This is the story of two men I don’t know. One is related to me and I know little about his life. The other is not related to me and there have been volumes written about him. It shouldn't be too hard to guess which one is the private and which one is the general.
Reading about the America Civil War has always been a passion of mine and one of my favorite series of books is by Peter Cozzens who wrote a trilogy on the battles in the western theater. Most Civil War buffs will hear the western theater and immediately think of Shiloh. Thousands of books have been written about this battle and for many people it is the only battle in the west they actually know. Many assume that after the Union victory it was only a matter of time before Grant left to take on Robert Lee in the East. Nothing could be further from the truth and Cozzens' books focus on the battles after Shiloh that led to Vicksburg and allowed the eventual taking of Atlanta.
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| Railways/rivers used for supply in the Western Theater of the Civil War |
Of course, Shiloh was important. It will always be the defining battle in the west because both armies were fighting at full strength and led by their best generals. Its reputation was also enhanced by the post-war deification of Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant first came to national prominence in February 1862 with his twin victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. As you can see on the map to the right, this victory gave Union gunboats access further down to the Tennessee River and Grant used it to supply his advance to the railroad hub at Corinth, Mississippi. As this would cut their supply, the Confederate armies in the west quit their petty squabbles for once and consolidated to stop him.
Grant was gathering forces at Pittsburg Landing near Shiloh Church when the rebels made a surprise attack and pushed the Union army back to river landing. The Army of the Cumberland arrived on the second day of battle and saved Grant from certain destruction.
The battle of Shiloh cost the Union about 13,000 men and the Confederates 10,000 men and afterwards the rebels retreated into a massive set of fortifications around Corinth. There, the Union gathered overwhelming numbers and eventually the Rebels retreated and the individual armies that had joined together for Shiloh dispersed across a broad front - Army of Mississippi, Army of Tennessee, Army of East Tennessee, Army of the West, and Army of Kentucky.
This is where Cozzens starts his story.
Despite appearances, the western Confederate army was far from beaten and still had many advantages. They were fighting in their own country which gave them the advantage of secure supply lines. The Union, on the other hand, had followed the Tennessee River about as far as they could as a means of supply. They would need to use easily cut railroads for future battles. This gave the Confederates the initiative to choose when and where they wished to fight.
In some ways, the Cozzens books are really the story of one man, William Rosecrans. He is the general I was alluding to in the title of this post though I suspect many people have never heard of him. He led the Union side in each of these battles and I never knew much about him until before Cozzens. I became an ardent defender afterward and the reason is simple and biased. Rosecrans was born near Sunbury, Ohio, less than a half hour ride from the hometown of my youth.
Immediately upon finding this and still living close to the area, I made a plan to bike to his birthplace. A car ride would have been much too easy. I biked through the northern Columbus suburbs trying to picture how the land might have looked in the early 1800s when Rosecrans was a kid. I took back roads, mirroring Route 3 to Sunbury and then Route 61 into Kingston Township in northern Delaware County. There you will find Rosecrans Road, an unassuming piece of property just off the east branch of Little Walnut Creek.
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| Greenville Treaty Line (1795 - 1814) |
To get the true picture of Rosecrans’ childhood, you have to get an idea of Ohio at the time. Ohio was made a state in 1803 but most of the population centered on Zanesville in the southeast. The northwest part of the state was still owned by various Native American tribes. At that time, Delaware County was part of the US Military Reserve, a parcel of land given to soldiers in lieu of payment for their military service.
During the War of 1812 William’s father, Crandall, served as an adjunct to William Henry Harrison and it was Harrison who led the western American forces during this war, eventually defeating the British and their Native American allies led by Tecumseh.
Kingston Township was founded in 1813 and is just south of the Greenville treaty line. Thick forests covered most of Delaware County when settlers arrived so the Rosecrans farm wouldn’t have been much more than the small area they’d cleared when William was born in 1819. It's likely young William encountered many Native Americans in his early years. After Tecumseh's defeat, some of the Ohio based tribes were moved into reservations just north of the Rosecrans farm until they were eventually forcibly removed in 1832.
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| Rosecrans Rd in Deleware County, Ohio |
When I visited, I found a small green marker noting Rosecrans birthplace along a road that looks like most other rural roads in Ohio’s farmland. The sign is surrounded by huge an open area with fields full of corn and cows with the occasional dotting of trees along a creek that’s too difficult to farm. It may seem silly, but it gave me goosebumps to stand in that spot.
This happens to me a lot when I visit historical sites. I love the feeling of seeing the land I read about as it makes me feel closer to the subject. I didn’t know it then but there might have been another reason for my goosebumps as I have an ancestor who was well acquainted with William Rosecrans. Their histories are more intertwined than I ever could have imaged when I first learned about William Rosecrans. Their stories are the focus of this post.
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Like most fans of history, I’ve also had a passing interest in genealogy but until recently I struggled to find more than a couple of branches on my family tree. A couple weeks ago, I made a major breakthrough when I lucked into some information of my maternal grandfather’s dad. It added about twenty names to my genealogy but most important for this story, it led me to George Keezer – the maternal grandfather of my maternal grandfather’s dad (say that three times fast).
I have only found out a few things about George Keezer's life so far.
- He was born in Penobscot, Maine on August 4, 1834.
- My ancestral grandmother was born in Henry County, Ohio (near Toledo) on Nov. 15, 1854.
- It is probable that his parents moved him to northwestern Ohio as a child.
- He was as a private with the 5th Ohio Independent Sharpshooters.
That might not seem like much information but you can glean a lot if you know the history.
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| 1859 Sharps Rifle |
Sharpshooters were a new US Army designation in the American Civil War. It was pushed into creation by President Lincoln upon a demonstration of the Sharps Rifle, a superior sniper rifle and soon put to great effect in the Army of the Potomac by the 1
st and 2
nd US Sharpshooter Regiments. These units were the special forces of their day, usually attached on temporary assignment as per the needs of an army commander and sent to the hottest part of the battle.
