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While General Meade had yet to show any talent for taking the offensive with the Army of the Potomac, he was a reliably competent defender, proven at Gettysburg.
150 years ago today Meade sized up the situation and made exactly the right decision. Unlike General Pope he was not going to wait around while Lee seized and held the initiative, instead he ordered the entire army to begin a withdrawal along the Alexandria and Orange railroad, the Union supply line. Having the interior track, Meade could move north more quickly than General Lee. Meade also recognized that Lee's hope in this campaign would be to be able to fall on an isolated portion of the Union army while it was on the march, and to counter this possibility Meade had all of his Corps keep in tight formation, all within supporting distance of one another. Finally, Meade was not going to let Lee choose the battlefield if matters came to that. He would not fall back to Mananas where Lee could strike from the front or emerge from the mountains to the west to slam into Meade's flank. Meade ordered a retreat all the way back to Centreville.
Lee had been absolutely right when he had first heard of Meade's elevation to command and remarked "He will make no mistake on my front." In essence, the decisions made by Meade on this day decided the outcome of the entire campaign which would continue until early November and the two armies were back where they had started. Meade was not going to offer Lee any of the opportunities his past opponents had provided. If Lee wanted to fight, it was going to be a straight up slugging match on ground of Meade's choosing, another Gettysburg as it were. That was not the sort of battle Lee could win.
The Army of the Potomac broke camp and headed north.
Yesterday, and today, 150 years ago, General Stuart's cavalry had been probing the Army of the Potomac's line of march, looking for a weak spot, a place where the Corps were not in supporting distance of one another. There was a great deal of skirmishing between the rebel cavalry and the rear guard of the Federal Second Corps commanded by General Warren, the hero of Little Round Top.
On this day General A.P. Hill's Corps was nearing Bristoe Station where he encountered the rear guard of the Union Fifth Corps, the unit which was marching ahead of Warren's troops. Unaware of the closeness of the Second Corps, Hill put his men into attack formation and sent them forward. Spotting Hill's preparations, Warren placed the men of the Second Corps in a position to ambush Hill's flank as it moved to the attack.
It was a calamity for the Confederates. Hill's men were caught in a murderous crossfire and were saved only when General Ewell's Corps reached the scene which persuaded the Federals to withdraw. In the lopsided exchange, Hill suffered just under 1400 casualties including the death of General Carnot Posey and the wounding of two other generals. Warren lost 540 men killed, wounded and captured.
With this action the Army of the Potomac continued on its retreat to Centreville and now General Lee's army was no longer shadowing it, but trailing it. Meade would reach Centreville safely, fortify it, and wait for Lee in a very strong position. Lee was frustrated. Unlike the 2nd Bull Run campaign, Meade had not left any supply bases for Lee to plunder, so Lee was already at the end of his supply line and could not sustain his army outside Centreville for long. Meade had not left any open flank for Lee to exploit, so the only options were a head on attack against a well entrenched foe, or a retreat back to the Rapidan/Rappahhannock line.
Lee would spend a few days probing for an opening of any sort, and failing to find one, turn around and head back south. There would be an embarrassment for the Federal cavalry taking place during the return march, but apart from that, the Bristoe Campaign came to nothing beyond an exercise in marching for both armies. Lee would try and put a good face on this by explaining that the campaign kept the Army of the Potomac from going over to the offensive, but in that Meade had no such immediate plans, there would not have been any offensive regardless.
Also on this day the fate of General Rosecrans was sealed by a vote of 288,374 to 187,492. That wasn't a poll on his competence as an army commander, but rather the results of the Ohio Congressional election won by the pro Union War Democrat John Brough over the exiled Clement Vallandigham who had conducted his campaign from Canada. President Lincoln had held off firing Rosecrans because Rosecrans was from Ohio, was a Democrat, and Lincoln did not want to alienate any anti- Vallandigham voters before the election. Now that the election was over and the desired result in hand, Lincoln sent General Grant two sets of orders which officially placed him in charge of all Union forces west of the Alleghenies. One set had language which left Rosecrans in charge of the Army of the Cumberland, the other language which fired Rosecrans and replaced him with General Thomas.
Grant was not a fan of Rosecrans, dating back to the victory at Battle of Cornith which Grant viewed as incomplete due to a lack of aggression on the part of Rosecrans, and all reports coming to him indicated that Rosecrans' nerves were shot. Still, Grant would wait until he arrived on the scene on the 23rd to make up his mind.
