John Bell Hood's Charge - A Chickamauga Civil War AU

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Midday, September 20, 1863, at Chickamauga:

Longstreet had discovered a gap in the Union lines, and rushed to exploit it as quickly as possible. He gave the order to move at 11:10 a.m. and Johnson's division proceeded across the Brotherton field, by coincidence to precisely the point where Wood's Union division was pulling out of the line. Johnson's brigade on the left, commanded by Col. John S. Fulton, drove directly through the gap. The brigade on the right, under Brig. Gen. Evaner McNair, encountered opposition from Brannan's division (parts of Col. John M. Connell's brigade), but was also able to push through. The result was what was very soon to be a devastating rout of the Union Army. The few Union soldiers in that sector ran in panic from the onslaught.

As the Union troops were withdrawing, Wood stopped his brigade commanded by Col. Charles G. Harker and sent it back with orders to counterattack the Confederates. They appeared on the scene at the flank of the Confederates who had captured the artillery pieces, causing them to retreat. The brigades of McNair, Perry, and Robinson became intermingled as they ran for shelter in the woods east of the field. Hood ordered Kershaw's Brigade to attack Harker and then raced toward Robertson's Brigade of Texans, Hood's old brigade. Reaching his former unit, he managed to take cover, barely avoiding being struck by a Union bullet. He rallied them into a charge against Harker, assisting Kershaw's advance and quickly routing the Union forces before they were able to settle into good defensive ground.

With the Union lines along Horseshoe Ridge crumpling inwards, Brig. Gen. Arthur Manigault would launch a devastating attack on Sheridan's two remaining divisions, under Brig. Gen. William H. Lytle and Col. Nathan Walworth. With the eastern section of Horseshoe ridge already having been routed, and with Lytle having been killed in action, his men in full retreat, Assistant Secretary of War Anderson Dana angrily approached Wilder, proclaiming that the battle was lost, and demanding they retreat to Chattanooga at once. Wilder, forced to calm him down, lost an opportunity to launch a counterattack on Manigault's advancing men. He begrudgingly pulled back, though less due to Dana's order and more to an understanding of the futility of such a movement. The southern end of the Army of the Cumberland fled in the direction of Chattanooga, through McFarland's gap. Rosecrans sent Garfield to Thomas with orders to take command of the forces remaining at Chickamauga and to withdraw to Rossville.

Meanwhile, the Union positions around Kelly Field remained in a strong position. However, with Confederates now holding Horseshoe ridge, largely due to John Bell Hood's brave charge, Thomas began pulling back in an attempt to avoid being encircled. Confederate forces under D.H. Hill seized advantage of this, launching a massive assault on the Union left while Longstreet's forces rushed to close off the escape routes and encircle Thomas's forces. Polk himself would advance near the front lines despite the warnings of his aides, anticipating one of the greatest victories of the war and wishing to witness it himself. Famously, Braxton Bragg did not order him to remain at headquarters, declaring to an aide, "Let the pompous old fool march to his death." This statement would later have severe political ramifications. As Thomas's forces fell back, reinforcements from Brannan and Steedman that had fallen back from Horseshoe ridge earlier began to arrive and slow the retreat. Notably, a fierce stand by the 21st Ohio, armed with five-shot Colt revolving rifles, would expend 38,850 rounds over the course of their defense, two of which struck Polk himself, one in the upper arm, and the other in the thigh. He would be thrown from his horse and trampled, dying in mere seconds to blood loss and trauma.

With Polk's death, the Confederate advance wavered, allowing the Union to create an effective rearguard to cover their retreat somewhat. However, a final coordinated push from D.H. Hill, now having assumed Polk's command, and Longstreet would smash into the weary Union forces that were beginning to run out of ammunition. During the brutal rearguard action, Thomas remained behind to rally the men and hold for as long as possible. Nicknamed 'The Rock of Chickamauga', he held back overwhelming Confederate forces approaching from multiple directions for hours. However, during a particularly fierce engagement with one of Preston's divisions, Thomas was struck by numerous bullets in both arms, his left shoulder, and his left leg. He would quickly bleed out, dying while desperately rushed to a field hospital. With his death, the Union withdraw turned into panic as the rearguard was routed, with Confederate cavalry inflicting enormous casualties. However, as darkness fell, pursuit became infeasible, and the fleeing Union forces managed to escape to relative safety.