The 1st and 2nd Sharpshooters served exclusively in the east and the resultant favorable press encouraged western governors to form their own special units for their troops. Governor Tod of Ohio called for the creation of ten Ohio sharpshooter companies in 1862.
As you can imagine, many men wanted to join the sharpshooters but unlike a typical army unit, soldiers in the Ohio sharpshooter companies had to pass a physical fitness test and needed to show they could hit a 25-inch target five out of five times consistently from two-hundred yards so it took time to find qualified men for the ten companies. The early Ohio sharpshooter companies (a company was made up of 100 men) were split up and attached as scouts/skirmishers to units from other states.
The 5
th Ohio Sharpshooter Company formed under William Barber in the autumn of 1862 at Camp Cleveland, hand picked from men that grew up in the northern part of the state. To avoid being split up like earlier companies, William Barber was given the rank of Captain and also given the 6
th and 7
th companies to form the
1st Ohio Sharpshooter Battalion.
The first question that arose was their choice of weapon.
This was a non-issue when Rosecrans father fought in the War of 1812. Most troops in that war used inaccurate muskets which required repeated shotgun-like blasts that usually did little damage. Both sides would fire again and again until one side broke. The development of a
quick loading rifle bullet changed everything and the American Civil War was one of the first large-scale engagements to use this new, more accurate, weaponry.
Better breech-loading rifles weren't the only invention made before the war. The twenty years before the American Civil War was perhaps the greatest in American firearms history with numerous patent filings and the rise of names like Smith, Wesson, Colt, Winchester, Spencer, and Remington. Their guns featured new ideas like lever reloaders, self-contained brass cartridges, and a multi-shot ability.
Most armies of the time weren't sure what to make of these new weapons and while these new guns intrigued the War Department they were costlier, untried and there was a real issue that no manufacturer would be able to produce weapons in the numbers they needed. The government decided to stay with the well-tested 1855 Springfield rifles which were accurate but only could fire 2-4 rounds per minute.
Leaders in the west weren’t as hamstrung by red tape and many worked to get better weapons despite the potential issues. Governor Tod of Ohio supported this and towns throughout the Midwest had fundraisers make sure their 'boys' got better weapons.
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| 1860 Spencer Repeating Rifle |
In the end, the 1
st Ohio Sharpshooters was outfitted with the 1860 Spencer Repeating Rifle. This was a seven-shot breech-loading weapon that used .56 inch metal cartridges which allowed a fire rate of around 20 shots a minute with no loss in range, hitting power or accuracy vs the Springfield. It also had the added advantage that you could lay prone while loading the weapon.
This is where my ancestor enters the picture. George Keezer joined the 5
th Ohio Sharpshooter Company on October 22, 1862. After getting a full complement of soldiers and receiving appropriate training the three companies of the 1
st Ohio Sharpshooter Battalion traveled south and joined the Army of the Cumberland under the command of General William Rosecrans in March 1863.
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I’ve jumped ahead in the life of William Rosecrans so I need to backtrack a bit. William was a child of a farmer living on the frontier. The Rosecrans family didn’t have much money nor were they able to give William much schooling as a child. At 13 he left home to work as a store clerk in Utica, Ohio. A couple years later he moved to Mansfield for a similar line of work. Unable to afford college, when William turned 18 he appealed to his congressman for an appointment to West Point. This was granted no doubt helped by the fact of his father’s relationship to William Henry Harrison. Harrison would be the elected President of the United States in 1840, two years after Rosecrans entered the Academy.
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| William Rosecrans |
Rosecrans excelled at West Point during his time there, finishing 5
th in a class of 56 and ahead of future generals Abner Doubleday, DH Hill, and James Longstreet. Like most graduates that finished at the top of their class, William was assigned to the engineers and upon leaving first worked to improve the coastal defenses of Virginia. Eventually, he was transferred back to West Point where he served as a teacher and missed the American war with Mexico. He worked on many engineering projects throughout the United States during his time in the service. Ironically he tried to get the teaching position at Virginia Military Academy but it was given instead to Thomas Jackson. Jackson remained at this school until he left the Academy to join the Confederacy.
William Rosecrans left the army in 1854 and became a successful inventor and businessman until the start of the Civil War.
Rosecrans volunteered his services to the governor of Ohio soon after the first shots at Fort Sumpter. West Pointers were a rare commodity and the governor gave him several promotions in succession, Rosecrans eventually being made a Brigadier General in General McClellan’s Army of Ohio in May 1861. The two men made a good team. Both were smart, both were engineers, and both had high opinions of their abilities and lesser opinions of those around them. It was Rosecrans that masterfully outmaneuvered Confederates in July 1861 at the battles of
Rich Mountain and
Corrick’s Ford that forced the rebels out of western Virginia.
As you can see from the map to the right, the loyalties of the people in the area were split with those nearer to the Ohio River loyal to the Union. These battles allowed Union forces to move in and ensured the creation of the state of West Virginia at the end of the year.
These victories were especially welcome news for the leaders in Washington as July 1861 also saw the Union disaster at the 1
st Battle of Bull Run. After news of the victories spread, McClellan became a national hero even though Rosecrans was the general in charge at these battles. A month later, McClellan was promoted to overall command of the Union Forces in the East.
Rosecrans wasn't totally ignored. He took over the new Department of West Virginia with a force of 22,000 men under his command. Robert E Lee attacked a portion of his forces at
Cheat Mountain in September, 1861 but was repulsed. By the end of the year he'd attained such control over the area, Rosecrans suggested he be allowed a winter campaign against the Virginia town of Winchester in the Shenendoah Valley. He was rejected.
Rosecrans never was one to take kindly to rejection and things got doubly worse as he watched most of his forces transferred east to join McClellan for his spring push on Richmond. A few months the War Department transferred Rosecrans to a desk job in Washington where watched helplessly as the newly christened Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson marched up and down the Shenandoah in March – June 1862 making McClellan’s Army of the Potomac look silly in the process.
