Note, the preceeding pictures were sent to me by Jim Ogden of the CCNMP. He – and I – would also like to extend thanks to everyone who, as a member of the Study Group, contributed to this effort with our excess funds these past couple of years. The Northern Illinois Civil War Round Table has also kicked in a fair amount.
The newly refurbished Lytle Monument is scheduled to be re-dedicated on September 20, 2013, the 150th Anniversary of General William Haines Lytle’s fall.
Then start adding your 8-inch Naval Shells. (I don’t think you can get these at Home Depot, for you do-it-yourself landscaper enthusiasts)
Next, the frame goes up…
The process of restoring the Lytle Shell Pyramid begins.
First, out with the old…
Some time ago, while researching General Breckinridge’s attack against George Thomas’s left flank on the morning of September 20, 1863, I came upon the following story of Breckinridge dealing with the mortal wounding of Brigadier General Helm:
“The General looked at his staff, then called his son Cabell to him. ‘Bear this message to Colonel Lewis,’ said Breckinridge. Theodore O’Hara volunteered to make the dangerous journey instead, but the general sent his own son. the boy made the ride successfully and informed Lewis of his new command.” (William C. Davis, Orphan Brigade, p. 187).
Curious about O’Hara, I started tracing this story back through the source material. I didn’t find all that much on O’Hara. I knew he was a Confederate officer, and that his poem, “The Bivouac Of The Dead.” appears in our national cemeteries. I thought there might be a Confederate counter-point to William Haynes Lytle, our Union soldier-poet, in the tale. There are some older biographical works on the man, but nothing definitive about his role at Chickamauga.
When the sources cited by Davis played out so quickly, I started searching archival material. I found that not much out was out there on O’Hara. There are some papers in scattered collections, it turns out, but O’Hara died in 1867 and did not get much time to write memoirs or on details of his service. In what seemed to be a curious oversight, he is not mentioned in Breckinridge’s report of the battle of Chickamauga.
In fact, I was trying too hard. There is a very good modern biography on O’Hara, co-authored by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. and Thomas Clayton Ware. (University of Tennessee, 1998). Dr. Hughes has written a number of Civil War histories and biographies that are favorites of mine, but more on that later. Dr. Hughes also passed on late last year, sadly. I got to know him only slightly, meeting him at a couple of historical conferences.
O’Hara was a lifelong friend of John C. Breckinridge, and did at times serve as a staff officer with that general, but not at Chickamauga. It seems clear that O’Hara was not present at the battle, and that the offer to replace Cabell on the dangerous courier mission is apocryphal. O’Hara had been born in Kentucky in 1820, the son of Irish exiles who fled their native island in 1793. He went to school with Breckinridge, and worked at various government jobs thereafter. In 1846 War erupted with Mexico. As a politically connected Democrat, O’Hara secured a direct commission as captain in the regular army, despite his lack of prior military service. He proved a capable soldier, earning plaudits and a brevet to major at Cherubasco in 1847.
His Mexican War contacts are interesting. He won the respect and support of Tennessean Gideon J. Pillow, whose political connections seemed worth cultivating at the time. However, when Pillow ran afoul of General Winfield Scott, O’Hara seems to have been instrumental in encouraging Breckinridge to put his law skills to use defending Pillow in a court-martial, much to Scott’s disgust. Whether related or not, O’Hara resigned his commission in 1847.
His interwar career is murkier. He was involved in a number of filibustering schemes, including an effort to “liberate” Cuba, which failed. O’Hara and fifteen of his fellow filibusterers were tried repeatedly (three times in New Orleans, once each in New York and Ohio) but in each case, the jury failed to return a guilty verdict. In 1850, he wrote his two epic poems, “the Old Pioneer” (about Daniel Boone) and “The Bivouac of the Dead” which concerned fallen Kentuckians from the Mexican War. For a time he was in newspapers , editing the Louisville Times. Then, in 1855, after trying to organize a second go at Cuba, he ended up back in the U.S. Army. For the next year O’Hara served with the prestigious U.S. second Cavalry, under Albert Sidney Johnson and Robert E. Lee. He did not prosper. While on a patrol under Lee’s command, O’Hara abandoned his company in the field to visit a sutler and get drunk. Lee preferred charges, and O’Hara, his career ruined, resigned rather than face them. He again dabbled in filibustering, and ultimately returned to newspapers.
