of them offered information on Confederate unit locations, strength, and morale. Well aware of this leakage, Bragg attempted to reduce the flow of information to the enemy and even occasionally turn it to his advantage. The Tennessee River barred easy escape from Bragg’s territory, although it did not stop determined deserters or Federal agents. At least, Bragg reasoned, he could regulate major crossing points like Kelly’s Ferry and Brown’s Ferry downstream and Blythe’s Ferry upstream from the city. The two crossings below Chattanooga seemed to give Bragg the most trouble. They represented the easiest way to reach the Federal lines if a soldier was inclined to desert, but private citizens used those crossings as well. Bragg admonished Inspector General Beard for regulating traffic at Kelly’s Ferry too strictly, but in the same letter ordered Beard to secure all boats in the area to discourage deserters. Similar instructions went to Forrest at Kingston. Brown’s Ferry was Polk’s responsibility, and Bragg ordered him to increase its guard. Still, security remained lax, especially away from the river. When Beard reported passing from the west side of Lookout Mountain into Chattanooga during the night of 8 August without challenge, Bragg demanded better performance from John Jackson, post commander. He also arranged to strengthen the guard at the Western & Atlantic Railroad depot. Every train carried men from McKinstry’s provost guard, either detailed men or convalescents from the hospitals. All this vigilance may have deterred casual deserters or spies, but as Rosecrans’s intelligence journal shows, it was by no means completely effective. The country was just too wild, the opportunities too great, and the motivations too diverse for Bragg to maintain perfect operational security across such a wide front.⁸

The details of Bragg’s headquarters routine during his convalescence at Cherokee Springs are not known. All of the orders emanating from headquarters during the first two weeks of August were headed “Chattanooga,” but that may simply have been a bureaucratic convenience. At Cherokee Springs, Bragg did have access to telegraphic services via the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which also provided transportation between Chattanooga and Catoosa Station. Certainly the more often Bragg visited Chattanooga and its vexing distractions, the less a change of scenery and his wife’s presence would rejuvenate his health. Much of the army’s headquarters business was routine, and most personnel actions could be handled by the staff with minimal guidance from Bragg. The return of George Brent in late July as the army’s assistant adjutant general had removed a great deal of pressure from Bragg. Brent’s mild, self-effacing personality and his technical proficiency were an almost perfect combination for a staff officer. Unlike the more mercurial Mackall, Brent had no higher ambition than to serve Bragg, and by extension the Army of Tennessee, in the best way possible. Like Rosecrans, Bragg reveled in detail work that should have been beneath his level of attention. Unlike Rosecrans, who dominated his young staff officers with his manic behavior, Bragg was usually willing to listen to a calming influence such as Brent provided. Thus Brent apparently handled much of the army’s routine paperwork, leaving Bragg free to clear his head and regain his physical health. Some matters, of course, required Bragg’s personal attention, notably his correspondence with both Samuel Cooper and Joseph Johnston. In other cases, Brent signed the documents, serving simply as the army commander’s scribe. Acknowledging Brent’s contribution, Bragg on 8 August recommended Brent’s promotion to colonel in the strongest terms to Adjutant General Cooper. Whether Brent did his work at Chattanooga or Cherokee Springs was immaterial; his obvious value to his commander was not.⁹

While Bragg rested at Cherokee Springs, his soldiers continued to recover from the rigors of the previous campaign. There was still work to be done, but most units maintained some semblance of normal camp life. In Polk’s Corps, daily details labored on fortifications rising on Cameron Hill and the bluffs overlooking the landing. On Harvey Hill’s front upstream near Harrison, many fords required guards, to keep Federals from approaching and deserters from escaping. Everywhere units drilled and, like their Federal counterparts, participated in onerous inspections and reviews. During a review of Churchill’s Brigade, Hill impressed at least one soldier, who stated, “He is a fine looking man and I think is able anuff to sweap the Feds before him as he goes.” On 5 August, John Wharton and Col. Thomas Harrison reviewed the Eighth Texas Cavalry regiment. The famed “Terry’s Texas Rangers” paraded to the music of the Sixth Arkansas Infantry regiment’s brass band, imported from Chattanooga for the occasion. Afterward, the Texans hosted a sumptuous barbecue in honor of Wharton and the ladies of Rome. The men of the regiment presented Wharton with a spirited charger, purchased with their own money. Pvt. Leonidas Giles thought little of the subsequent speeches: “Both speakers pledged the last drop of their blood, etc. Same old story, but a trifle stale by this time.” On a more practical note, a number of artillery batteries in Polk’s Corps competed in target practice outside of Chattanooga. Some of the shooting was poor, as recorded by a member of Stanford’s Mississippi Battery: “Commenced firing at ten oclock with first piece—very unsatisfactory. Each gun has 4 shots allowed it. The second piece followed us. Neither one hit the target a distance of 1400 yards. Will not fire the 3rd and 4th pieces—are unfit.” The guns were condemned on the spot and the unit eventually received four new three-inch rifled guns. Other batteries, notably Smith’s Mississippi and Fowler’s Alabama, performed better. Nevertheless, at least one infantryman was not impressed by what he saw.¹⁰