Rosecrans knew better than most that his well-led army based in West Virginia would have been in a perfect position to flank Jackson. He complained so much that he made a permanent enemy of Secretary of War Stanton which followed him the rest of the war.
It isn't at all surprising that the War Department decided to transfer Rosecrans west in May 1862 and given command of the Army of Mississippi a month later. When the rebel army split apart after the siege of Corinth, it left the Union in a quandary of what to do next. They couldn't advance because of their supply issues but they didn't want to retreat after the hard-won victory at Shiloh. It was decided that Grant's Army of Tennessee and Rosecrans' Army of Mississippi would stay in Corinth with Grant in command. The army of the Cumberland retreated to Nashville to protect against the rebel armies moving into Eastern Tennessee.
As I stated, supply was a much bigger factor in the western campaign of the Civil War than in the east. The Union troops in the east could rely on thousands of miles of railroads through friendly territory to provide a constant flow of men and material to keep them fed and armed. Most of the battles in the eastern theater took place between Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia, a distance of only 100 miles. The distance from Louisville (marginally Union) to Corinth was over 350 miles.
Exacerbating that was the problem presented by the excellent rebel cavalry. Confederate leaders like Morgan and Forrest easily outpaced their Union cavalry counterparts and became experts at ripping up railroad track and destroying Union supply depots. In contrast, the Union army in the western theater struggled to field a competent cavalry for most of the war which meant not only couldn't they stop these attacks but they also rarely had a good picture of enemy movements.
As the Union armies waited in Corinth, more units were moved north to help build supply hubs from Cincinnati to Louisville and in Confederate cities like Nashville. The force in Corinth that had once number over 100,000 men was little more than a third of that number within a month of victory.
That’s the situation when Rosecrans arrived in Corinth in the summer of 1862. He’d arrived just in time for one of the most important battles of the war. Cozzens does a splendid job recounting the events in his book,
The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth.
I'll give a brief overview here.
The Confederates in Virginia and East Tennessee had moved to the offensive but Grant was never one to sit back and wait for an enemy to attack him. As the other Confederate forces were moving, Grant decided to attack. Rosecrans devised the plan, relying on speed and daring to outflank the enemy much like he'd done in West Virginia.
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| Battle of Iuka |
Rosecrans took a position between two enemy forces, moving towards the Confederate left flank. Grant stayed with the main force under Ord taking a position directly in front of the town of Iuka while they waited for sounds of battle that Rosecrans had begun his attack. Instead, Confederates under Price went on the offensive. Even though Ord was only a few miles away, the hills in the area muffled the sound of battle forcing Rosecrans to fight on his own. After a short battle and a couple of thousand casualties, the Confederates retreated.
After this battle, Grant recognized his forces had overextended themselves so he moved the Army of Tennessee from Corinth, Mississippi to Jackson, Tennessee. This was more centrally located and could be more easily moved to meet the Confederates wherever they moved. Rosecrans and his 23,000 men in the Army of Mississippi moved into the well-fortified town of Corinth.
It didn't take the Confederate forces long to strike. Two weeks after Iuka, Union scouts tracked the combined army under Van Dorn/Price moving into Tennessee. Rosecrans and Grant watched their movements and tried to guess where they were headed. Grant was convinced the Confederates would double back and hit Corinth. Rosecrans suspected they’d continue north as he felt his position in Corinth was too strong.
Grant was correct and Rosecrans' forces were caught unaware when the Confederates arrived on October 3, 1862 to start the
Battle of Corinth. Van Dorn’s Confederates overran Rosecrans perimeter the first day but were stopped before entering the inner redoubts. Historians have argued over Rosecrans performance on this day but I think this description by Steven Woodworth is a fair assessment with ominous overtones for future battles:
Rosecrans ... had not done well. He had failed to anticipate the enemy's action, put little more than half his troops into the battle, and called on his men to fight on ground they could not possibly hold. He had sent a series of confusing and unrealistic orders to his division commanders and had done nothing to coordinate their activities, while he personally remained safely back in Corinth. The movements of the army that day had had nothing to do with any plan of his to develop the enemy or make a fighting withdrawal. The troops and their officers had simply held on as best as they could.
The historian’s judgment may also be colored by those same future battles.
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| Battle of Corinth - 2nd day |
Rosecrans and his generals were better prepared to meet the advance on the second day of the battle. The Confederates had some success but Rosecrans initial instinct was correct as Corinth’s now prepared defenses proved to be too strong. The battle was over by 1pm, the rebels retreating the way they’d arrived. Grant’s reinforcements from Jackson arrived around 4pm.
One Ohio historian, Whitelaw Reid, wrote about Rosecrans:
It lives in the memory of every soldier who fought that day how his General plunged into the thickest of the conflict, fought like a private soldier, dealt sturdy blows with the flat of his sword on the runaways, and fairly drove them to stand.
Peter Cozzens, in his book, was not as kind:
Rosecrans was in the thick of battle, but his presence was hardly inspiring. The Ohioan had lost all control of his infamous temper, and he cursed as cowards everyone who pushed past him until he, too lost hope.
With the reinforcements came clear orders from Grant - Pursue Van Dorn without delay. Rosecrans chose to wait and pursue the next morning. After two days of battle, he felt it more important to give his troops rest. Grant later wrote,
“Two or three hours of pursuit on the day of the battle without anything except what the men carried on their persons, would have been worth more than any pursuit commenced the next day could have possibly been.”