Bragg, despite urged by many of his generals to advance and take advantage of the retreat, decided to camp for the night instead. His men were weary, many lacking ammunition and supplies. A significant number of artillery horses had also been killed, and the Tennessee river was also an obstacle, not helped by the fact that he had no pontoon bridges that would allow him to cross. For now, his forces rested.

 

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Casualties for the Battle of Chickamauga

Confederate:
14,355
2,253 dead
10,853 wounded
1,249 captured or missing

Union:
23,229
3,163 dead
13,354 wounded
6,712 captured or missing

Confederate

The Army of Tennessee was in a strange position following the battle of Chickamauga. They'd inflicted a painful defeat on the Army of the Cumberland, driving Union forces out of Georgia entirely and trapping Rosecrans in Chattanooga after rapidly occupying the high ground around the city. However, Bragg now had to deal with another issue- his officers. After winning the Battle of Chickamauga, despite having a large advantage in numbers, Bragg refused to assault the Union forces trapped within the city. He felt that his forces lacked the ammunition and pontoon bridges required for a massive assault, and, having received intelligence that Rosecrans's men had only size days of rations, Bragg chose to simply lay siege to the Army of the Cumberland. His officers were furious, wanting to quickly destroy the smaller Union army before it could be reinforced by Grant.

With Polk dead, control of Polk's Corps passed to Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham. John Bell Hood was promoted for his stunning bravery to the position of Major General. Meanwhile, Bragg was attempting to order Longstreet to travel to Knoxville in order to prevent Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's reinforcement of the besieged federal forces there. However this, along with his refusal to assault Chattanooga, would lead to nearly a full-blown insurrection among his officers. Finally, after many furious letters and telegrams, Jefferson Davis finally agreed to travel to the Army of Tennessee and evaluate the issue. Blaming him for the death of Polk, and fully agreeing with the officers that the city should be assaulted due to their large numerical superiority, Braxton Bragg was finally sent back to Richmond for general incompetence, due to his enormous string of failed battles, disastrous Tullahoma campaign, and inability to pursue and destroy federal forces following the victory at Chickamauga. He was relieved of command, replaced as commander of the Army of Tennessee by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet.

Possessing enormous numerical superiority, and enjoying the support of his subordinate officers, Longstreet made preparations to launch a large assault as quickly as possible, in order to decisively destroy the Army of the Cumberland before aid from Grant could arrive. Assigning Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee to command the left, and Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill to control the right, he shifted divisions into place for an attack.

Union

The loss at the Battle of Chickamauga was enormous- over a third of the Army of the Cumberland had been killed, wounded, or captured, leaving only around 36,500 men present for duty. Meanwhile, their scouts estimated that the Confederates had only lost around 13,000 to 16,000 men, meaning that by even the most generous estimate, the Army of the Cumberland was outnumbered 37,000 to 49,000. A number of officers had also perished, most notably George Henry Thomas, who had earned the nickname "The Rock of Chickamauga" for his brave rallying of the rearguard in order to buy the retreating divisions time.

In Chattanooga, Rosecrans was stunned by the defeat of his army and became psychologically unable to take decisive action to break out of Chattanooga. Meanwhile, with Thomas dead, Absalom Baird took his place as the commander of the XIV Corps. Much of the Union high command had wanted to replace Rosecrans with Thomas for some time, and were planning on doing so if Rosecrans suffered a major defeat. However, due to Thomas's death, they were left with few options but to allow Rosecrans to maintain his post, at least, for now. Meanwhile, the XX Corps and the XXI Corps were consolidated into a new IV Corps commanded by Granger.

However, things were not as bad as they may have seemed for Union forces in the west. Stanton had ordered Joseph Hooker to march with 20,000 men to Chattanooga. Further, Grant had been ordered even before the Union defeat to send his available force to assist Rosecrans, and it departed under his chief subordinate, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, from Vicksburg, Mississippi.

 

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September 29, 1863

On September 29, Stanton ordered Grant to go to Chattanooga himself, as commander of the newly created Military Division of the Mississippi, bringing all of the territory from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River (and much of the state of Arkansas) under a single commander for the first time. Grant was given the option of replacing the demoralized Rosecrans with Granger. Although Grant did not have good personal relations with Granger, he heartily disliked Rosecrans. He selected Granger to command the Army of the Cumberland. Hearing an inaccurate report that Rosecrans was preparing to abandon Chattanooga, Grant telegraphed to Granger , "Hold Chattanooga at all hazards. I will be there as soon as possible." He replied immediately, "I will hold the town till we starve." Grant traveled over the treacherous mountain supply line roads in an attempt to reach Chattanooga before a battle erupted.