Still, all was not seriousness in the camps of the Army of Tennessee. Men wrote letters home, read books and papers, and visited the top of Lookout Mountain to admire the natural curiosity called Rock City. Others visited Chattanooga, among them Lt. James Fraser of the Fiftieth Alabama Infantry regiment, who confided to his diary on 7 August, “Went to Chattanooga had a jolly time. Hope I will not be arrested for going without leave.” Surgeon James Brannock of the Fifth Tennessee Infantry regiment attended a musical review in the town in early August. He delighted in the performances of several singers but was disgusted by the audience: “I do not honestly think there was a decent woman present. Prostitutes there were in abundance, & Confederate Officers & soldiers lavishing their attentions upon them. Their conduct was in many instances shameful—a disgrace to humanity & an outrage upon common decency.” Similar disgust was expressed by Sgt. John Sparkman of the Forty-Eighth Tennessee Infantry regiment, who wrote on 4 August, “I was once in a Mess with an old man who used to curse me for (as he called it) preaching morality in camps. Today he is in the Guardhouse for bad conduct while I am still at my post as usual.” Sgt. Maj. James Searcy of the Reserve Artillery Battalion also indicted the morals of some soldiers, in a letter to his sister: “The vicinity of an army is the last place in the world I’d like a sister or lady friend of mine to be in. … There are several ladies about here—real ladies—who I know are imposed upon by the attentions of perfect rascals.” One of those “rascals” may have been Adj. Alexander Moore of the Thirty-Third Alabama Infantry regiment, who boasted to his brother, “I know several women in town & have had a good time so far with some of them. Nearly all up here smoke, chew & curse some. I have managed to squeeze nearly all of my female acquaintances in Tenn. so far. There are in fact some very pretty women here & we ‘army fellows’ play a fast game with them.”¹¹

Brannock, Sparkman, and Searcy were hardly alone in resisting the urges that possessed many young men with too little to do. Indeed, surviving accounts indicate that large numbers of soldiers took refuge in a renewed wave of religious fervor sweeping through the camps. Harvey Hill set the example for his corps by regularly attending religious services in camp instead of going to church in town. When Rev. S. M. Cherry, the Methodist chaplain of Bate’s Brigade, had an audience with the general soon after he took command, Hill encouraged him to begin a brigade-wide revival immediately. Cherry superintended the construction of a large arbor, complete with log seats and a mourner’s bench. Thereafter, he and nine other chaplains took turns preaching every night and three times on Sunday. According to the Chattanooga Daily Rebel, Hill himself attended the services. In the camp of the Eighth Texas Cavalry near Rome, Rev. Robert Bunting and several associates continued their monthlong revival, breaking the string of nightly meetings only during relocation of the camp. Bunting first used a local church building but eventually utilized soldier labor to construct a new meeting hall from materials remaining from the Wharton barbecue celebration. He thereafter held three services daily. By mid-August at least sixty soldiers had joined Bunting in a “provisional church,” and an additional twenty had made professions of faith. Elsewhere, soldiers simply crowded into established churches or attended Sunday services in their regimental areas. Still others, already strong in their faith, expressed themselves privately in letters to loved ones. Sgt. William Honnoll of the Twenty-Fourth Mississippi Infantry regiment was such a man, writing to his sister on 3 August, “I don’t want you to think that I am dissatisfied. … I am better satisfied then I have been in a long time for I am reconcile to my doom let it be what it may for my sole trust is in god.”¹²