The two men knew each other from their time at West Point. Rosecrans had graduated from there in 1842, Grant in 1844. Not much is known of their relationship before this point though I suspect Rosecrans may have struggled to connect with younger and less studious Grant. It didn’t help their relationship when news of these battles hit the newspapers. Grant had barely won at Shiloh and at the time there'd been rumors he'd been drunk on the eve of the battle. Now the papers hailed Rosecrans as the hero of Iuka/Corinth while Grant was again seen as a drunkard skulking from battle. Taken as a whole, it is hardly surprising to find Grant's reports critical of Rosecrans' performance.
The incident started a bitter feud between the two men that would last the rest of their lives. It probably was a small blessing when Rosecrans got orders to report to Cincinnati. On October 24, 1862, Rosecrans assumed command of the Army of the Cumberland.
The Union high command had decided on a new strategy. The western armies would not stay in Corinth. There was little to be gain by attacking from that position since they could not support an advance. The new strategy had twin goals. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee would relocate to Memphis and advance down the Mississippi River to capture Vicksburg. Rosecrans and the Army of the Cumberland would move south from Nashville with a goal of moving into the pro-Union territory in eastern Tennessee and capture Chattanooga.
I don't think it is unfair to say that Rosecrans had the taller task. Grant’s troops could be supplied by the United States Navy as they'd already taken most of the ports along the Mississippi River. Rosecrans' army, on the other hand, would be the focal point of every guerrilla operation and cavalry unit in the west. He took over a demoralized army of 67,000 soldiers with only about 40,000 in shape for offensive operations. They would need to rest and re-arm before advancing.
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| Braxton Bragg |
The same was true of the man that facing Rosecrans,
Braxton Bragg. By this point, Bragg was one of the most reviled generals in the Confederacy but Jefferson Davis didn't feel he couldn’t be replaced because didn’t have a better option. Bragg's Army of Tennessee had invaded Kentucky during the late summer and while the Army of the Cumberland won the battle, both sides had performed so bad which is why Rosecrans now had the job.
Both armies spent the month of November refitting. In December both advanced for battle.
Just like in West Virginia and again when he arrived in Corinth, Rosecrans appeared energized to take the fight to the rebels. To ensure a steady supply situation he marched his army along the Nashville-Chattanooga railroad with trains bring supplies every day. Bragg waited patiently, giving up territory knowing every mile stretched Rosecrans’ supply line a little more.
He stopped when Rosecrans approached Murfreesburo, Tennessee, about 35 miles southeast of Nashville.
This book is a bit of a tough read because the one thing you cannot escape is the absolute carnage in this battle. There were no grand maneuvers, just charges back in forth as the Union side desperately tried to keep its lines from breaking. Both sides rested on January 1 but the battle resumed on January 2 with the Confederates taking heavy losses as they charged into well-prepared Union lines. Bragg slipped away the next day and Rosecrans did not pursue.
Newspapers hailed Rosecrans across the nation.
A cynic might see a different picture. Once again Rosecrans was surprised. Once again his army almost broke on the battle's first day. Once again he did not pursue the defeated enemy.
Some of the reason for surprise is understandable. Confederate cavalry had always been superior to their Union counterparts meaning for most of the war, the Union army rarely had a clear picture of enemy intentions. They relied on fortifications and overwhelming numbers to combat this.
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| Battle of Stones River |
As for why Rosecrans didn't pursue his enemy, the reason was simple. Stones River had staggered both armies. When the guns fell silent, 30% of the troops involved on both sides were either dead, wounded, or missing. As a point of comparison, the troops at Shiloh and Gettysburg had a casualty rate closer to 25%. In terms of casualties %, it was the costliest major battle of the war.
None of this mattered to President Lincoln who was in desperate need of good news.
Part of Lincoln's need for a victory was he'd made the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 but he’d had no victories since. That was one of the reasons he tasked McClellan's replacement, Ambrose Burnside, to take the fight to Robert E. Lee in the winter time but Lee decimated Burnside's forces below the hills of Fredricksburg, Virginia.
Talk had been growing for some time that the war was too costly. The Emancipation Proclamation would free the slaves on January 1, 1863 and not everyone in the Union was thrilled with the idea. Some governors were starting to openly ask – What’s the purpose of sending thousands of our young men to slaughter?
The battle of Stones River came at a perfect time for Lincoln. It gave him the victory he needed and the carnage or the fact his army had nearly been destroyed didn’t matter. His army had advanced and held the field at battle’s end. It gave Lincoln the political breathing room and the nation hailed Rosecrans as a hero. Lincoln himself sent a letter to Rosecrans which read,
“…you gave us a hard victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over.”
As 1863 started, there wasn’t a brighter star in the Union army than William Rosecrans. He’d beaten Lee in the east and now Bragg in the west. He’d had the field command for four Union victories and that was four more than most Union generals could claim. Even his foe, Secretary of War Stanton, praised him stating if Rosecrans needed anything all he had to do was ask.
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| Eastern Tennessee Railroad map |
Rosecrans spent the next six months planning his next campaign with a much more cautious intent and it is hard not to have a little sympathy for the man. He missed the bloody battles of the Peninsula, Shiloh, and Antietam but at Stones River, he saw the worst carnage of the war.
He saw his first priority was to gather supplies and improve logistics. Murfreesboro became a supply fortress for the Union but it was also a literal graveyard for the thousands of troops that had died there on ground too frozen to create burial pits. He wanted to be extra prepared for his next battle.
Lincoln who praised him in January now had Stanton sending a steady stream of telegrams urging Rosecrans to do something. Stonewall Jackson and Robert Lee were making his eastern armies look foolish and he needed another win.
This was the situation when the 1st Ohio Sharpshooters arrived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on March 23, 1863.
As an engineer and inventor himself, Rosecrans quite taken by the Ohio Sharpshooters and their seven-shot Spencer. That spring he had requested as many of them as he could get from Stanton, a request which was mostly ignored. Some did arrive and were given to
special infantry units.