Longstreet had been using Wheeler's cavalry to intercept and raid supply trains on their way to Chattanooga, both as a way to lower the morale and strength of the Army of the Cumberland, and to make up for the poor Confederate mountain supply routes. However, on September 29, Longstreet issued orders for Wheeler to take positions near Walden's Ridge, a ways north of Chattanooga, on the other side of the Tennessee River. Later that day, when supplies arrived to the city unmolested, Granger began to suspect that an attack was imminent. He sent urgent messages to both Hooker and Grant, though it would still be a few days until either of them could arrive.

Longstreet continued to arrange his corps. He was growing increasingly nervous as the day went on. Not only would this be his first major test of independent command, it would also be an offensive battle against a fortified opponent, a situation which went against Longstreet's generally defensive approach to warfare. Aides reportedly witnessed him pacing outside his tent, asking seemingly random questions about minor details within the order of battle, such as how many men were in each regiment under Manigault, or how many batteries were assigned to Smith's brigade. Much to the annoyance of his subordinates, he would also continuously micromanage the positions of various divisions and brigades in preparation for an attack.

Finally, he summoned the commanders of each corps- Maj. Gen. John B. Hood, now commanding Longstreet's old corps, Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, now commanding Polk's old corps, Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill, Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Sr., and William H.T. Walker, along with Maj. Felix H. Robertson, commander of the reserve artillery. He explained to them the plans for the next day- at dawn, a massive artillery barrage from the main army's elevated positions around the city. Meanwhile, Wheeler's pieces of low-caliber artillery, particularly horse-drawn mortars, would open fire from the north side of town. After an hour-long barrage, infantry would descend from their positions, assaulting the city while Wheeler moved to cut off retreat from the bridge crossing the Tennessee river, and descend into the town. His officers heartily agreed, riding back to their men to finish preparations for the attack.

Meanwhile, Longstreet had been exchanging messages with Brig. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest. During the aftermath of the Battle of Chickamauga, Bragg had sent Forrest out to conduct raids across central Tennessee. Longstreet, however, saw the importance of Forrest's cavalry as a method to prevent Union reinforcements from participating in the battle, and so ordered Forrest to hinder Hooker's corps and prevent them from arriving at Chattanooga, "[So] that our assault of the city may go smoothly, and remain unmolested". Forrest reportedly cheered upon receiving the news that an assault of the city was underway, and set off with his men, who were bivouacked east of Tullahoma, set out to harass Hooker's forces, which had recently departed from Murfreesboro on their way to Chattanooga to relieve the Army of the Cumberland.

Granger, despite being trapped inside the city, had not remained idle. His demoralized forces had spent the days since their defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga digging in and heavily fortifying the city. Despite their low morale and lack of supplies, they were determined to hold the city in time for reinforcements to arrive. As Longstreet's movements made it increasingly obvious that an attack was imminent, and with Grant's men at least a month away, it became clear that Joseph Hooker's 20,000 men were the only hope for the Army of the Cumberland to hold off a Confederate attack. Granger urgently attempted to wire Hooker to explain the direness of his situation. However, the lines had been cut by Forrest's men, who were then preparing to assault and capture one of Hooker's divisions. Due to a blunder in communication, a division under Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr, had been left isolated and "in the air", with no natural defenses, in bivouac north of Manchester.

What followed was the Battle of Duck River, also known as the Battle of Manchester by Confederate forces. During a night raid, two divisions under Forrest's command burst from the woods near Manchester to attack von Steinwehr's weary, unprepared men. Catching them by surprise, they quickly routed Union forces, scattering attempts at resistance with speed and overwhelming numbers. Within half an hour of the initial assault, most of the division had either surrendered, or was dead or wounded. A small contingent of the division escaped and fled north. In total, 3,296 men had been captured, and 422 men were dead or wounded.

 

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September 30, 1863

Beginning at 4:30 AM, Wheeler's cavalry made their way into positions on the hills north of Chattanooga. Quickly laying the pieces of small-caliber artillery at their disposal, primarily horse-drawn mortars and a small number of howitzers, into firing positions, they would fire the first shots of the Third Battle of Chattanooga. Due to a miscommunication, they would begin firing on the city 10 minutes before the massive artillery corps assembled to the south and east of the city would erupt into one of the largest artillery barrages of the war. Finally, after a full hour of firing on the city from all sides, the guns ceased, and both sides prepared for an assault.