Many soldiers in the Army of Tennessee shared Sergeant Honnoll’s sense of resignation. Writing to his wife on 13 August, Pvt. Hezekiah Rabb of the Thirty-Third Alabama Infantry regiment believed the Confederacy’s future was bleak: “It looks very much to me like the Confederacy is gone up. I sometimes think she will not Quiver but a little longer we are undoubtedly whipped unless there is a Powerful alteration soon though I can’t say what will happen.” Capt. Irvine Walker, a staff officer in Manigault’s Brigade, tried to suppress views like Rabb’s. To his fiancée he wrote on 9 August, “The position of affairs generally looks very blue, but I trust in God and the righteousness of our cause.” Pvt. Benjamin Burke of the Eighth Texas Cavalry regiment echoed Walker in a letter to his parents: “Some citizens are getting somewhat despondent, though I do not think that kind of a spirit prevails to much extent in the army or among the soldiers.” More upbeat was Assistant Surgeon David Godwin of the Fifty-First Tennessee Infantry regiment, who wrote to a friend on 1 August, “Since I wrote you last, the future of this great national drama has undergone a great change; and for a few short days cast a gloom over our entire army, but I am proud to say, that the cloud has almost entirely disappeared; and to day our prospects are more flattering than at any former time.” Even those who could not see such a bright future were resolved to fight to the last, as Pvt. Daniel Kelly of Maxson’s Company of Sappers and Miners told a cousin on 3 August: “And now Cousin I feel that this unholy war was forsed on me for I was opposed to it at the start but now I am in favor of prosicuting it to the last extremity for if we do not gain our independence I cannot see any thing els but slavery stareing me in the face and reather than submit to this I would reather die and I want to die as my noble brother at Shilo. … I want to die battling for my liberty.”¹³

As August approached its midpoint, Bragg welcomed a new major general to his army. Ever since the departure of Jones Withers, half of Polk’s command had been led temporarily by Brig. Gen. Zachariah Deas. The War Department on 15 July had announced Maj. Gen. Thomas Carmichael Hindman Jr. as Withers’s replacement, but Hindman did not arrive until 12 August. A controversial figure, Hindman, thirty-five, was a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, and a graduate of the prestigious Lawrenceville Classical Institute in New Jersey. Moving with his parents to Mississippi, he became first an attorney, then a junior officer in the Mexican War but saw no combat. After a brief foray into Mississippi politics, he moved to the frontier town of Helena, Arkansas, where he soon gained a reputation as a fiery orator, brawler, and duelist. There, too, he developed a lifelong friendship with Helena resident Patrick Cleburne. An Arkansas congressman in 1861, Hindman was an ardent secessionist who worked diligently to remove Arkansas from the Union. He then raised the Second Arkansas Infantry regiment and subsequently was promoted to brigadier general. He commanded a brigade at Shiloh, where he was injured, and shortly thereafter gained promotion to major general. Sent to Arkansas, Hindman commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department until his dictatorial pronouncements led to his demotion to field command. He then led a small army to defeat at Prairie Grove in December 1862. Forced by popular clamor to leave Arkansas, Hindman next chaired the commission investigating the fall of New Orleans. Having completed the commission’s work, he now reported to Braxton Bragg for duty. Energetic to a fault, bold in personal demeanor, and quick to take offense, Thomas Hindman packed those qualities into a body little taller than five feet. Dapper in dress and favoring long curls, he wore an elevated shoe and walked with a limp because of a prewar carriage accident. A stronger contrast between him and his friend Cleburne could hardly be imagined.¹⁴

On the same day that Hindman was announced as a division commander in Polk’s Corps, Brig. Gen. James Deshler took command of a brigade in Hill’s Corps, the brigade formerly commanded by Thomas Churchill. Deshler had only recently been promoted to brigadier general and placed in charge of the army’s Artillery Reserve. Both he and Churchill had been at Arkansas Post in January 1863 when the place had been surrendered, shamefully in the eyes of many. Churchill, however, had commanded the entire garrison, while Deshler had been a brigade commander only. Exchanged in April and sent to the Army of Tennessee in May, the predominately Texas units from the Arkansas Post debacle were organized into a brigade under Churchill but had never reconciled themselves to that fact. Desirous of returning to the Trans-Mississippi Department, where the cavalrymen among them could be remounted, the men of the brigade resented both Churchill and anything to do with Bragg’s command. Churchill had struggled to reassert his authority over the brigade, but Deshler was popular with the men, so the change was considered a positive step. The infantry’s gain, however, was the Artillery Reserve’s loss, because Deshler’s departure meant that the hated Maj. Felix Robertson would resume command of the gunners. Even with Deshler in charge, the spirited men of the brigade remained difficult to return to full compliance with army discipline. Col. Roger Mills, commanding the consolidated Sixth and Tenth Texas Infantry and the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry (Dismounted) regiments, was especially disliked. For example, Sgt. William Heartsill recorded in his diary a telling incident that occurred on the night of 14 August: “At night some fellow on the right of the Regiment raised a yell and it spread like ‘wild fire’ through the command, when what do you think,! orders are immediatly [sic] issued by KING ROGER for every man to be quiet or suffer severe punishment, … and has it come to this; that the men cannot indulge in a little merriment occasionally without displeasing our RULER, petty tyranny now reigns over this Regiment.”¹⁵