In 1860, Lincoln’s election presaged war, and O’Hara again turned to things military, recruiting a militia cavalry company in Mobile Alabama. When the war broke out, O’Hara was serving at Pensacola, with ambitions of redeeming his lost military career.
It was not to be. Braxton Bragg commanded at Pensacola, and soon assessed O’Hare as “a drunken loafer from Mobile.’ Doubtless O’Hara’s pre-war reputation preceded him. Bragg dismissed O’Hara, who then attempted to secure a commission elsewhere. He was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 12th Alabama, commanding that unit in the absence of the Colonel, until that officer returned to duty. Then O’Hara resigned on the promise of a commission in another regiment, which did not materialize. He would quarrel with the Confederate War Department for the next two years, angling for the colonelcy he felt was unjustly denied him, and in the meantime, serve on the staffs of various commanders.
He served as a captain under Albert Sidney Johnson at Shiloh, and then for a time on Beauregard’s staff, until he and Beauregard had a falling out over O’Hara’s willingness to share army secrets with his old newspaper friends. He then fetched up on the staff of his old friend Breckinridge, and was present at the battle of Murfreesboro. The virtual slaughter of Breckinridge’s command – as ordered by Bragg – on January 2nd 1863 would also be the cause of O’Hara’s next trouble with a commander.
In the post-battle feud that grew up between Bragg and many officers in the Army of Tennessee, O’Hara played a central role. It was O’Hara, apparently, who leaked official reports critical of Bragg into the newspapers, enraging Bragg. In March, 1863, O’Hara was relieved of duty by order of Joseph E. Johnston (probably at Bragg’s request) and thereafter, was at loose ends. He stayed with Breckinridge as a volunteer staffer, holding no official position, though he was still drawing pay as a Captain.
When Breckinridge’s division was transferred back to the Army of Tennessee in August, 1863, O’Hara went to Columbus Georgia, waiting for orders that never came. He was not at Chickamauga, perhaps out of a desire to avoid any further conflict with Bragg. Even when that officer was relieved, however, O’Hara was not allowed back to the army; instead he went to Mobile in December, hoping to use local political connections to secure a position.
All to no avail. O’Hara’s movements and activities become hard to track, especially in the latter half of 1864, but he did not secure a regular posting. His star again seemed momentarily ascendant when Breckinridge was appointed Confederate Secretary of War (the sixth man to hold that post,) O’Hara joined his old friend in Richmond. By then, however, the Confederacy was doomed, and O’Hara could only accompany Breckinridge when the Confederate Government fled the city. The war ended with O’Hara holding the same rank as when it began, a Captain.
O’Hara died in 1867. He was buried in Columbus, whence he had returned at the close of the war. In 1874, the State of Kentucky moved his body to Frankfort, where it was reburied with more ceremony. By then, his poem was adorning National Cemeteries all over the country, where tens of thousands of Union – but no Confederate – war dead were interred. Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs selected “Bivouac of the Dead” for that honor with the creation of Arlington National Cemetery.
While O’Hara was not present at Chickamauga, that doesn’t mean his influence wasn’t felt there. The poisoned atmosphere that lingered between Bragg and many of his senior subordinates during 1863 was actively fed by O’Hara’s willingness to leak information to newsmen eager for inside information defamatory to Bragg. When Bragg sent O’Hara packing in disgrace from Pensacola back in the summer of 1861, doubtless he had no idea of how far the repercussions of that move would reach. Thus O’Hara becomes another important – albeit obscure – player in our theater of the absurd that was the Army of Tennessee.