Longstreet's movement of Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's corps put the right flank of the Army of Tennessee nearer to Union positions than Longstreet had intended, and shortly after issuing the order to advance towards the city at 6:00 AM, Buckner was met with surprisingly fierce resistance. Believing it to merely be a Union picket line, and wanting to quickly seize the small hills on the edge of town, Buckner rushed his men forward before reinforcements arrived. Unbeknownst to him, the force he had stumbled upon was not a Union picket line, but in actuality, the left flank of the Army of the Cumberland, under the command of Maj. Gen. Absalom Baird. Despite catching them by surprise and dealing a large number of casualties, Buckner's corps was repulsed. He rallied them and charged two more times, repulsed each time, before being struck in the arm by a stray bullet. Falling off his horse, he was quickly carried to a surgeon in the Confederate camps, while on the field, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne took command of the corps.

Understanding the futility of another attack, and under the assumption that he was facing a force equal to or superior to his own, Cleburne requested reinforcements and pulled back, launching an artillery duel from the more elevated positions to their rear, and letting sharpshooters throw up a screen of fire. Meanwhile, he sent three divisions under Brig. Gen. William Preston to flank around the ridge that the Union left had nestled into.

As Buckner was initially setting off on the Confederate right, Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood and Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham began advancing their corps towards the Union center. Due to miscommunication within Union Maj. Gen. Charles Cruft's corps, Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan and Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood were positioned roughly 1.5 miles away from one another, leaving a gap between the two even with both corps' spread widely in the woods around the city. Confederate Brig. Gen. George Maney, discovered this gap soon after an exchange began between Hood's and Cruft's corps' erupted to his left. Cruft, outnumbered by Hood and in a poor defensive position, quickly began fell back to a hill near the city. However, what began as an orderly withdraw quickly turned into panic as Maney's men charged into their right flank. The retreat was only prevented from total disaster by Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's division slowing the attack down at the cost of enormous casualties.

Meanwhile, poor communication within Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill's corps, forces on the Confederate right would not begin advancing until 6:00 AM, well after the battle had begun. By this time, Maj. Gen. John M. Palmer had dug his men in, and initial forays by Confederate Maj. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart's division were repulsed. Hill ordered Stewart to wait until Breckinridge's division arrived before attacking. Again, they were repulsed, but after repeated assaults, and receiving reinforcements from Brig. Gen. John R. Liddell, Confederate forces were finally able to break through the Union right.

As the Army of the Cumberland was slowly being pushed further towards the city itself, Wheeler's cavalry was engaged in a brutal fight with Col. Eli Long's division over control of the bridge across the Tennessee river. Convinced that Wheeler's Corps was a relatively small raiding party, Long refused to burn the bridge, fearing that it would be necessary as an escape route if the Army of the Cumberland needed to escape the city. The numerical superiority of Wheeler's corps began to show, and as it became clear that they weren't dealing with a raiding party, Long hastily retreated, with Confederate forces nearly seizing the bridge before it was set ablaze, trapping Wheeler's men on the other side of the Tennessee river.

Meanwhile, Cleburne rallied his corps, launching another assault on Baird's corps, which was now positioned firmly on Tunnel Hill, as Preston's men assaulted from the north. Baird was determined to hold the hill, and with his superior numbers, managed to withstand repeated assaults from two sides, until two brigades under Brig. Gen. Lucius E. Polk launched an attack from the southern end of the hill, routing Baird and seizing the hill while the remainder of Cleburne's corps chased Baird's men into the city.

Despite severe resistance, Cleburne's men were the first to enter the city of Chattanooga, sweeping through the unfinished fortifications on the northeast side of the city. His men were quickly subject to a counterattack by Long's cavalry, and eventually driven back as the remainder of Cruft's command swung into their left flank. Hill's corps arrived shortly afterwards on the southwestern end of the city, encountering a large number of reserve troops and members of the garrison under Brig. Gen. James B. Steedman. Steedman bravely rallied the garrison a number of times, resisting three Confederate assaults, before being struck by multiple bullets during the fourth assault, which broke through the defenses entirely. Hood and Cheatham, who for much of the battle had been engaged in a drawn-out fight centered around Orchard Knob with the majority of the Army of the Cumberland, launched a final coordinated assault against Union lines, with enormous casualties on both sides before most of D.H. Hill's men swung back south and attacked the Union center from the rear.