While General Lee was discovering no opportunities to strike a blow against his opponent in Northern Virginia, the Army of the Cumberland was down to quarter rations while waiting for General Grant to arrive at Chattanooga, and the Army of the Tennessee was waiting to see which officers would fall victim to General Bragg's sanctioned house cleaning, in Charleston Harbor a small group was preparing for the second test of their eccentric invention.
This was the new crew of the H.L. Hunley, the rebel submarine which had been launched last August 29th and killed five of its eight crewmen when it sank. That mission had failed when the inexperienced lieutenant in command had inadvertently caused the vessel to dive while the hatch was still open. To avoid a repeat of this sort of mistake, on today's test a new commander was in charge.
He was a lawyer/engineer, born in Tennessee and raised in New Orleans. He had served as a member of the Louisiana legislature and volunteered his services as a marine engineer when the war began. This was Horace Lawson Hunley, the man who invented the ship which was about to be taken on a shake down cruise which would include a mock attack on a vessel. Hunley had previously developed a submarine in New Orleans, but that city fell before it was completed. He relocated to Mobile where his second submarine, funded personally by Hunley, proved a failure and sunk in the Bay.
Now Hunley was putting his life on the line to back the promise of his invention. Up until today the plan had been for a rebel naval officer to command the submarine on this trial, but Hunley grew frustrated with trying to teach and decided to substitute himself as captain to make sure that all went well.
It did not.
The Hunley buttoned down for its mock cruise, ventured out into the water...and failed to resurface. All aboard were lost.
Despite the second loss of the sub, and the loss of its inventor, the Confederates were not ready to give up. The Hunley would be raised, the problems identified, and it would finally go on a military mission in February of 1864.
Model Showing the Interior of the H.L. Hunley With Crew Working Propulsion Shaft
With General Meade's army well entrenched behind fortifications in Centreville, the one attempt to strike a portion of that army having ending in a fiasco, and having reached the limits of his supply lines, 150 years ago today General Lee abandoned the Bristoe Campaign.
The Army of Northern Virginia was turned around and headed back toward the familiar ground behind the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers. As they retreated, they tore up the Orange and Alexandria railroad, so that any pursuit by Meade would be delayed by the need to repair the line.
There was one act left to play on the 19th, one which would star the Army of the Potomac's most foolhardy general, Judson Kilpatrick. It would serve to mitigate the one sided beating General Hill's troops had taken when he led them into an ambush, but it would do nothing to alter the outcome of the campaign.
Also on this day General Grant arrived at Cario Station heading for a Louisville meeting with Secretary of War Stanton. By coincidence, Stanton arrived at the station shortly thereafter and the two men staged their meeting on the spot.
Stanton handed Grant his two sets of orders, one where General Rosecrans was retained as commander of the Army of the Cumberland, and one where he was replaced by General Thomas. Grant had made up his mind and returned the orders retaining Rosecrans to the secretary. Stanton offered to wire the news ahead to Chattanooga, but Grant took the position that since it was his decision, it would be his responsibility to tell Rosecrans in person. The change in command would wait until Grant arrived.
150 years ago today featured the final act of the wheel spinning Bristoe Campaign which saw both eastern armies march north and then back south to their starting points.
Guarding the rear of General Lee's army as it fell back toward the Rapidan River was General Stuart's cavalry. Leading the vanguard of the Federal pursuit was the cavalry division of General Judson Kilpatrick. Leading the first brigade of Kilpatrick's force was General George Custer.
If your desire was for hyper aggressive, headstrong and impulsive leadership, you wanted Kilpatrick and Custer heading your force. Kilpatrick was from a New Jersey family whose males had traditionally sought military careers. Judson was no exception, graduating West Point just as the war was getting started. He never seems to have grasped that rifled weapons had altered the role of cavalry to one of scouting, guarding and raiding. Kilpatrick still saw the glory of the charge across the open plain, his men saw the gore of it as Kilpatrick's units suffered extremely high casualty rates due to his brave but foolish tactics. Before long he had won the nickname "Kill-Cavalry", which was not a reference to what he did to the other side.
Custer, despite his reputation, had a much better understanding of handling cavalry, but shared Kilpatrick's impulsive and aggressive nature.