When the 1st Ohio Sharpshooters arrived, Rosecrans immediately took to the new unit with their special guns with specially trained men from his home state. Instead of being broken up, they were assigned to guard Rosecrans' headquarters. He understood the weapon would give the 300 men of the 1
st Ohio Sharpshooters the hitting power of two normal infantry regiments and the fact these men could consistently hit a target from 200 yards emphasized this point. The 1
st Ohio Sharpshooters gave him a mobile force that not only could fill a gap at a moments notice but punish any rebel force that dared to engage them.
Lincoln's telegrams didn't stop as Rosecrans stressed the need for patience. It had been an especially wet spring and the terrain in eastern Tennessee made it all the more difficult. None of that mattered back in Washington. Lee was headed into Pennsylvania. Grant was pinned down in Mississippi. The government needed another victory. They didn’t care about the horrible mountainous roads in that part of Tennessee. They couldn’t see the mountain peaks that towered over his army.
Rosecrans stalled for as long as he could and Stanton was threatening to fire him when he launched his Tullahoma campaign on June 26th, 1863. The truth was Rosecrans hadn't been idling as he waited for the road to dry. He'd been preparing a fast moving campaign for months that would make another Stones River impossible. In my opinion, in the entire Civil War only Stonewall Jackson’s Valley campaign compares in terms of planning and execution.
The problem with this part of Tennesseee is the mountains that make defending the area much easier than normal. If you put a few thousand troops in the middle of a gap and add a couple cannon and you’ve built an impregnable fortress like the one that destroyed Burnside's army at Fredricksburg. Attacking a guarded mountain gap invited another bloodbath. Rosecrans worked for months to maneuver Bragg out of position but the government didn't want to understand that. Rosecrans struck only when he was ready.
Rosecrans plan was simple.
Bragg expected Rosecrans to stay close to the Nashville-Chattanooga railroad. Knowing this, Rosecrans encouraged that belief all spring. Both sides knew the railroad the Union armies lifeline. Leaving it encouraged disaster unless the supply lines were reestablished in quick fashion.
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| Tullahoma Campaign |
Rosecrans first move was to feint towards the railroad to focus Bragg’s attention. He then sent most of his forces to the north, around Bragg’s right at Fairfield, Tennessee and crossed through three mountain gaps held only by cavalry. By the time Bragg realized what had happened it was too late. He had no choice but to retreat to Tullahoma. As Bragg worked to set up defenses around Tullahoma, he realized Rosecrans hadn’t stopped. Union troops were racing for Deschard, Tennessee, and Bragg knew when Rosecrans forces arrived, his own supply line would be cut. Bragg retreated again and didn’t stop until he hit the Alabama-Georgia border.
It's hard to understate what General Rosecrans did in his Tullahoma campaign.
He blew a hole in the Confederate lines while barely firing a shot, advancing Union lines by 100 miles in two weeks. It is the greatest victory in the war using strategic maneuver and is also Rosecrans' greatest triumph. Ironically, this time the press barely noticed. Offensive operations for his Tullahoma campaign ended on July 3. That was the day of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. The next day Vicksburg surrendered to Grant.
Regardless of the lack of press, the campaign showed Rosecrans at his best. Obsessive preparation. Subordinates with a keen understanding of their responsibilities. Aggressive tactics on a strategic level. Very few casualties.
The response from Washinton to this brilliant strategic victory from Secretary of War Stanton shows his total lack of understanding of the situation:
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 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.
Armchair generals often forget that armies can only win if you can feed them and provide them with bullets and powder. Rosecrans spent six months to build up the supply line from Cincinnati and Louisville through Nashville and to Murfreesboro. Ths Tullahoma campaing added another 100 miles of train track to guard through mountainous terrain. All of this new territory was exposed to hostile population and it would only be a matter of time until raiders from Alabama and Mississippi reacted.
The Union victory at Gettysburg smashed Lee's forces in Pennsylvania yet the general of that force felt it necessary to remain just south of Washington DC for over three months to refit. Grant's victory at Vicksburg was on the Mississippi and easy to supply from the river but little was done for months with these troops.
Rosecrans was getting telegrams every day telling him to move with a much more dire situation facing him than the other two armies. The train track he needed to follow for supply moved north into Chattanooga with the Tennessee River protecting that city and large mountains all around.
You can see the situation he faced in the image on the right. He knew Bragg would have some forces in Chattanooga with a reserve force sitting near Dalton. If Rosecrans moved to force a crossing at Chattanooga, Bragg could easily send his force to cut his supply west of that city. If he moved south, Bragg could move the troops out of Chattanooga and cut his supplies to the north.
Even worse, the mountain passes they’d used in the Tullahoma campaign looked like small hills compared the twin rises of Lookout Peak and Missionary Ridge on the other side of the Tennessee River.
The situation facing Rosecrans as he sat in front of Chattanooga is well described in the third book of Cozzens trilogy,
This Terrible Sound, The Battle of Chickamauga. The book goes into great detail describing Tullahoma and what happened next.
Rosecrans paused to refit his army for the entire month of July as the politicians in Washington lost patience. They ordered him to cross the Tennessee River during the first week of August and made it simple. If he didn’t move, he’d be replaced.
They did have a rational explanation for their thinking even if it ignored the reality of the situation. Lincoln had long wanted to free the people of east Tennessee, who like the people of western Virginia were strong supporters of the Union cause. They’d already sent Ambrose Burnside (of Fredricksburg infamy) to attack Knoxville from the north but they feared that Bragg's retreat to Chattanooga meant he was free to attack Burnside. They needed to be sure Rosecrans would hold Bragg’s forces in place until Burnside took the city.
Rosecrans felt he had no option but to comply but he didn’t have the bridging equipment to make a forced crossing into the city of Chattanooga. Instead, he devised another plan of maneuver, and feeling pressed decided the best way to win was a campaign even more audacious than the one he’d used in the Tullahoma campaign.
