Army of Tennessee

• 1. Introduction

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  The Army of Tennessee was the Confederacy's main fighting force in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. It formed in Tennessee in late 1862 and fought until the war's final weeks in North Carolina in 1865. After one especially brutal retreat, an officer named Robert Bevier of the 5th Missouri Infantry declared that "the Army of Tennessee ceased to exist." It hadn't. Within weeks it was marching again under yet another commander, part of a pattern that ran through its whole existence. Four different generals took the top command over less than three years: Braxton Bragg, Joseph Johnston, John Bell Hood, and then Johnston again. What kept forcing those changes, and how did an army pushed to the brink of collapse keep finding a way to reform? The chapters ahead trace the feuds that split its officer corps, the battles that defined its reputation, and the final campaign that brought its story to a close.

• 2. Born From Reshuffling

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  On the 20th of November 1862, General Braxton Bragg renamed the Army of Mississippi and split it into two corps. Leonidas Polk commanded the First Corps and William J. Hardee commanded the Second. A third corps was drawn from the Department of East Tennessee, commanded by Edmund Kirby Smith. It lasted only until early December, when one of its two divisions was sent to Mississippi. The remaining division joined Hardee's corps while Kirby Smith returned east. Joseph Wheeler took charge of a newly consolidated cavalry command. The army's first fight under its new name came on December 31, along the Stones River, against the Union Army of the Cumberland. Confederate attacks began at 6 a.m. against the Union right wing, pushing it back toward the supply route to Nashville. The Confederates could not seize the road itself. Bragg expected Union commander William S. Rosecrans to withdraw overnight, but Rosecrans held his ground. No fighting occurred on January 1. The next day, Bragg sent one division to take a ridge on the river's east side, and heavy Union artillery fire repulsed the attack. Bragg pulled the army back that night, halting near the Duck River, a retreat that would soon draw sharp criticism from his own officers.

• 3. A Command In Crisis

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  Several officers said openly that Braxton Bragg had lost the confidence of the army after Stones River. Confederate President Jefferson Davis sent Joseph Johnston to inspect the army and take command if he judged it necessary. Johnston refused to take over. In the summer of 1863, Union commander Rosecrans opened the Tullahoma Campaign, named for the town where Bragg had set up headquarters. Low water levels on the river pushed Bragg to retreat further, back to his supply base at Chattanooga, Tennessee. When Union forces paused after the campaign, Bragg used the lull to reorganize his own command. Hardee left for Mississippi in July and was replaced by D.H. Hill. Bragg's department was redrawn as the Department of Tennessee, covering Alabama north of the Tennessee River and Georgia north of Atlanta. The Department of East Tennessee, under Simon Buckner, was folded in, and Buckner's troops became the Third Corps. The cavalry split into two corps under Wheeler and Nathan Bedford Forrest, alongside a new two-division Reserve Corps led by W.H.T. Walker. Richmond also agreed to send James Longstreet's corps from the Army of Northern Virginia. Because Knoxville had fallen, Longstreet's men had to travel by rail through the Carolinas and Atlanta, a movement that began on September 9.