Surrounded and outnumbered, Cruft's corps, and with it, most of the remaining Army of the Cumberland, surrendered. Granger, in Chattanooga itself, would formally surrender the Army of the Cumberland to the Army of Tennessee in a meeting in his headquarters. Present Confederate generals were Maj. Gen. John B. Hood, Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill, and Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne. Present Union generals were Lt. Gen. Gordon Granger, Maj. Gen. Charles Cruft, Maj. Gen. John M. Palmer, and Maj. Gen. Absalom Baird. Longstreet demanded unconditional surrender, with Granger finally agreeing after a few moments of silent contemplation.

 

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The reaction of the Army of Tennessee upon the news of Granger's surrender was beyond jubilant- the enemy, which they had spent years being pushed back by, defeated, humiliated by, and unable to drive out of their Tennessee, had finally been defeated in stunning fashion. Further, this development seemed to coincide almost entirely with the arrival of James Longstreet and, to a lesser extent, John Bell Hood, two figures which were instrumental in the victory of both and seemed to the men of the Army of Tennessee almost like saviors. Cheers had erupted for both of them, along with Hill, Cheatham, and interestingly, Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne, who had taken control of Buckner's corps during the Battle of Chattanooga and defeated stiff Union resistance, becoming the first to enter the city itself.

With the surrender of the Army of the Cumberland, the nature of the Western Theater had changed. Prior to the disastrous Chickamauga and Chattanooga campaigns, the Union forces in Tennessee (not including garrisons and other support elements) numbered around 124,500 men- 60,000 men in the Army of the Cumberland, 20,000 men under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, 28,000 men under Sherman marching west under the Army of the Tennessee (Union), and 21,500 men under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside in the Army of the Ohio. Afterwards, the Union possessed only around 59,500 men after the surrender of the Army of the Cumberland, numerous raids by Wheeler and Forrest, and incidents such as the Battle of Duck River a day prior to the Battle of Chattanooga. The vital railway hub of Chattanooga was once more in Confederate hands, and Longstreet had already sent 18,000 men under Hood northwards on a plan to reinforce Forrest and defeat Hooker before retaking Knoxville from Burnside.

Meanwhile, Longstreet departed, along with the corps of D.H. Hill, Joseph Wheeler, and Patrick Cleburne, on a campaign to catch and destroy Sherman's army before it could link up with Grant. He left 10,000 men behind in Chattanooga itself, under the command of William H.T. Walker, taking 36,000 men with him in total. This move was uncharacteristically aggressive for Longstreet, more in line with a general like T.J. Jackson. Longstreet was no doubt influenced by his officers, who were all generally highly aggressive fighters who preferred the offensive, and also by a partnership that had begun to sprout over the previous weeks between Longstreet and Forrest. They had begun exchanging messages almost immediately after the Battle of Chickamauga, with Longstreet wanting to utilize Forrest more in combat, rather than just the raiding of the last year and a half. The two, while sharing entirely different approaches to combat, shared a mutual respect of one another. Following the Battle of Duck River, Longstreet personally congratulated Forrest on his victory, recommending his promotion to major general.

There was another, hidden reason for his increased aggression. Lee was outnumbered in Virginia, and required reinforcements to deliver a serious blow to Meade. Those would be expected to come in the form of men from the west, as per the Confederate strategy of shifting men from front to front. Longstreet had a number of goals he wished to accomplish while he still had a large number of men at his disposal, and so rushed his men out as quickly as possible, in order to prevent orders from Lee or Davis to shift divisions northwards.

When news of the victory at Chattanooga reached Richmond, there was celebration in the streets. The last few months had been dour, with a bloody stalemate in the east and a string of failures in the west, but here, there finally was major, decisive victory for the Confederacy. The Army of the Cumberland, which had occupied Tennessee and threatened Alabama and Georgia a number of times, had surrendered, and a major city and railway hub was finally back in Confederate hands. A number of politicians and officers congratulated Longstreet, chief among them Robert E. Lee, Longstreet's former commander, and Jefferson Davis, who had agreed to the promotion of Nathan B. Forrest to major general.