Rosecrans didn’t have months to plan. He didn’t have time to do cavalry raids to make detailed maps of the area. He didn’t have the store of supplies. He knew his one advantage was Bragg. His opponent had been knocked on his heels and Rosecrans hoped another aggressive move would force him to retreat once again.
Rosecrans' army started moving on August 15, following a similar strategy he used at Tullahoma. He sent one corps along the railroad to make Bragg think he would cross north of the city of Chattanooga. His other two corps were sent far to the south to cross the Tennessee River in Alabama and then move east into Georgia through gaps in Lookout Mountain.
It didn't take long for Bragg to realize Rosecrans had outflanked him again, this time on his left. Bragg again had no choice. He abandoned Chattanooga on September 7, earning himself the scorn of his officers and every newspaper in the south. Rosecrans corps entered the Confederate rail hub unopposed and he sent this message to Washington,
"Chattanooga is ours without a struggle and East Tennessee is free."
This wasn’t an entirely true statement. The actual situation was far from certain and if he'd gone into a defensive posture at this point his fame might have been assured but his blood was up. He felt certain he had Bragg on the run and he didn't plan to stop until he'd pushed Bragg out of northern Georgia just like he'd done in eastern Tennessee.
One of his corps was 40 miles to the south headed for Resaca which Rosecrans expected to cut Bragg’s supplies and force his retreat just like before. One corps was emerging between a gap in Lookout Mountain that led back to town. His final infantry corps was headed south out of Chattanooga to join the others. The final corps was in reserve.
What Rosecrans didn't know was Bragg hadn't retreated and even worse, he knew exactly where each of Rosecrans' forces was situated. He was biding his time because he knew something else that Rosecrans didn't.
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| Strategic Map before Chickamauga |
At the end of the Tullahoma campaign, Bragg only had about 40,000 effective soldiers and he his scouts estimated Rosecrans had closer to 60,000 men. This was one of the reasons Bragg had no choice but to fall back.
Bragg had gotten nothing but bad press since his retreat at Stones River but it wasn't like he had much of a choice. That battle had almost destroyed his army. When he retreated after the Tullahoma campaign many in the Confederacy called for his removal and his loss of Chattanooga only made those cries louder. Yet, Bragg wasn't being as cowardly as some surmised. He knew help was on the way and was trading land for time.
The leaders in Washington didn't understand just how much the southern leaders felt they needed to keep Chattanooga. Gettysburg was a disaster but it only lost men. Vicksburg hurt too but it only cut off Texas and Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy. Losing Chatanooga would mean the loss of the most direct rail line from Alabama/Mississippi/Georgia to battlefields in Virginia. Losing that line meant they would lose the war of attrition. They only saw one choice.
With Grant in Vicksburg doing nothing on the Mississippi and the Army of the Potomac seemingly stuck on that river's shores, Jefferson Davis told each of his army commanders to transfer to Bragg all the troops they could spare. 10,000 troops came by rail from the Army of Mississippi. Lee sent another 12,000 troops along with his best general, James Longstreet, from the Army of Northern Virginia. Men and material slowly gathered giving Bragg the advantage for the first time since Stones River. He waited and watched his opponent overextend himself while more men arrived.
Rosecrans had no knowledge of this. He had three corps of around 55,000 men on the attack separated by sixty miles. He had one reserve corp on the other side of the Tennessee River consisting of another 15,000 men. Bragg had his army together and would eventually have 70,000 men when Longstreet arrived later in the month. Bragg waited then sent orders on September 11, 1862 to begin an attack on Rosecrans’ central corps as they emerged from Missionary Ridge.
Rosecrans army might have been destroyed piecemeal but years of infighting between Bragg's senior officers meant there was little coordination and they wasted a golden opportunity. The Union force escaped relatively unscathed and more important, Rosecrans now knew that Bragg had not retreated as he'd expected. He'd heard reports Bragg had been reinforced but he didn't yet know the extent and definitely didn't know about Northern Virginia troops under the command of his former classmate, James Longstreet.
Despite that, Rosecrans knew he was in trouble and sent out a flurry of orders to move his corps together before Bragg could destroy them one at a time. Looking at a map it seems like a general retreat might have been the smarter course but that would have allowed Bragg to follow one corps and destroy it. All three Union corps rushed along a single road on the eastern side of Lookout Mountain with no real option of retreat if Bragg took the mountain passes.
It was a race. Bragg's forces were ten miles away while Rosecrans' were separated by forty. The only thing that could save them was incompetence and thankfully for the Union soldiers, Bragg and his generals fought with each other for almost a week rather than attacking. It allowed Rosecrans to combine most of his army.
Bragg finally attacked on September 19, 1863.
*****
I’ve thought a lot about this part of the battle since I learned my ancestor, George Keezer, was part of the unit guarding Rosecrans headquarters. He’d joined the Army of the Cumberland in March 1863. In late June, he made a rapid advance through eastern Tennessee. In mid-August, they'd made another rapid march into Georgia.
Spirits must have been high until they learned Bragg's army had stopped. He must have felt a rising tension as the roar of the cannons grew closer. As someone attached to the HQ it is possible he was a runner for messages or been attached temporarily to a unit but there hadn't been any 'real' fighting since he'd joined this Army. No doubt the past weekend was chaotic as the three corps rushed to join forces. I suspect everyone felt a sense of relief now that Rosecrans had established his headquarters behind a solid line of Union troops with more arriving every hour.
George Keezer hadn't seen much actual battle at this point. His unit probably had mostly clean uniforms at this point and I'm sure barbs were thrown at his fancy unit with their fancy guns even who'd never seen battle. I suspect veterans of other units told them just how close they’d come to disaster. Being that close to the general's HQ meant he could hear the arguments as the generals made their plans. He had to be a little scared.
I’m sure he'd heard stories of Stones River. Vets from other regiments surely told them of what they should expect when Bragg finally attacked. Bragg's army never had much subtlety. They tended to line up, charge and do it again and again until the troops refused to go. It’s possibly one of the reasons it took a while to organize the Confederate side at the battle at Chickamauga. The Confederate soldiers knew what was coming too. After hearing about the losses at Gettysburg/Vicksburg, the question would be -- how many of them were willing to die in what seemed sure to be a losing cause?