As for Dr. Hughes, he was one of my favorite Civil War authors. While he authored or co-authored many titles, three of his works stand out for me as exemplars of the genre: Jefferson Davis In Blue is an outstanding biography of a very complicated Union General. The Pride Of The Confederate Artillery, about the 5th Company Washington (LA) Artillery is an equally outstanding unit history. Last but not least, the Life and Wars of Gideon J. Pillow, with Roy P. Stonesifer, offers a unique view of a Civil War figure most dismiss as a running joke. The Pillow book does not overreach and try to defend the indefensible, but it does present clear, well-reasoned and researched insights into the man. I was delighted to find this book on O’Hara.
Since a few folks have been pinging me with emails, I thought I would post a quick update about the study group here.
First, we are on track – we have a nearly full bus, and I am still getting inquiries, so I think we will have a good number for the Friday tours.
Second, I just got back from Chickamauga this weekend, after a preliminary recon and some time with friends in the area. The thinning of the woods has made our Saturday morning tour (opening guns on Sept 19) even better. We can now navigate through the woods instead of via the trails, meaning we can follow the various brigades more closely than otherwise.
Dr. Robertson reports that he will be attending, no change there. I look forward to having him along, with his vast knowledge of the battle.
So, see you all next month. It should be a great time.
Dave Powell
I have been quiet here of late. I do have some interesting ideas for essays on the blog, but frankly, each of those ideas are still more question than answer right now.
I have decided to go ahead and discuss these ideas, with the idea of revisiting them later, as I eventually run down loose ends. the first of these has to do with medical affairs.
William Starke Rosecrans was an inventor and tinkerer at heart, as much as he was a soldier. This extended to all aspects of improving the soldier’s lot in life, including health care. As early as the First Battle of Bull Run, it became obvious that the existing medical services for treating casualties were going to be an abysmal failure. The influx of masses of volunteers also created masses of sick men who had to be cared for, and the army lacked doctors, nurses, hospitals, supplies -you name it, they needed it.
Within the space of a year, two men played a huge role in not just modernizing the U.S. Army Medical Service, but revolutionizing it. These men were Dr. Jonathan A. Letterman and First Lieutenant William A. Hammond.
Letterman is the name most often associated with medical department reforms, and usually in the context of the Army of the Potomac. It was Letterman who was appointed Medical Director of that army in June, 1862, with a commission as Major. He reported to George B. McClellan, on June 19th, and set to work with a will. The Army of the Potomac was then on the Peninsula, and suffering severely from disease in that swampy, low-lying region. Letterman implemented better hospitals and helped improve the condition of the army.
Letterman’s main claim to fame, however, came later as he created what amounted to a modern system of rapid battlefield treatment and casualty evacuation. First used at Antietam, the Letterman system proved far more effective than anything that had come before. Letterman’s name is most commonly associated with Gettysburg, and the hospital complex known as Camp Letterman, out on York Road east of town.
Letterman did not accomplish all this singlehandedly, however. The man behind his success was William Hammond. Hammond, as noted, was a mere First Lieutenant in April, 1862, serving under Rosecrans in the Department of Western Virginia as a medical inspector for the department. Hammond, a former medical officer in the peacetime army who resigned to join the teaching faculty at the University of Maryland Medical School in 1860. With the war, naturally, he returned to uniform. In 1861 he was overseeing several army hospitals in Maryland, where he attracted favorable notice from the newly organized United States Sanitary Commission. This notice in turn put Hammond at odds with the existing Surgeon General of the army, Clement A. Finley, who was not in the good graces of the USSC. Hammond was consigned to West Virginia to serve under Rosecrans.
This transfer turned out to be fortuitous for Hammond, Letterman, and the tens of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers who ultimately owed their lives to Letterman’s new system.
Why? Because Letterman was already serving in West Virginia, acting as the departmental Medical Director under Rosecrans. Letterman, Hammond and Rosecrans all shared the common traits of energy, enthusiasm, and inventiveness. Though the three men only served together for a few months in early 1862, they began the process of developing the very changes that would eventually become Letterman’s system of field dressing stations, divisional aid stations, and general hospitals. Rosecrans authorized the establishment of a new hospital at Parkersburg West Virginia, and also became involved in designing a new, lighter ambulance for field use.