In Washington, the reaction was far more somber. Never before, in the history of the United States, had so many men surrendered. The entire western front was now in disarray, with the Confederates now holding a sizable advantage in men and Union forces scattered across the state. It hadn't been since the days of 1862 that such a tremendous loss had afflicted the morale of people across the Union so poorly. Meanwhile, Lincoln asked Maj. Gen. George Meade to send 20,000 men to reinforce Union troops in the west. George, resentful and feeling as though the men were better needed in the east, protested, but after Lincoln pressured him, he was forced to send the men. He spitefully put them under the command of Maj. Gen. William H. French, sending only 16,000 of the requesed 20,000 while he turned his attention to Lee. Knowing that Lee wouldn't simply let the Army of the Potomac reinforce the Union presence in Tennessee, he sent 10,000 men under Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton to occupy Culpeper Court House and threaten Lee's position.

 

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October 4, 1863

Upon receiving news of the surrender of the Army of the Cumberland, and without having received orders to do so, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, commanding 14,500 men, quickly began moving north from his position on the Manchester Pike back to Murfreesboro. Though he personally would have liked to engage in open battle the Confederate cavalry that had been harassing his corps for the last few days, it was clear that some degree of caution was now required to hold back the massive Army of Tennessee. He planned to hold Mufreesboro and block a potential Confederate campaign towards Nashville.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest quickly became aware of this movement, hiding a portion of the cavalry under his command in positions on either side of Hoover's Gap. He then led the rest of his men on a charge against the Union force, striking the rear and causing a brief panic before Brig. Gen. John W. Geary was able to rally his division and repulse the attack. Due to earlier miscommunication, Forrest's men that lay in ambush leapt out and begun attacking the Union troops far earlier than Forrest had intended, causing momentary panic in the Union center before being repulsed. Forrest launched another assault just as exhausted elements from Lt. Gen. John B. Hood's corps began approaching from the south, far ahead of the rest of the corps (due mostly to the insistence of Brig. Gen. Jerome B. Robertson to follow his interpretation of a poorly worded order from Hood). Again, they were repulsed, but upon reinforcement by the 1st and 4th Texas regiments, Forrest launched a third assault which finally broke through weary Union lines. The falling back of Geary's division coincided with another attack launched from the woods by Forrest's cavalry on either side of the gap, causing the Union rear to collapse into a rout.

The momentum of Forrest's charge swept through the unprepared Union center, who had believed the ambush to simply be another cavalry raid rather than part of a larger battle. Meanwhile, the front of the Union lines began quickly marching north towards Murfreesboro in an attempt to reach the city's defenses before Forrest's cavalry. As the fighting within Hoover's Gap died down, confusion among Forrest's corps broke out as more small elements from Hood's corps arrived. After around half an hour of reorganization, they set off again, towards Murfreesboro, capturing a large number of prisoners that were fleeing the battle or straggling behind the desperate Union march north. Forrest detached a portion of his troops to serve as an advance column, racing towards Murfreesboro in an attempt to cut off the Union north and trap them in the open.

Meanwhile, the commander of the reduced garrison of Murfreesboro, having encountered deserters fleeing from the fighting in Hoover's gap, became convinced that all was lost, and quickly began making arrangements to pull out of the city in order to escape from the estimated 30-40,000 cavalry pursuing them. In reality, Forrest was only commanding around 18,000 men, only 14,000 of which were actually cavalry, and most of which were generally occupied with hunting down prisoners north of Liberty Gap. However, the orderly withdraw quickly turned into panic as Forrest's advance column neared the city. Much of the garrison had already fled across Stones River as a brigade under Col. John S. Scott collided with elements of Hooker's army near Woodbury Pike, dealing enormous casualties before being repulsed. The remainder of the garrison, along with the remainder of Hooker's army and Hooker himself, began streaming into Murfreesboro from the east and south, with Scott unable to prevent their entry after repeated assaults.

At this time, the majority of Forrest's exhausted corps arrived, along with small pieces of Hood's command, including the 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas regiments under Brig. Gen. Jerome B. Robertson, and the 4th Alabama regiment under Col. Pickney D. Bowles. Forrest, desperate to seize the city before reinforcements from Burnside would make it nearly impossible, launched a series of assaults against the beleaguered Union forces. Still unable to break through, he sent a brigade under Col. George G. Dibrell to flank around the north side of the city and attack in conjunction with Forrest's main corps. By this point, the members of the garrison that had fled earlier began to trickle back into the city, reinforcing defensive positions along the east side of the city, where the fighting had been hottest. As the sun set, Forrest ordered a final assault, with his men charging once more into the entrenched Union lines before Dibrell suddenly collided with Hooker's line in the northeast, near Lebanon Turnpike. The force of this charge began to roll back the line, and as the brigade reached Woodbury pike, the hottest section of the line, forces under Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard broke and fell back into the city.