It did not take long to find the answer as the Confederates attacked the vigor of past battles. The woods covering the area made the situation worse as no one could see beyond the field ahead. No general would choose this as a place of battle on purpose.
Many enemy units didn't see one another until they were almost on top of each other which made the resulting combat even more deadly. Union units rushed from the south all day. Confederate reinforcements rushed from the east and rumors of Longstreet's arrival had to shock some on the Union side.
Even with that news, I suspect General Rosecrans felt relieved at the end of the first day. His army held a reasonably good position and he had most of his men with him. He made his headquarters just south of Dyer road and just east of the Dry Valley Road. He knew his army was in no shape for offensive operations but he had a complication to hindered any thought of retreat.
Secretary of War Stanton, who had long wanted to fire Rosecrans', sent his Assistant Secretary of War, Charles Dana, to join Rosecrans and to sit in on his meetings. With a spy in his midst, Rosecrans felt it unwise to speak of possible retreat. I suspect if they knew the extent of Longstreet's arrival he might have felt different. Instead, he ordered the three corps of Rosecrans' army to tighten their lines in hopes of holding back the next onslaught that was sure to come.
I'm sure my ancestor found it hard to sleep. He’d just lived through his first real day of battle. He’d heard the booming roar of the cannon and smelled the acrid smoke from rifles. There aren't any reports that 1st Ohio Sharpshooters served on the front lines on September 19th.
That wouldn't be the case the next day. September 20th would change both the private and the general's lives forever.
*****
Longstreet and his 10,000 men from the Army of Northern Virginia had arrived that night. It had been a longer trip than expected because when Burnside took Knoxville, it blocked rail from that direction. Ironically, when Secretary of War Stanton asked Burnside to move south to assist Rosecrans, he declined stating the movement was too dangerous. As you may recall, Rosecrans took Chatanooga to deflect attention from Burnside. The same was true on the other fronts. If the Army of the Potomac attacked Lee, Longstreet wouldn't have been able to come west. If Grant attacked east to Jackson, Mississippi, it would have made it harder for troops from that region to help Bragg.
None of that happened and now all the attention was on Rosecrans. He was all alone on the wrong side of a big mountain.
To get to the battle, Longstreet and his men were forced to travel south out of Virginia into the Carolinas, make two trains changes, then north into Georgia in order to exit near the battle. Only 5,000 of Longstreet’s men would arrive in time to be a part of the fight but they would turn the tide.
Bragg's plan was simple. He would hit the Union left in the morning and place his army in the mountain gap between Rosecrans and his escape routes to Chattanooga. Longstreet would then hit the Union right in the afternoon which would cause them all to surrender.
The Union corps commander on the left saw the building forces and requested part of the reserve be moved to support him. When the reserve didn’t arrive he requested it again. Rosecrans investigated and found the unit waiting for a third unit to take their place in the line of battle. Rosecrans was notoriously thin-skinned when his orders weren't obeyed, so he dressed down his subordinate, Thomas Wood, who then filled the line allowing the other regiment to go move north. This interaction would have tragic consequences.
As usual, Bragg’s morning attack got a late start due to poor communication. Instead of starting at 6am as expected, it happened three hours later, the result being a scattering of piecemeal attacks with much less power than should have occurred. One Confederate onlooker called it the 'the most appalling exhibitions of command incompetence of the entire Civil War.' Even with this, the weight of numbers took their toll and caused the Union Corps commander on the left wing to call for additional help.
In mid-morning one of Rosecrans' staff officers noticed a gap in the Union lines which was assumed occurred due to the continual movement of troops to reinforce the left flank. Rosecrans sent orders to Thomas Woods’ unit telling him to fill the gap but there was a problem. Woods knew there was no gap. The staff officer was mistaken. Yet he'd gotten a written order from Rosecrans and he’d already received a tongue lashing once that day for not obeying orders. Woods moved his unit to fill an imaginary hole in the lines and created a real hole in the Union lines in the process.
James Longstreet had been preparing his attack all morning and sent his men forward in a series of lines. By sheer luck, he focused his attack in the exact place where Woods had left a gap in the line.
If Bragg's men had this opportunity, I have no doubt his corps commanders would have figured a way to mess it up. Unfortunately for the Union, Bragg’s bickering generals weren’t leading this charge. These were men of the army of Northern Virginia. These were Longstreet’s troops, Hood’s Division, veterans of Devil’s Den and Little Round Top at Gettysburg. They were smarting from that battle and in the mood for a little payback.
McCook’s Corps shattered as they attempted to adjust to the oncoming rebels. Davis’s men fled. The first General Rosecrans knew about hole in his line was when he saw Confederate troops appear in the field next to his HQ. He jumped on his horse and rode south hoping to find men to stem the tide. General Sheridan’s men advanced and were overrun. The Union right flank had been completely shattered.
In the movies, this is where the 180 men of the Ohio Sharpshooter Brigade would stand off against the 10,000 men in Longstreet's attack like the Spartans at Thermopylae. In reality, there was little to be done but provide a rearguard for their retreating army.
The 1
st Ohio Battalion normally reported to Rosecrans but he wasn't around to give orders. Captain Barber looked for a senior commander that could use them and found General Davis in the chaos near the Widow Glenn cabin. Here’s what he said happened next:
Unable to join Rosecrans, Capt Barber reported to Davis who ordered him to fall back four hundred yards and form line of battle. He did so, and Davis attempted to rally his division in the rear. It broke, however, and a similar order was again sent to Capt. Barber and obeyed. Four times the sharpshooters formed in line and engaged the enemy's advance; thus covering the retreat of Davis' division, and at length following it from the field.