The Rosecrans, or Wheeling pattern Ambulance, as it came to be known, supplanted other designs then in use, including a two-wheeled design crafted by Clement Finley. It had four wheels instead of two, for stability, and yet was much lighter than other four-wheel carts then in use. It could be pulled by two horses, and accommodate four wounded on stretchers, or up to a dozen men seated.
In one of the most drastic rank jumps of the war, First Lieutenant Hammond was summoned back to Washington, where he discovered he was being promoted to Brigadier General and given Finley’s job as Surgeon General. The promotion came at the hands of Lincoln himself, instigated by the politicking of the Sanitary Commission, who’s ranks included a number of prominent citizens who desired nothing more than to see Finley gone.
Thus is was Hammond who in turn promoted Letterman and sent him to McClellan. When Letterman in turned asked for 1,000 tents and 200 more ambulances be sent to the Peninsula, the newly redesigned ambulance was included in the mix.
Not everything progressed smoothly, however. Hammond’s selection was opposed by Edwin M. Stanton, in part because of Hammond’s association with and enthusiastic endorsement by Rosecrans. When Rosecrans’s department was given to John C. Fremont that same spring, Rosecrans served for a time in Washington and voiced his disagreement over the way the Valley Campaign against Stonewall Jackson was being conducted, which meant Rosecrans was often criticizing Stanton’s own strategies and ideas.
In 1863, things came to a head between Hammond and Secretary Stanton, who relieved him and sent him to New Orleans, ostensibly for improper allocation of funds. Hammond demanded a court-martial, which convicted him, based on suspect evidence presented by Stanton. Letterman also left the army in 1864 to move on to other things. The changes wrought by both men, however, were permanent, confirmed into law by the Congress that same year.
Would Letterman and Hammond had such a profound impact on the United States Army Medical Department had they not both served together under Rosecrans in West Virginia? It’s likely they would certainly have initiated some sort of change, but how lasting would it have been? Rosecrans, however, was one of the most forward-thinking and innovative commanders in the Union army, always willing to find ways to improve things. It is typical of his leadership style that not only did Hammond and Letterman meet , but they were allowed to experiment, and as the new Ambulance design showed, Rosecrans was right there with them.
The Army of the Cumberland would fully embrace the Letterman system. Sick and wounded were cared for at spacious hospitals in Nashville, Louisville, and New Albany Indiana; all easily accessible from the rail lines that were the army’s lifeline. Rosecrans’s interest in ambulances would extend to ordering the fitting out of hospital railcars with adaptations like rubber slings to carry stretchers, saving the men in them the agony of the jolts of the journey. Letterman’s concept of field dressing stations and divisional field hospitals was fully executed, and properly outfitted. As in other areas of innovation and improvement, forces commanded by Rosecrans were quick to embrace and fully implement these changes, something not always true in civil war armies.
After the war, the authors of The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (Part III, Vol. II, p. 962) would note that “it was in General George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland…its long line of communications extending hundreds of miles…that the utility of railway transport in relieving the army of its disabled men was most conspicuous.” The first of these trains was fitted out in Nashville in early 1863 by the Western Sanitary Commission, with Rosecrans’s enthusiastic support, and by the time of the Atlanta campaign three such trains were in operation. Each train consisted of about a dozen ambulance cars, and included one car fitted out as a kitchen.
I still have unanswered questions, however. How much day-to-day influence did Rosecrans actually have on these two men? How much of the hands-on process of new hospitals, new ambulances, and centralized field stations was due to Rosecrans’s ideas, and did he discuss more comprehensive reforms with Letterman and Hammond? Existing published sources on this particular aspect of the war and the medical system are scarce, meaning that at some point, only archival research will likely produce deeper insight.
As I have mentioned before, William Haines Lytle deserves to have his shell pyramid restored. This pyramid marks the (approximate) location where Lytle was fatally wounded during the fighting on September 20.