• 4. The Battle For Chattanooga

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  Rosecrans launched the Chickamauga Campaign in late August, staging demonstrations near Chattanooga and upstream along the Tennessee River. Bragg became convinced the Union army was crossing to the north. In fact, Rosecrans was crossing south of the city. The deception forced Bragg to fall back into northern Georgia, abandoning the rail hub of Chattanooga on September 8. Over the following days, Bragg tried to strike isolated pieces of the Union army, but each attempt failed. On the evening of September 18, he concentrated his forces near Chickamauga Creek, expecting to face only part of Rosecrans' army. Rosecrans had actually gathered his full strength faster than Bragg anticipated. By September 19, both armies were feeding in reinforcements as the fighting spread. Longstreet reached the field overnight, between the 19th and the 20th of September. Bragg split the army into two wings, Polk commanding the right and Longstreet the left, with John B. Hood leading Longstreet's own corps. Polk was ordered to attack at daylight on September 20 but did not move until midmorning. His wing failed to push back the Union line, but Longstreet's wing found a gap and broke through, routing the Union right flank. Part of the Union force rallied on Horseshoe Ridge and held out against repeated attacks until nightfall. It then withdrew into Chattanooga with the rest of Rosecrans' army. Missionary Ridge anchored the Confederate line as the army settled into a siege of Chattanooga, with Lookout Mountain held on the left. Bragg judged a direct assault on the city too costly. A shortage of pontoons and supplies also led him to drop a plan to cross the river and cut the Union supply line to Nashville. Instead, he stretched his army along the Tennessee River to choke off the Union railroad into the city. A personal dispute between Bragg and Forrest erupted in the weeks that followed. It ended with Forrest reassigned to Mississippi and West Tennessee, his cavalry folded into Wheeler's corps. Hill, Buckner, Longstreet, and several division commanders signed a petition asking Davis to relieve Bragg of command. Davis refused. Bragg responded by relieving Polk outright, accusing him of disobedience during the Chickamauga campaign. Rather than face a court martial, Polk was sent to Mississippi, and Hardee took over the First Corps. Hill was also relieved, replaced by John C. Breckinridge, and the Third Corps and Reserve Corps were absorbed into the remaining two. Grant took overall command of Union forces in the west that October, under the newly formed Military Division of the Mississippi. He put George H. Thomas in Rosecrans' place. Before dawn on October 27, Union troops seized Brown's Ferry, opening a fresh supply route into the city. A Confederate attempt to retake it at Wauhatchie, on the night of October 28-29, failed. On November 5, Bragg sent Longstreet's corps to Knoxville, along with most of his cavalry. He hoped the move would force Grant to weaken his own army to defend the Union garrison there. The decisive Union attack began November 24, when Joseph Hooker's troops captured Lookout Mountain and threatened the Confederate left. The next day Sherman's assault on Missionary Ridge stalled on the Confederate right. Grant then ordered a demonstration against the Confederate center to pull Bragg's attention away from Sherman. Led by Thomas, that demonstration turned into a full attack that broke straight through the Confederate line. Bragg retreated into north Georgia and regrouped around Dalton. His request to be relieved was granted on December 1. Hardee briefly took over but turned down permanent command, and Davis named Joseph Johnston to lead the army in December 1863.

• 5. Hood's Gambit

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  During the winter of 1864, John B. Hood took command of the Second Corps. Leonidas Polk rejoined the army that May, bringing the Army of Mississippi, which became the new Third Corps. In the 1864 Atlanta campaign, Sherman's combined armies had orders to destroy the Army of Tennessee, with the capture of Atlanta as a secondary goal. Johnston, who saw the army's survival as more important than holding ground, avoided open battle with Sherman whenever he could. Through May and early June, Johnston took up one defensive position after another, retreating each time Sherman outflanked him. Leonidas Polk was killed at Pine Mountain on June 14. W. W. Loring temporarily took his place until July, when A. P. Stewart assumed command of the corps. Johnston's repeated retreats frustrated Confederate leaders in Richmond, especially President Davis. Davis had never gotten along with Johnston and feared he intended to give up Atlanta without a fight. After Sherman outflanked Johnston's line along the Chattahoochee River, pushing him back on Atlanta itself, Davis replaced Johnston with Hood on July 9. Stephen D. Lee was pulled from Mississippi to take command of the Second Corps. Hood launched a series of attacks around Atlanta, at Peachtree Creek, at Atlanta itself, and at Ezra Church, and each one failed. Sherman then severed Hood's last rail supply line at the Battle of Jonesboro on September 1, forcing him to abandon the city the next day. Hood retreated southwest, first to Lovejoy's Station and then to Palmetto. There he met with Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard, newly appointed to command the Military Division of the West. Hardee moved on to command the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and Frank Cheatham took over Hardee's corps. Davis approved Hood's plan to strike Sherman's supply lines north of Atlanta. If Sherman followed, Hood could force him to fight on ground of his own choosing. Hood moved north at the end of September, capturing several Union railroad garrisons and tearing up miles of track. When Sherman followed, Hood turned west into Alabama instead of fighting in northern Georgia. By the end of October, Sherman abandoned the chase and launched his March to the Sea instead. Rather than follow Sherman, Hood decided to head north into Tennessee. Wheeler's cavalry was detached to fight Sherman's advance through Georgia and the Carolinas, and Forrest's corps joined Hood's army in its place. The army reached Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River. A shortage of supplies and the need to repair the rail line delayed the crossing until November 20. In Middle Tennessee, Union general John M. Schofield faced Hood under the overall command of Thomas. Hood tried to trap Schofield's force near Columbia but failed, then tried to slip past him and reach Nashville first. Schofield detected the move and ordered a retreat to Nashville, escaping being cut off at Spring Hill despite Hood's orders to seize the Nashville Turnpike. Hood caught up with Schofield at Franklin and ordered an immediate frontal assault, even though only two of his three infantry corps were present. He ignored his subordinates' advice to outflank the Union fortifications instead. In the battle that followed, Hood lost 7,000 men, almost a quarter of his strength. Six generals were killed or mortally wounded, six more were wounded, and one was captured. Hood pushed on toward Nashville anyway, deploying his army along four miles of hills and ridges south of the city and digging in. Cheatham's corps held the right, Lee's corps the center, and Stewart's corps the left. With only 21,000 men present, Hood could not fully encircle the city. His left flank sat four miles from the Cumberland River, and his right sat just one mile away. On December 15, Thomas attacked, feinting toward the Confederate right while striking the main blow at the Confederate left. Lee's corps was driven from its works, and Hood fell back to another line of hills to the south. Thomas attacked again the next afternoon, using the same feint-and-flank pattern against the reordered Confederate line. Cheatham's and Stewart's corps broke and ran, while Lee's corps covered the retreat as the army pulled off the field. Judging the army's condition too poor to continue, Hood abandoned Tennessee altogether. Forrest's cavalry and eight infantry brigades formed the rear guard for the retreat. The army went first to Corinth. Since the railroad there was too damaged to supply the army, Hood pushed on to Tupelo. Within weeks, Hood would step down, leaving the army to start over yet again.