Stuart had split his command with half of the men under himself retreating down the west side of the Orange and Alexandria railroad, and half down the eastern side under General Fitzhugh Lee. Upon learning that it was Kilpatrick leading the pursuit, Lee conferred with Stuart and suggested an ambush. If Stuart's men were to pretend that they had been routed, Kilpatrick was likely to send his men ahead full speed without any regard for what lay ahead. What would lay ahead in the plan was Lee and his men lurking on the flank as Stuart passed.
The plan worked perfectly. Stuart turned his men around and fled from the Yankee horse at high speed. Custer in the lead ordered an all out pursuit and things appeared to be going in his favor until Lee's men suddenly emerged from concealment in the woods and Stuart's men wheeled about and charged.
The consequence was a wild, five mile frantic retreat by the Yankees which came to be known as the Buckland Races, or at least was known that way in the South. The Federals lost 230 casualties in the rout, most of them captives.
The fight had no strategic consequences, Lee's retreat continued, Meade's cautious following did as well. It did serve to somewhat restore southern morale in that otherwise the only consequence of the Bristoe Campaign would have been General Hill's embarrassing defeat.
Fitzhugh Lee's Men Smash Into Custer's Flank In This Artist Depiction
150 years ago today General Grant arrived from Nashville at Bridgeport, Alabama, the end of the Federal rail connection to the besieged forces at Chattanooga. There to meet him, having traveled the 60 mile rough looping path through the mountains, was the outgoing commander of the Army of the Cumberland, General William Rosecrans.
Rosecrans had kept his composure after learning he had been relieved. He didn't have the heart to address the troops in person, but he did leave behind a formal written message praising their courage and that of their new commander, General Thomas. He then departed without any sort of fuss or formalities.
His meeting with Grant was somewhat awkward, Grant having fired Rosecrans, but the outgoing general held to his duty and spent the time briefing Grant on the situation at Chattanooga and explaining what plans had been developed to relieve the critical supply shortage situation.
Rosecrans was to later write that Grant attempted to claim that the decision to relieve him had not been his personally, rather it had been Secretary Stanton's. Grant's memoirs make no mention of this and in other passages it is clear that it was Grant's decision. What struck Grant about Rosecrans was that the plans he submitted for salvaging the situation at Chattanooga were all quite sound, yet nothing had been done. Grant later wrote that he thought Rosecrans' ideas "excellent" and "..my only wonder was that he had not carried them out."
The next day the generals departed, Rosecrans headed for Cincinnati to await new orders, and Grant for Chattanooga on the tortuous 60 mile mountain road. Grant was still walking with crutches since his horse fall accident in New Orleans. The route was so steep and muddy that in some stretches Grant had to dismount and be physically carried while his horse was led through the muck and mire. Just as Grant arrived and dismounted at the headquarters of Thomas on the 22nd, his horse fell over from exhaustion.
Rosecrans was eventually transferred west of the Mississippi and given command of the District of Missouri where no major battles would be fought, just skirmishing by raiders.
It was a good day for General Bragg 150 years ago as official word arrived from the Confederate War Department. President Davis had approved Bragg's dismissal of General Leonidus Polk from the Army of Tennessee. The Bishop had long been a thorn in Bragg's side, not only an ineffective, disobedient subordinate, but also a very vocal critic of the army commander. It probably also gave Davis some private satisfaction that Polk was transferred to General Johnston's small army now in Atlanta, where he could become the problem of a Davis critic.
Bragg had now cleaned house of most of his internal enemies. Along with Polk, gone were Generals Hindman and D.H. Hill. General Buckner, who most historians suspect was the author of the letter to Davis requesting Bragg's replacement, was reduced from corps command to division command and sent east to the Knoxville front to take charge of the small rebel force facing General Burnside's Army of the Ohio.
That left only General Longstreet among Bragg's highly placed non admirers. Longstreet had been the hero of the Chickamagua battle when his force scored the critical breakthrough of the Federal center which sent General Rosecrans fleeing back to Chattanooga. Longstreet, as General Lee's most trusted and veteran subordinate, also enjoyed a well respected status throughout the South. The consequence was that Bragg had no credible grounds for dismissing him. Some other means would need to be found to rid Bragg of this threat to his command and Bragg would eventually find it, to the ruin of himself and his army.
A question President Lincoln had asked numerous times, and never received a satisfactory answer, was why the Federal forces were unable to move with the alacrity and daring of the Army of Northern Virginia. Insufficient supplies, insufficient numbers, the president would be told, but then he would point out that the southerners had even greater deficiencies in these areas and yet were still willing to launch offensives, the latest having been General Lee's aborted Bristoe Campaign.