Lytle was initially shot in the back, though he continued to stay in the saddle. His aide, Lieutenant Alfred Pyrtle, had been sent off to bring up some artillery and just returned to find Lytle, obviously in some pain. He could see Lytle trying to tell him something, but the noise was too great to distinguish the words. Leaning forward in the saddle, this time he could caught “Pirtle, I am hit.’ For an instant,” continued Pirtle, “I cannot speak; my heart almost ceases to beat….’Are you hit hard, General?’ ‘In the spine – if I have to leave the field you stay here and see that all goes right.’”
This first injury occured at the foot of what is now called Lytle Hill, behind the 24th Wisconsin. As his brigade began to give way on the left, however, Lytle rode up the hill towards the 36th and 88th Illinois, hoping to rally them and bring them back into the fight.
Reaching the 36th, Lytle halted near the colors. “He drew his sword…and was apparently about to give orders to charge, when he was struck in the head with a bullet.” “He had just turned to give me an order,” wrote Lieutenant Howard Greene of the 24th, who was also serving as an aide that day. Greene was close by the General’s side “when the ball struck him in the mouth, passing through his head and coming out near his eye.” Greene slid from his saddle in time to catch Lytle, toppling from his mount, “by the head and shoulders…his blood spurting all over me.” The General wasn’t quite dead, but he was the next thing to it. Blood choked his mouth, and he was unable to speak. Both Greene’s and Lytle’s mounts, freed from their riders, bolted away. A cluster of aides now rushed to help, and they moved Lytle a short distance to the rear.
By now, the entire brigade was collapsing and the party was in danger of being overrun, but moving Lytle much farther would only kill him. Greene recalled that Colonel Thomas J. Harrrison now appeared on the scene. Harrison commanded the 39th Indiana Mounted Infantry, the quasi-independent regiment who had supplied so much needed water the night before. Harrison’s men were to Lytle’s right, south of the hill, and Harrison was seeking instructions on where he could best help. Seeing the stricken general, Harrison lent a hand, urging the others to “carry him, or we will be taken prisoner.”. Just then Lytle convulsed in what Greene interpreted as his death spasm: “he gave me one embrace,” mourned the Milwaukeean, and then “his limbs immediately relaxed, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell over limp and lifeless.” With little choice, Harrison and Greene abandoned Lytle’s body.
Harrison’s effort to move Lytle was not the last. Somewhere on the side of the hill, Colonel McCreery of the 21st Michigan stumbled over the fallen officer, and he tried to organize an evacuation also. McCreery recounted finding the badly wounded General still conscious. Lytle was still coherent enough to wave McCreery away, but McCreery insisted, collecting several men of the 21st and 24th to help him carry Lytle off the field. They managed four paces. Then a shell burst nearby, with fragments killing one man outright, shattering a second’s leg, and thudding into the Colonel’s shoulder. The survivors bolted, leaving both Lytle and McCreery to their fates. McCreery would survive to be captured, and escape from Libby Prison the next spring, along with Colonel Rose of the 77th Pennsylvania. Lytle would not.
Lytle was widely recognized by the Confederates, and his body would be guarded until it could be moved to Hindman’s Divisional field hospital, near Dalton Ford. Lytle would be buried there, but only for about a week. His remains would later be reclaimed under a flag of truce, and he would lay in state under an evergreen bedecked awning amidst the camp of his old regiment, the 10th Ohio, until such time as they could ship his body back to Cincinnati.
Over the years, the park has cannibalized his pyramid to fix other, more visible shell pyramids. Now, they have the means to restore the pyramid to how it should be. Lytle deserves his shells back. Please help.
Time to make the preliminary announcement concerning our 2013 Study Group plans… Please pass this along to anyone who might be interested
CCNMP Study Group 2013 Seminar in the Woods.
Mission Statement: The purpose of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National
Military Park Study Group is to create a forum to bring students of the
American Civil War together to study and explore those events in the fall
of 1863 that led ultimately to the creation of the Chickamauga and
Chattanooga National Military Park. The intent is to use the indispensable
resource of the battlefields themselves as an outdoor classroom to promote
learning and study of the Campaign for Chattanooga, and to build interest
for an annual gathering that will in time examine all aspects of the
Campaign. Additionally, we hope to bring students and serious scholars,
both professional and amateur, to the field for to share insights and
knowledge about the battles.
