Tullahoma Campaign - Aftermath

Aftermath

Thus ended a nine days' campaign, which drove the enemy from two fortified positions and gave us possession of Middle Tennessee, conducted in one of the most extraordinary rains ever known in Tennessee at that period of the year.

Tullahoma is considered a "brilliant" campaign by many historians. Abraham Lincoln wrote, "The flanking of Bragg at Shelbyville, Tullahoma and Chattanooga is the most splendid piece of strategy I know of." Union Cavalry Corps commander David Stanley wrote, "If any student of the military art desires to make a study of a model campaign, let him take his maps and General Rosecrans's orders for the daily movements of his campaign. No better example of successful strategy was carried out during the war than in the Tullahoma campaign." The Union Army had driven the Confederates out of Middle Tennessee with minimal losses. Union casualties were reported as 569 (83 killed, 473 wounded, and 13 captured or missing). Bragg made no casualty report; his losses, he said, were "trifling." But the Union army captured 1,634 Confederates, primarily from Hardee's Corps. As Bragg rode into the Tennessee mountains he told Bishop Charles Quintard, the chaplain of the 1st Tennessee, that he was "utterly broken down" and that the campaign was "a great disaster".

Rosecrans did not receive all of the public acclaim his campaign might have under different circumstances. The day it ended was the day Robert E. Lee launched Pickett's Charge and lost the Battle of Gettysburg. The following day, Vicksburg surrendered to Grant. Secretary Of War Stanton telegraphed Rosecrans, "Lee's Army overthrown; Grant victorious. You and your noble army now have a chance to give the finishing blow to the rebellion. Will you neglect the chance?" Rosecrans was infuriated by this attitude and responded, "Just received your cheering telegram announcing the fall of Vicksburg and confirming the defeat of Lee. You do not appear to observe the fact that this noble army has driven the rebels from middle Tennessee. ... I beg in behalf of this army that the War Department may not overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood."

Rosecrans did not immediately pursue Bragg and "give the finishing blow to the rebellion" as Stanton urged. He paused to regroup and study the difficult choices of pursuit into mountainous regions. When the campaigning resumed, Bragg's army proved to be only temporarily defeated. Reinforced with additional troops from Lee's Virginia army, Bragg attacked Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga in September and won the only significant Confederate victory in the Western Theater of the war, driving Rosecrans back to Chattanooga and besieging him there.