Tullahoma Campaign - Background

Background

Following the costly but tactically inconclusive Battle of Stones River (December 31, 1862 – January 2, 1863) between Rosecrans and Bragg at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Bragg withdrew his army about 30 miles to the south, along the Duck River and behind the ridge known as the Highland Rim, which encircles the Nashville Basin. Small groups of pickets protected the passes through the Highland Rim and cavalry protected each flank, a front of almost 70 miles. Bragg, headquartered in Tullahoma, was concerned that Rosecrans would advance to seize the strategic city of Chattanooga, a vital rail junction and the gateway to northern Georgia. His cavalry was spread over such a wide front because he was also concerned at a tactical level that Rosecrans might be able to turn his position, forcing him to retreat or to fight at a disadvantage. Bragg assumed that any attack would be made against his left flank through the easy-to-cross Guy's Gap in the direction of Shelbyville; he placed his larger infantry corps commanded by Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk in strong entrenchments at Shelbyville. Eight miles to his right, the corps of Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee was fortified in Wartrace, protecting the main road to Chattanooga and positioned to reinforce the other three passes through the Highland Rim—(from west to east) Bell Buckle Gap, Liberty Gap, and Hoover's Gap. Hoover's Gap was almost undefended; it was a four-mile-long pass between the 1100-foot ridges separating the Stones and Duck Rivers. The pass was so narrow that two wagons could barely pass side by side and was commanded by the surrounding ridges. Strong entrenchments were constructed, but they were manned by only a single cavalry regiment. After the campaign, Bragg was criticized for the inadequate nature of his Tullahoma position. Hardee told him that it was subject to both frontal and flanking attacks.

Rosecrans kept his army in place occupying Murfreesboro for almost six months, spending the time resupplying, building a logistical base (Fortress Rosecrans), and training, but also because he was reluctant to advance on the muddy winter roads. He received numerous entreaties from President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck to resume campaigning against Bragg, but rebuffed them through the winter and spring. A primary concern of the government was that if Rosecrans continued to sit idly, the Confederates might move units from Bragg's army in an attempt to relieve the pressure that Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was applying to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Lincoln wrote to Rosecrans, "I would not push you to any rashness, but I am very anxious that you do your utmost, short of rashness, to keep Bragg from getting lost to help Johnston against Grant." Rosecrans offered an excuse that if he started to move against Bragg, Bragg would likely relocate his entire army to Mississippi and threaten Grant's Vicksburg Campaign even more; thus, by not attacking Bragg, he was helping Grant. Frustration with Rosecrans's excuses led Halleck to threaten to relieve him if he did not move, but in the end he merely protested "against the expense to which put the government for telegrams."

Bragg's Army suffered from the delays. The area his troops occupied, known as the Barrens, was a zone of poor farmland that made it difficult for him to subsist his army while he waited for Rosecrans to attack him. Ironically, as they were stationed to protect agricultural supplies of the South moving by rail through Chattanooga, they were close to starving while large portions of those agricultural supplies were shipped east to Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Bragg's subordinate generals were near mutinous with their dissatisfaction of Bragg's command during his Kentucky campaign (Battle of Perryville) and Stones River. Confederate President Jefferson Davis responded to the complaints by dispatching Gen. Joseph E. Johnston to investigate the condition of the army. Davis assumed that Johnston, Bragg's superior, would find the situation wanting and take command of the army in the field, easing Bragg aside. However, Johnston arrived on the scene and found the men of the Army of Tennessee in relatively good condition. He told Bragg that he had "the best organized, armed, equipped, and disciplined army in the Confederacy." Johnston explicitly refused any suggestion that he take command, concerned that people would think he had taken advantage of the situation for his own personal gain. When Davis ordered Johnston to send Bragg to Richmond, Johnston delayed because of Mrs. Elise Bragg's illness; when her health improved Johnston was unable to assume command because of lingering medical problems from his wound at the Battle of Seven Pines in 1862.

During the winter and spring, both sides occupied themselves with their favorite—and generally profitless—practice of sending cavalry on raids. Almost a third of Bragg's army consisted of cavalry—16,000 effectives versus about 9,000 Union. In a February raid against Fort Donelson (the Battle of Dover) Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, commanding two brigades of cavalry, failed to capture the garrison in Dover, Tennessee, or disrupt Union shipping on the Cumberland River. In March, Rosecrans sent a detachment to cut Bragg's communications, but it was forced to surrender in the Battle of Thompson's Station. Also in March, Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest raided Rosecrans's communications at Brentwood, a station on the Nashville & Decatur Railroad, in the Battle of Brentwood. Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan made his famous raid into Ohio and Pennsylvania, an operation that cavalry historian Stephen Z. Starr called "militarily insane", ending in Morgan's capture. Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn who was brought into the Army of Tennessee's area of operation by Johnston, was unsure of his mission, where he was supposed to take position, and who would serve under him. He was unsuccessful in cutting Rosecrans's communications between February and May, with raids that included two minor cavalry fights north of Spring Hill in March and Forrest's pursuit and capture of Col. Abel Streight in Streight's Raid in Alabama in April. In May, Van Dorn was murdered and Forrest assumed command of the cavalry on Bragg's left flank; most of Van Dorn's Mississippi troopers were transferred back to their home state in May. The Confederates lost 4,000 cavalrymen during this period but did cause Rosecrans some concern over his supply lines. The Union lost 3,300 men and received little in return.

On June 2, Halleck telegraphed that if Rosecrans was unwilling to move, some of his troops would be sent to Mississippi to reinforce Grant, who by then was besieging Vicksburg, but was potentially threatened by the army of Joseph E. Johnston to his rear. Rosecrans sent a questionnaire to his corps and division commanders in the hopes of documenting support for his position—that Bragg had so far detached no significant forces to Johnston in Mississippi, that advancing the Army of the Cumberland would do nothing to prevent any such transfer, and that any immediate advance was not a good idea. Fifteen of the seventeen senior generals supported most of Rosecrans's positions and the counsel against advancing was unanimous. The only dissenter was the newly assigned chief of staff, Brig. Gen. James A. Garfield, who recommended an immediate advance. On June 16, Halleck wired a blunt message: "Is it your intention to make an immediate movement forward? A definite answer, yes or no, is required." Rosecrans responded to this ultimatum: "If immediate means tonight or tomorrow, no. If it means as soon as all things are ready, say five days, yes." Seven days later, early in the morning of June 24, Rosecrans reported that the Army of the Cumberland began to move against Bragg.