Tour Leaders: Jim Ogden, Park Historian, and Dave Powell
This year we are also very pleased and honored to announce that Dr. William Glenn Robertson will be joining us as a co-host. Glenn’s expertise on these battlefields is unmatched by anyone in the civil war community, and we are delighted to have him along.
Date: Friday, March 8, and Saturday, March 9, 2013.
Note: Friday’s tours will involve a tour bus. We will be charging a small fee for use of the bus. See below.
Friday Morning: 8:30 a.m. to Noon. Re-opening the Tennessee River- Part I.
By Bus, we will examine the lifting of the Siege of Chattanooga in October 1863. This will be our first ‘post-Chickamauga’ tour, as we begin to explore the complexities of the precarious military situation for both the Union Army of the Cumberland and the Confederate Army of Tennessee. In the morning we will focus on Moccasin Bend and Brown’s Ferry.
Park at the Visitor‘s Center. The bus will depart and return from there.
Lunch Break:
We will not be returning to the Visitor’s Center for lunch, as this would take at least an hour out of the touring day. Instead, we will stop in downtown Chattanooga, near Market and Broad. From there we have a range of lunch choices and, for those who bring their own, plenty of places to picnic along the waterfront.
This means that whatever you need for the day, be prepared to bring it with. We will not have access to the cars at Lunch.
Friday Afternoon: 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Re-opening the Tennessee River- Part II.
By Bus, we will explore the engagements of Wauhatchie and Lookout Mountain. Wauhatchie was a highly confusing – and quite rare – night action involving easterners in both Blue and Gray. Elements of Longstreet’s First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, engage newly arrived elements of the Union 11th and 12th Corps, Army of the Potomac.
We will return to the Visitor’s Center at the end of the day, approximately a 30 minute trip.
Saturday Morning: 8:30 a.m. to Noon. Jay’s Mill and the opening guns, Sept. 19th.
On foot: We will revisit a topic we have not covered in several years, the opening action around Jay’s Mill. The focus will be between Brannan’s Division and the Rebels under Forrest and W.H.T. Walker. What were the intentions of Thomas and Forrest as they met and accepted the challenge of combat?
Park along Jay’s Mill Road.
Saturday Afternoon: 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Hindman Attacks, September 20th
On Foot. By following Hindman’s three brigades from the point where they cross the La Fayette Road as part of Longstreet’s attack to where they overrun Sheridan’s Division in and around Lytle Hill, we will gain a better appreciation of the very southern end of Longstreet’s assault. We will encounter Union commander Jefferson C. Davis’s battered division, and then track up with Patton Anderson’s Mississippians as they deal the final blow to the center of Sheridan’s line, routing the Union XX Corps. While we have dealt with some parts of these actions before, tracking with Hindman across the entire advance is a new angle on some old explorations.
Parking (tentative) in the gravel lot at Recreational Field.
Cost: Beyond the fee for Friday’s Bus, there is no cost for tour participation. Meals lodging, transportation, and incidentals, however, are the individual’s responsibility.
Tour Departures: All tours will meet at the Chickamauga Visitor’s Center at the designated start time, and will depart from there after some brief overview discussion. We will board the bus or car caravan to the designated parking area, and from there, we will be on foot. We will be on foot for up to three hours, so dress and prepare accordingly. Tours will depart rain or shine. Participants are responsible for their own transportation, and should plan accordingly. All tours are designed to be self-contained, so participants who cannot attend the full schedule are still welcome to join us for any portion of the weekend.
Lodging and Meals: Everyone is responsible for their own lodging and meals. There are many hotels in the greater Chattanooga area, to fit most any price range. The closest are in Fort Olgethorpe, Georgia, with the least expensive in Ringgold. Each tour is designed to leave at least 90 minutes for lunch, and there are several family and fast food restaurants within minutes of the battlefield. There are designated picnic areas near the Visitor’s Center, for those who wish to bring a lunch and eat on the field.