Still another pocket of discontent with the Army of Tennessee’s senior leadership appeared within the army’s mounted arm. While Joseph Wheeler lacked administrative and disciplinary skills, he remained in favor with Bragg. Such favor did not extend to Nathan Bedford Forrest, although Bragg clearly recognized Forrest’s talents. Forrest detested Wheeler and chaffed under Bragg’s tight control. Indeed, he seemed to perform best when freed to operate without the constraints of a rigidly hierarchical system. On 9 August Forrest wrote to Samuel Cooper, offering a bargain he felt the War Department might accept. Bowing to military protocol, he sent his letter through Bragg’s headquarters, although he did not expect it to be forwarded to Richmond. In the letter, Forrest proposed to leave the Army of Tennessee with a small force and assume command of the territory stretching from Cairo, Illinois, to Vicksburg, Mississippi. There he expected to raise a force of up to 10,000 men, primarily from western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, within sixty days. With that force he intended to so interdict the Mississippi River that only traffic escorted by armored vessels could pass against his will. In other words, Forrest proposed to regain control of a large swath of lost territory and hold that territory until regular Confederate forces could arrive in strength. To support his appeal, Forrest reminded Cooper of his longstanding ties to the area and his intimate knowledge of the region’s geography. He asked only for his personal escort (60 men), Maj. Charles McDonald’s Eighteenth Tennessee Cavalry Battalion (150 men), and Lt. Col. Thomas Woodward’s Second Kentucky Cavalry regiment (250 men). Forrest also requested four rifled artillery pieces, pulled by eight-horse teams, and commanded by Capt. William Carnes. Upon receipt of this remarkable document, Bragg forwarded it to Richmond on 14 August, with the following endorsement: “I know no officer to whom I would sooner assign the duty proposed, than which none is more important, but it would deprive this army of one of its greatest elements of strength to remove General Forrest.” There the matter rested, for the time being.¹⁶

Around Bridgeport, the only troops of Bragg’s army that were in daily contact with their Federal opponents spent the first half of August in watchful waiting. When he was sent to the area in July, Patton Anderson had established his base of operations at Taylor’s Store, located at a crossing of the railroad approximately a mile from the railroad bridges. From that base, he dispatched daily details to picket the river and occasionally sent raiders across the Tennessee in search of Union guerrillas like the well-known “Bob” White. His line stretched fifteen miles from the mouth of Island Creek, five miles below Bridgeport, to Shell Mound Station on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, ten miles upstream. Four of Anderson’s five regiments, his battalion of sharpshooters, and Dent’s Alabama Battery camped at Taylor’s Store, while the Forty-First Mississippi Infantry regiment bivouacked at Shell Mound. Named for the large quantities of discarded freshwater mussel shells visible there, Shell Mound was another well-established crossing site, opening on the north side of the river into the Sequatchie Valley and the village of Jasper, Tennessee. It was also the site of an extensive saltpeter mining operation in Nickajack Cave, operated by the Confederate Nitre and Mining Bureau. There were other crossing sites within Anderson’s sector, notably Alley’s Ferry at the mouth of Battle Creek, but Bridgeport and Shell Mound were the most obvious choices for the Federals to use. For much of his front, Anderson’s task was straightforward. At the Bridgeport railroad crossing, however, the river was divided into two channels by Long Island. To watch Federal activity around the railroad bridge, Anderson was forced to garrison Long Island with a significant number of pickets, who were quietly rotated every third night. Officers enjoined men on the Long Island detail to be as quiet as possible, situated as they were under the enemy’s guns. The pickets also maintained several dugout canoes and skiffs on the east side of the island.¹⁷

