Fair Garden Tennessee

American Civil War
January 27, 1864

Since the Battle of Dandridge, the Union cavalry had moved to the south side of the French Broad River and had disrupted Confederate foraging and captured numerous wagons in that area. On January 25, 1864, Lt. General James Longstreet, commander of the Department of East Tennessee, instructed his subordinates to do something to curtail Union operations south of the French Broad.

On the 26th, Brig. General Samuel D. Sturgis, having had various brushes with Confederate cavalry, deployed his troopers to watch the area fords. Two Confederate cavalry brigades and artillery advanced from Fair Garden in the afternoon but were checked about four miles from Sevierville. Other Confederates attacked a Union cavalry brigade, though, at Fowler's on Flat Creek, and drove it about two miles.

No further fighting occurred that day. Union scouts observed that the Confederates had concentrated on the Fair Garden Road, so Sturgis ordered an attack there in the morning. In a heavy fog, Col. Edward M. McCook's Union division attacked and drove back Major General William T. Martin's Confederates until about 4:00 pm. At that time, McCook's men charged with sabers and routed the Rebels.

Sturgis set out in pursuit on the 28th, and captured and killed more of the routed Rebels. The Union forces, however, observed three of Longstreet's infantry brigades crossing the river. Realizing his weariness from fighting, lack of supplies, ammunition, and weapons and the overwhelming strength of the enemy, Sturgis decided to evacuate the area. But, before leaving, Sturgis determined to attack Brig. General Frank C. Armstrong's Confederate cavalry division which he had learned was about three or four miles away, on the river. 

Unbeknownst to the attacking Federals, Armstrong had strongly fortified his position and three infantry regiments had arrived to reinforce him. Thus, the Union troops suffered severe casualties in the attack. The battle continued until dark, when the Federals retired from the area.

The Federals had won the big battle but the fatigue of continual fighting and lack of supplies and ammunition forced them to withdraw.

Result(s): Union victory

Location: Sevier County

Campaign: Operations about Dandridge, Tennessee (1863-64)

Date(s): January 27, 1864

Principal Commanders: Brig. General Samuel D. Sturgis and Col. Edward M. McCook [US]; Major General William T. Martin [CS]

Forces Engaged: Cavalry Division, Cavalry Corps, Army of the Ohio [US]; Cavalry Division, Department of East Tennessee [CS]

Estimated Casualties: 265 total (US 100; CS 165)


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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.