What to bring: Each tour will involve extensive walking. Proper clothing and especially footgear is essential. Dress in layers, wear sturdy, broken-in walking shoes or boots, and be prepared for some rain, as spring can be quite wet in North Georgia. We will be walking on dirt and gravel trails, uncut fields, and through stretches of woods. The ground will be wet and muddy in places. Bring your own water and snacks.
Reading up on the subject: Many people like to prepare in advance for these kinds of events. I suggest the following works might be of help.
Cozzens, Peter. This Terrible Sound. University of Illinois, 1992. The best one-volume study of the battle.
Powell, David with Cartography by Dave Friedrichs, The Maps Of Chickamauga. Savas-Beatie, 2009.
Powell, David. Failure In The Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign. Savas-Beatie, 2010.
In addition to the titles above, Dr. Robertson’s five part series in Blue & Gray Magazine is outstanding on both the campaign and battle of Chickamauga.
Robertson, Dr. William Glenn
“The Chickamauga Campaign: Part I—The Fall of Chattanooga,” Blue &
Gray Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 4, November-December, 2006. {part one of
the five part Chickamauga series; Part I covers campaign activities
August 16 to September 9, 1863}
Robertson, Dr. William Glenn
“The Chickamauga Campaign: Part II—Bragg’s Lost Opportunity,” Blue &
Gray Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 6, Spring, 2007. {part two of the five
part Chickamauga series; Part II covers what turned out to be Bragg’s
abortive strike in McLemore’s Cove on September 10-11, 1863}
Robertson, Dr. William Glenn
“The Chickamauga Campaign: Part III—The Armies Collide!,” Blue & Gray
Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 3, Fall, 2007. {part three of the five part
Chickamauga series; Part III covers the actions of September 12-18,
1863}
Robertson, Dr. William Glenn
“The Chickamauga Campaign: Part IV—Chickamauga, Day 1,” Blue & Gray
Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 6, Spring, 2008. {part four of the five part
Chickamauga series; Part IV covers the actions of September 19, 1863}
Robertson, Dr. William Glenn
“The Chickamauga Campaign: Part V—Chickamauga, Day 2,” Blue & Gray
Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 2, Summer, 2008. {part five of the five part
Chickamauga series; Part V covers the actions of September 20, 1863}
Woodworth, Stephen E. Six Armies In Tennessee: The Chickamauga And Chattanooga Campaigns. Lincoln, Nebraska. University of Nebraska Press, 1998. An excellent overview campaign study.
——————-, A Deep Steady Thunder: The Battle Of Chickamauga. Abilene, Texas. McWhiney Foundation Press, 1998. Concise but very useful account of the battle, designed as an introduction to the action. 100 pages, very readable
Chattanooga-specific studies are:
Cozzens, Peter The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles for Chattanooga Urbana
and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Sword, Wiley Mountains Touched With Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Note: Friday’s Tours will be by Bus, as we move from site to site. While the tour itself is free, we do have to pay for the bus.
Pre-registration Fee: $35 Due by February 1st, 2013
After November 5th, 2012, send to:
FRANK CRAWFORD
34664 ORANGE DRIVE
PINELLAS PARK, FLORIDA 33781
Frank will hold your payments. If you pay by check, note that Frank will not cash those checks until we have sufficient entries, so that if we have to refund, Frank will simply send your checks back to you.
Please also note that this fee is NON-REFUNDABLE after February 1st, 2013. Once we are committed to the bus, we will be charged the booking fee.
On-site Sign up Fee: $40
We MUST have 20 attendees registered and Paid by Feb 1st, or we cannot reserve the bus. Once we confirm the minimum, you will be able to join the tour the day we depart, for late add-ons. If we do not meet the minimum, we will car-caravan for Friday’s tours.
It’s been a good week.
I got back from Chickamauga mid-week, after Jim Ogden’s Jay’s Mill talk on Tuesday night. The battle walks this year were more in-depth than I have seen in previous years, a nice mix of detail and overview that appeal to me, and I think, to the rest of the audiences we saw this past week. We had some big turnouts, with no less than 57 people attending our Viniard Field walk on Saturday.