This time the president decided not to solicit reasons why it could not be done, instead he would simply order that it shall be done. 150 years ago today General Meade received a message from the war department under the president's name. The substance was clear....Meade was not to sit out the rest of the campaign season on the defensive, but develop and execute a plan for taking the offensive while the weather still allowed it.
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In Chattanooga on this day, General Grant was out doing personal reconnaissance. The day before he had been presented with a plan developed by General Rosecrans staff, for relieving the critical supply situation. To the west the Tennessee River made a severe loop to the south before reversing itself and flowing north once more. The land inside this loop was called Moccasin Point. On the west bank rose Raccoon Mountain, but it was broken by a gap which led to a landing called Brown's Ferry.
This crossing was rendered useless to the Federals by the presence of rebel artillery on the mountain. General "Baldy" Smith had come up with a plan for a night operation to drive off the rebels and open Brown's Ferry. Rosecrans had rejected it as too dangerous, but Grant decided not to make up his mind until he had personally inspected the grounds. So 150 years ago today Grant was helped onto his horse, and with his crutches strapped to the saddle, rode to Brown's Ferry and looked over the ground. He did this in full view of the Confederate pickets on the opposite bank of the Tennessee, but thanks to the informal army wide agreement about suspending hostilities, no shots were fired. Perhaps if they had known the identity of the cigar chomping officer calmly surveying the opposite bank, they would have suspended the informal truce.
Having seen what he came to see, Grant mounted up once more and returned to headquarters in the city. To General Thomas he gave his go ahead for the plan and gave the assignment to General Hooker's troops.
On the post for October 23rd I listed General Hindman as among the enemies of General Bragg who had been vanquished.
I am jumping the gun with that, Hindman does indeed get sent east to confront General Burnsides near Knoxville, but that does not happen until November 22nd.
I apologize for the error. If you are unsatisfied, please return the unread portions of the post and I will refund the unspent portions of your money.
150 years ago in the early hours of the morning, 1050 soldiers from General William B. Hazen brigade (Baldy Smith's Division) boarded 50 pontoon boats in the Tennessee River and silently floated downstream to the west, maintaining absolute silence so as to avoid detection. Their goal was to reach and capture the west bank of the river where Brown's Ferry was located. At the same time, Smith's other brigade under General John B. Turchin was marching across Moccasin Point by land, their goal was capturing the Ferry on the eastern side. The third element in the plan had General Hooker's men advancing from Bridgeport, Alabama into the Lookout Mountain Valley. They would cut off Raccoon Mountain from the rest of the rebel army.
Their intention was to surprise the Confederates under Colonel William C. Oates (the same Oates whose Alabama regiment was repulsed at Little Round Top by the 20th Maine) who were guarding the Ferry and had established artillery positions on the overlooking Raccoon Mountain. At 5 am the Union forces arrived and did just that. Oates reacted quickly and organized a counterattack, but the Union forces were double his numbers and the assault failed with Oates receiving a serious wound in the process. When Turchin's troops were ferried across the river to join with Hazen's men, the rebels were forced to retreat.
With the Federals now in control of the west bank at the Ferry, and Hooker's force occupying the valley below, the artillery positions on Raccoon Mountain were no longer defensible and had to be withdrawn.
As soon as the enemy was gone, Union engineers began construction of a pontoon bridge across the river and upon its completion, a new Union supply line, one which bypassed the 60 mile slog through the mountains, was established. They called it "The Cracker Line" and it instantly solved the serious supply problem which had been plaguing the Federals at Chattanooga. Now Hooker's army and General Sherman's 20,000 reinforcements from the Army of the Tennessee could be brought to join the besieged Army of the Cumberland..and all could be fed.
This was a dramatic reversal in the strategic situation. Before it could be said that General Bragg had Chattanooga under siege, now the Federals would have the strength to break out and it is questionable as to who was besieging whom any longer.
Bragg blamed the loss of General Longstreet's failure to counter attack right away, and he would order such an attempt two days later. It would fail, further driving the wedge between the two officers and ramping up the animosity levels.
Previously it was arguable whether the Army of Tennessee's failures were more the fault of Bragg or of Bragg's subordinates. From this point forward, it would be all Bragg, nearly every decision he would make in the next month would be the wrong one.
Opening the Cracker Line: Artist Depiction of Hazen's Men Setting Off In Their Pontoon Boats
Kelly's Ford To Brown's Ferry...The Cracker Line
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