I can only imagine the confusion these men felt as they faced off against the mass of men headed towards them. Longstreet outnumbered them 50 to 1 along a broad front. Surely they would be surrounded but the Spencer gave them huge advantages. They could fire 5 shots for every 1 in return. They were expert marksmen. They could load their rifles from a prone position.
There were only two exits available to the retreating army and if the rebels got their first, the only option would be surrender. How many did the 1st Ohio kill? How many times did they reload? I've found no first-hand accounts that give more details than the above quote. I’m sure the long lines of Longstreet’s men made easy targets.
The 1st Ohio Sharpshooters weren't the only unit carrying Spencers that day. Wilder's infantry brigade also carried them and this is his quote of what happened when they used their Spencers earlier in the battle.
“... it actually seemed a pity to kill men so. They fell in heaps, and I had it in my head to order the firing to cease to end the awful sight.”
Wilder was far to the south when Longstreet hit, tasked with guarding the Union right flank. When he saw the retreat he sent his entire brigade of about 2,000 men armed with Spencers against the Confederate flank forced a retreat by some of Longstreet's troops. Wilder contemplated pushing his attack further but saw the Union lines moving further from him every minute. He retreated north to find troops that hadn't run.
Despite the advantages given by the Spencer, the Union didn't have enough of them to make up for their mistakes and the Confederate advantage in numbers. Longstreet had more men and they knew how to take full advantage of a flank march. They rolled up the Union line, including most of McCook and Crittenden's corps.
Only Thomas' corps on the left held were able to hold fast, bolstered by reinforcements from the Reserve Corps and McCook / Crittenden's regiments that hadn't run. When Longstreet asked for an attack from the right flank to prevent their escape Bragg responded, “There is not a man on the right that has any fight in him.”
It had to be a frustrating moment for both men. The only way to achieve great victory was to cut off the Union’s road to Chattanooga but Longstreet's attack was pushing them towards the city.
Rosecrans attempted to reform his broken lines but soon realized he only had two choices. Half of his army was an undisciplined mob headed for Chattanooga. The other half was moving towards Thomas, taking a defensive position along Horseshoe Ridge. Someone needed to goto Chattnooga to organize the defense if Thomas couldn't hold. He ordered General Thomas to take over the troops still on the battlefield. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga. Thomas stayed on Horseshoe Ridge long enough to save the army before retreating under the cover of darkness.
The Union forces retreated to Chattanooga. The Confederates surrounded them on all sides in the mountainous heights and blocked supplies from reaching town by river or on the railroad. A siege of sorts began with neither side in any shape for offensive operations.
Lincoln noted Rosecrans' telegrams didn't sound like the same man after the battle. He promoted Grant to be the leader of all the western forces and sent him to Chattanooga with the authority to do what he felt best with Rosecrans. Rosecrans was relieved of duties when Grant arrived a week later.
*****
It’s hard to know exactly what happened to George Keezer during the battle. The only thing I know for sure is he was transferred to the Veterans Reserve Corps 10 days after the battle on September 30, 1863. The only way for a soldier to join was to be a -
partially disabled soldiers whose period of service had not yet expired ...
This group was initially known as the Invalid Corp but the name was changed in 1864 to boost morale. From that description, it sounds like my ancestor received a very serious wound at Chickamauga though it is impossible to be sure. The Veteran Reserve Corp was a way for men to continue to serve after injury allowing others to fight. They performed important duties guards, orderlies, cooks, and nurses.
George Keezer was released from the service on March 30th, 1865 and returned to his wife Pelina who bore him a total of nine children. Three were born before the war (including my ancestor) and five were born after the war. One was born in 1864 which means either that George had some convalescent time after his injuries at Chickamauga, served duty in Ohio during his time in the Veterans Reserve Corp, or grandma Keezer had lots of explaining to do when he got home. I suspect it’s the first one.
He died on October 16, 1916 and is buried in Sherman Cemetary in Paulding, Ohio.
William Rosecrans later got command of the Union forces in Missouri in 1864 though he didn’t play a significant role in the army for the rest of the war. There is a story that Lincoln offered Rosecrans the opportunity to be his running mate when he ran for re-election in 1864 election. Rosecrans was a lifelong Democrat and Lincoln was looking for someone to help him unite the country from the opposite party for after the war. As the stories goes, Rosecrans gave it some thought and sent a telegram accepting the offer but the message never got to Lincoln. Some suspect Secretary of War Stanton intercepted the message and threw it away. I have no idea if it is true but it sounds like something Stanton would do to Rosecrans. The two men did not like one another. It’s probably for the best. If he had gotten the nomination, Rosecrans would have become president after Lincoln’s assassination and given his notorious temper it’s probably for the best he didn’t get the job.
Rosecrans resigned his commission from the Army in 1867.
After the war, Rosecrans moved to California and became a very successful businessman. He was one of the 11 original investors in the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1869 he purchased 16,000 acres of land of Rancho San Pedro which essentially encompasses most of today’s South-Central Los Angeles. Rosecrans Avenue in LA is named for him.
In 1880 William Rosecrans was elected to the House as a representative of California. During his time in office, a bill came before the House that wanted to give Ulysses S Grant a pension. The reason was that Grant was almost penniless and dying of throat cancer.
It was a reasonable request to give back to a man that had done so much for his country. Rosecrans had known many such men who'd given everything for the country. I even suspect Grant and Rosecrans might have had a different relationship if they met under different circumstances. Grant didn’t have Rosecrans intelligence but Rosecrans didn’t have Grant’s single-minded drive. If you suppose the old adage that opposites attract, they might have even been friends.
Unfortunately, William Rosecrans was single-minded in holding a grudge. The vote passed over Rosecrans’ vociferous objection.
Willam Rosecrans died in 1898 and he is buried in Arlington Cemetery.
So let's say you run that red light. Let's say work a night job and that red light is waiting for you every time you go home. So you run it.