Chris Evans asked for some comments on the walks, and so I will try and recap those I attended or participated in.
On Saturday morning, I followed Mr. Ogden down to Thedford’s and Dalton’s (Hunt’s) Fords. Jim talked about the crossings there by Buckner’s Corps, (Stewart’s and Preston’s Divisions) and how tentative they seemed. Bragg’s original plan was to mass three corps (Buckner, plus Hood and Walker) across West Chickamauga Creek by early on the 18th, and then pivot southwest to strike the Union flank at Lee & Gordon’s Mills. Thanks largely to Minty and Wilder, that did not happen. Buckner, however, faced no real opposition on the 18th, and most of his time was taken up with waiting for other Rebels. only a brigade from each division managed to get across the Creek by first light on the 19th. We discussed Buckner’s unwillingness to take much iniatitive, and also the geography problem created by using these two fords – a big northward bend in the Creek at Hall’s ford means that Buckner was depoying in a cul-de-sac, and would have to shift position quite a bit in order to get at any Yankees.
On Saturday afternoon, we tackled Viniard Field. This is a hard walk to do in the time alotted, given the back and forth nature of the fighting here. We did four stands, and covered things in pretty fair detail, I think, but any way you slice it the fight there is a confusing one. I was surprised that we had such a large turnout, and pleased that they all stuck with us all the way through.
On Sunday Morning, I tagged along on part of Jim’s walk discussing Breckinridge and his attack on the morning of September 20th. I had to break away after about 15 minutes to go sign books in the bookstore, and as much fun as that is, I would have liked to follow Jim. he did tell me that the group got into a bit of a discussion on the employment of Hardee’s tactics vs. Casey’s tactics within the Army of the Cumberland, which sounded interesting. In a nutshell, the old tactics called for all the regiments in a brigade to line up side by side, while using Casey’s, the regiments would form in two lines, one behind the other, in more of a square formation.
At midday, I led a walk looking at the “the Fateful Order Of the Day.” This one spent time at the Brotherton House and then at the Wood divisional Tablet on the west side of Brotherton Field – more talk than walk. I like to focus on the largely ignored presence of Alexander McDowell McCook, and the impact of two other orders that I think usually get overlooked in any discussion of Wood. Rosecrans’ order to Wood is well known – “Close up and support Reynolds.” This order was written at 10:45 a.m., delivered at about 10:55, and being executed by 11:15 or 11:20 – with Longstreet attacking between 11:15 and 11:30, to disastrous (for the Federals) result.
Less well known are two orders written at 10:10 and 10:30 a.m., from Rosecrans to McCook, both of which were received by McCook at about 10:50 or 10:55 – probably literally within minutes of McCook riding up to find Wood getting his order from Rosecrans. The two earlier orders informed McCook that Rosecrans was sending Sheridan to Thomas, and also that the right flank of the army was about to be drawn back west and north. In short, Rosecrans was shifting his entire line. With the order to Wood seen in that context, McCook’s haste can be seen as a little more understandable, if still a disaster in the making.
When I first started studying Chickamauga, I accepted the Wood-as-Snidely-Whiplash style villian of this story, but both Dr. Robertson and Jim Ogden have, through their own takes on the issue, challenged me into revising my thinking. Now I think there isn’t a villian, per se, just a bad situation unfolding dangerously quickly.
Lee White’s Sunday evening walk focused on Cleburne’s night attack on the 19th. Lee outlined the situation that led to the attack, and led some discussion on whether it was a good idea. he explained the difficulties concerning night attacks in general, and finished up with General Smith, the 77th Pennsylvania, and the story told by their tablets on the field. Lee was tired, having played artilleryman all day in Poe Field, but I thought he rose to the occaision very well. It was very dark when we finished, which set the tone nicely.
The Park Superintendent, Cathy Cook, attended all the walks on Sunday. I managed to chat with her a little, and hope to have further opportunity to do so in the future.
I think the 150th is on track to be very interesting indeed.