• 6. The Last Reorganization

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  Hood resigned his command in January 1865 and was briefly replaced by Richard Taylor. During late January and February, the army moved to the Carolinas to join other Confederate forces fighting Sherman's advance. A. P. Stewart commanded the army during this period. William W. Loring led Stewart's old corps, D. H. Hill commanded Lee's corps, and William B. Bate commanded Cheatham's corps. Both Lee and Cheatham were still traveling from Mississippi at the time. Wheeler's cavalry served under Wade Hampton's command. Joseph E. Johnston took charge of the Confederate forces in the region, naming them the Army of the South. At this point the Army of Tennessee had shrunk to just 4,500 men. It lacked weapons, artillery, and wagons, and had lost more troops to desertion on the march east from Mississippi. Within a few weeks, Johnston managed to rebuild it into a force capable of serious resistance against Sherman. Parts of the army fought several smaller engagements during the Carolinas campaign, including at Wise's Forks. The whole army fought at the Battle of Bentonville from March 19-21. Johnston attacked one wing of Sherman's army, hoping to crush it before the other wing could arrive. Stewart's corps held the Confederate right wing, facing south, with Loring on the left, Hill in the center, and Bate on the right. Johnston opened the attack shortly after 3 p.m. Stewart's men drove back the left wing of the Union XIV Corps, capturing three cannons and several hundred prisoners. The advance left the Confederate line disorganized, and it had to pause to reform. Part of the force then moved to help the Confederate left. The rest, joined by troops under Hardee, attacked the Union XX Corps and were repulsed. Overnight, Sherman brought up his other wing, forcing Johnston to pull back to his starting positions and refuse his flank to protect the retreat. Johnston withdrew on the night of March 21, marching through Morrisville before settling near Smithfield, North Carolina. During a three-week encampment there, he folded the various Confederate units into a single reorganized army, keeping the name Army of Tennessee. Most regiments were consolidated, and the infantry was split into three corps under Hardee, Stewart, and Lee. Hampton commanded the cavalry, while Wheeler still led his own divisions. The artillery shrank from sixteen batteries to seven, each with four cannons, leaving Johnston with a total strength of about 30,400 men. When Sherman resumed the advance on April 10, Johnston retreated through Raleigh, abandoning the city on April 12. He continued west along the North Carolina Railroad to Hillsborough. He hoped to negotiate a surrender from a position of strength rather than collapse. Johnston and Sherman met on April 17 and 18 at the Bennett Place, near Durham Station, North Carolina, to work out terms. Sherman agreed not only to accept the surrender but to recognize the existing Confederate state governments, terms the Union government immediately rejected. The two generals negotiated again, and new terms, modeled on those Robert E. Lee had accepted at Appomattox Court House, were signed on April 26. They covered the Army of Tennessee along with every other Confederate force in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. In total, the surrender numbered almost 90,000 men.