When the Federals had first appeared at Bridgeport, the opposing pickets had fired at each other, but by August an unofficial truce prevailed. The Federals, and some civilians, used the river for bathing, but Anderson’s Mississippians rarely joined them. There was some trading of coffee, sugar, tobacco, and newspapers whenever officers were absent. The generally friendly approach was favored by soldiers on both sides, who believed that randomly killing a picket would not affect the war’s outcome. The situation at Bridgeport was so relaxed by 1 August that 1st Lt. Hubert Dent endeavored to lodge his wife with a local family. At Shell Mound, which had daily train service from Chattanooga, officers of the Forty-First Mississippi had the same idea. There, Lt. Col. Byrd Williams welcomed his wife, and Lt. J. H. Evans entertained his mother and sister. A major attraction for the civilian guests was Nickajack Cave. At Shell Mound, it was easy to cross the river unopposed, and numerous soldiers foraged liberally on the far bank. When the regiment’s cattle escaped their herder, the short rations caused several men to cross the river in search of food. When they illegally killed a hog, they received severe punishment. Lt. John Rand crossed the river to pay for the animal, and took the opportunity to purchase two watermelons at $1.00 each. Rand also noted in his diary on 9 August that the religious fervor sweeping the Chattanooga camps had reached his regiment, with nightly preaching and several baptisms. The men worried about their families in Mississippi that were in the path of the Federals, as Augustus Davis of the Seventh Mississippi Infantry regiment wrote his wife, Julia: “I was glad to hear that the Yanks had fallen back to the river. I feel like I will hear from you occasionally if they will stay on the river, but if they come out to Jackson I know there is no chance to hear—if they come out there you must do the best you can.” On 6 August, Pvt. John Roberts of the same regiment recorded in his diary, “I heare the yanks is a coming close to my home. … They will soon have my county.”¹⁸

Although Anderson’s men could see no immediate end to the tedium of guarding the ruined railroad bridge, watching the languid river, and joking with their Federal counterparts, their leaders were becoming concerned about the situation along the river. The growing number of Federals on the Bridgeport bluff, the increased amount of railroad traffic, and a report that seventy-five Federals had visited Jasper on 8 August all contributed to a growing concern by both Anderson and Bragg. As early as 4 August, Bragg had instructed Anderson to report Federal activity directly to army headquarters. If the Federals crossed the Tennessee above his position, Anderson was to withdraw and rejoin the main army via Trenton. Several days earlier, Anderson had put men to work splitting kindling and stockpiling it near the drawbridge to Long Island. In addition, they kept a barrel of turpentine nearby to accelerate the conflagration if ordered to burn the bridge. Although the flag of truce that returned Anderson’s mother to her son on 9 August offered no indication that the Federals were ready to upset the Bridgeport equilibrium, Bragg decided to visit Anderson in person. Ordering chief engineer Stephen Presstman to accompany him, Bragg traveled to Bridgeport on 12 August. There are no accounts of what he learned from Anderson, or any of what he saw during his visit, but Bragg was clearly alarmed. While he pondered what to do, on 13 August he contented himself with ordering John Jackson to increase the guard at the Chattanooga depot significantly. By the following day, 14 August, he had made his decision. In Bragg’s estimation, a Federal advance was very likely to begin soon, so it was time to prepare his army to meet it. That meant recalling scattered detachments, like Benjamin Hill’s in the Sequatchie Valley and part of the Eighteenth Tennessee Cavalry battalion, also across the river. Most important of all was an order to Patton Anderson: “The General Commanding directs that you abandon the Island at Bridgeport, and burn the Bridge.”¹⁹

That evening, Pvt. John Roberts of the Seventh Mississippi Infantry regiment was part of the detail assigned to replace the pickets on Long Island. He and thirty-five other soldiers quietly crossed the drawbridge and made their way to their picket posts. Eventually Roberts and seventeen other soldiers settled into their positions on the downstream end of the island. While some of his comrades kept watch, Roberts went to sleep. He was soon rudely awakened and informed that the island was to be abandoned. Quietly withdrawing toward the drawbridge, Roberts and several other men were ordered to remove the dugout canoes on the island’s shore. Stumbling through the brambles and deadfall to the riverbank in the darkness, they eventually found the canoes and paddled them to safety. Meanwhile the remainder of the detachment crossed the drawbridge. While the pickets of the Seventh Mississippi rallied on the left bank of the river and their officers accounted for everyone, soldiers from the Ninth Mississippi Sharpshooter battalion ignited the piles of turpentine-soaked kindling and fired the drawbridge. As the flames roared high over the doomed structure, Roberts stood in awe of the scene. He recorded: “In a few minutes a canon fired at the brig then a nother sheld the island alover. … Some times they wood thra a bawl past us. … At last the brig fel in and all quite a gain. … Thir was gards plast along the slou before we crost. So we will rest to nite and come on to marrow.”²⁰