Chattanooga
Civil War Tennessee

American Civil War
June 7-8, 1862

Confederate Heartland Campaign Map

In late Spring 1862, the Confederacy split its forces in Tennessee into several small commands in an attempt to complicate Federal operations. The Union had to redistribute its forces to counter the Confederate command structure changes. Major General Ormsby Mitchel received orders to go to Huntsville, Alabama, with his division to repair railroads in the area.

Soon, he occupied more than 100 miles along the Nashville & Chattanooga and Memphis & Charleston railroads.  In May, Mitchel and his men sparred with Major General Edmund Kirby Smith's men. After Mitchel received command of all Federal troops between Nashville and Huntsville, on May 29, he ordered Brigadier General James Negley with a small division to lead an expedition to capture Chattanooga. This force arrived before Chattanooga on June 7.

Negley ordered the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers out to reconnoiter. It found the Confederates entrenched on the opposite side of the river along the banks and atop Cameron Hill. Negley brought up two artillery batteries to open fire on the Rebel troops and the town and sent infantry to the river bank to act as sharpshooters.

The Union bombardment of Chattanooga continued throughout the 7th and until noon on the 8th. The Confederates replied, but it was uncoordinated since the undisciplined gunners were allowed to do as they wished. On June 10, Smith, who had arrived on the 8th, reported that Negley had withdrawn and the Confederate loss was minor. 

This attack on Chattanooga was a warning that Union troops could mount assaults when they wanted.

Result(s): Union victory

Location: Hamilton County and City of Chattanooga

Campaign: Confederate Heartland Offensive (1862) Next battle in Campaign Campaigns

Date(s) June 7-8, 1862

Principal Commanders: Brigadier General James Negley [US]; Major General Edmund Kirby Smith [CS]

Forces Engaged: Division [US]; Department [CS]

Estimated Casualties: Total unknown (US unknown; CS 3)


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Sources:
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Civil War History Book Club Reading Titles


The bloodbath at Shiloh, Tenn. (April 6-7, 1862), brought an end to any remaining innocence in the Civil War. The combined 23,000 casualties that the two armies inflicted on each other in two days shocked North and South alike. Ulysses S. Grant kept his head and managed, with reinforcements, to win a hard-fought victory. Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston was wounded and bled to death, leaving P.G.T. Beauregard to disengage and retreat with a dispirited gray-clad army. Daniel (Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee) has crafted a superbly researched volume that will appeal to both the beginning Civil War reader as well as those already familiar with the course of fighting in the wooded terrain bordering the Tennessee River. His impressive research includes the judicious use of contemporary newspapers and extensive collections of unpublished letters and diaries.
An act of love but also of careful scholarship, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh tells the story of the construction of a National Military Park there and of the people who made it. Everyone interested in the battle will want to read what happened there after the fighting stopped, and anyone interested in the process of reunion after the Civil War will learn that a field of such carnage became a site of reconciliation and nationalism
The first major battle in the Western theatre of the American Civil War, Shiloh came as a horrifying shock to both the American public and those in arms. For the first time they had some idea of the terrible price that would be paid for the preservation of the Union. On 6 April 1862 General Albert Sidney Johnston caught Grant and Sherman by surprise and very nearly drove them into the River Tennessee, but was mortally wounded in the process. Somehow Grant and Sherman hung on and the next day managed to drive back the hordes of grey-clad rebels.
By mid 1862, Union gains in the Mississippi Valley and in Tennessee and Kentucky had brought the Confederacy to a point of strategic crisis. This valuable addition to the growing literature on the Civil War in the West tells how the Union then failed to press home its advantage while the Confederacy failed to force Kentucky into the Confederacy. The climax of these events was the little-known Battle of Perryville, in which a greatly inferior Southern force under Braxton Bragg managed a draw against Don Carlos Buell's Union army but also effectively terminated the Confederate invasion of Kentucky. McDonough has researched thoroughly and written clearly, making this book informative and accessible to a wide range of Civil War students.

Cozzens follows up his magisterial account of the Battle of Chickamauga, This Terrible Sound (1992), with an equally authoritative study of the Chattanooga campaign that followed it. Braxton Bragg (who sometimes seems unfit to have been at large on the public streets, let alone commanding armies) failed to either destroy or starve out the Union Army of the Cumberland. In due course, superior Northern resources and strategy--not tactics; few generals on either side come out looking like good tacticians--progressively loosened the Confederate cordon around the city. Finally, the Union drove off Bragg's army entirely in the famous Battle of Missionary Ridge, which was a much more complex affair than previous, heroic accounts make it. Like its predecessor on Chickamauga, this is such a good book on Chattanooga that it's hard to believe any Civil War collection will need another book on the subject for at least a generation.