The remainder of the Union line retreated back, set upon by Forrest's cavalry in the streets. Hooker managed to rally a portion of his men and fought a brutal close-quarters fight on the north side of the city as darkness fell. However, the majority of what remained of his forces fled across Stone's River, burning the bridges to cut Forrest off as he finished off the last pockets of Union resistance within the city. Nearly all of the Union commanders within Hookers army, including Hooker himself, were dead, with the few thousand Union survivors within the city would surrendering quickly after his death. Only around 3,500 men managed to escape the slaughters at Hoover's Gap and Murfreesboro, and under the temporary command of Col. Frederick Hecker, they limped their way towards Nashville.

Murfreesboro had fallen back into Confederate hands, but at an enormous cost- 7,500 casualties, out of Forrest's 18,000 men. He was left with a skeleton force of 10,500 men to defend the city with, and while Hood's forces were travelling north, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was moving towards Murfreesboro with 16,000 men. His forces were also completely exhausted, after days of marching and a harrowing battle that had lasted the entire day. Too tired and starving to do much else, most simply collapsed on city streets or in private homes, shops, or whatever buildings happened to be nearby.

 

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With Maj. Gen. Forrest's stunning but costly victory at Murfreesboro, any hope of a quick Union counter-attack from the north had been quashed. The majority of Union forces in and around Nashville rushed to fortify the city, convinced that it was under threat of an immediate Confederate attack. Burnside, however, assumed (correctly) that Forrest's command had taken casualties too large to allow for another large-scale offensive, and would continue to press on towards Murfreesboro in an attempt to retake the city and open the path the Chattanooga back up.

A major effect of the seizure of Murfreesboro was that Georgia was now safe from potential Union advances, and with the need of Longstreet and Forrest to perpetuate costly, lengthy offensives in order to retake as much of Tennessee as possible before Union reinforcements arrived, most garrisons across the state were further stripped of forces, leaving them nearly helpless. Meanwhile, Longstreet had continued his campaign west, attempting to defeat the Union forces under Grant and Sherman in detail. He had re-taken a number of towns scattered across southern Tennessee, such as Fayetteville, Pulaski, and Salem, and though he had only left dangerously small garrisons behind to defend them, his forces were waning, even as he drummed up townsfolk and integrated local militias. As the Army of Tennessee occupied Waynesboro, it was in possession of 34,000 men. By Longstreet's estimates, Sherman possessed something like 24-27,000 men. Sherman's forces, while smaller, occupied a good position opposite the Tennessee river near the town of Savannah.

Longstreet, generally cautious, was wary of attacking such a position. However, Grant's forces were approaching. Were the two to unite, it would leave the Army of Tennessee heavily outnumbered without a solid means of defense. After meeting with his officers, D.H. Hill, Joseph Wheeler, and Patrick Cleburne, it was decided that an attack was necessary, but a straightforward assault would be insufficient to dislodge Sherman from his position. The plan eventually arrived at would involve a series of complex maneuvers in which Cleburne would cross the Tennessee River on a ford northwest of Waynesboro, marching southwest as Longstreet's center opened up an artillery barrage on Sherman's forces. Meanwhile, Wheeler's cavalry would cross further south, seizing Hamburg. Longstreet's center, under D.H. Hill, would launch an assault from the east in conjunction with Cleburne from the north, before a massive charge from Wheeler in the south would dislodge and rout Sherman, chasing them down and crushing them before an effective rearguard could be put up.

In the east, a series of skirmishes had begun between Meade and Lee had begun, with Meade attempting to cover the movement of Maj. Gen. William H. French to Tennessee in order to reinforce Burnside, and Lee attempting to delay and buy the Army of Tennessee time to do as much damage to the Union effort in the west as possible. The numerous major Confederate victories in the west had severely depleted Union morale, and after stealing a march on Meade, a contingent of Lee's forces under the command of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill scored a quick victory on the surprised, demoralized forces guarding Bristoe Station. Despite winning a number of skirmishes, and forcing Meade to continuously retreat until settling into a position in Fairfax, Lee was unable to draw out a decisive battle. With Meade's forces heavily entrenched within Fairfax, an assault was infeasible, and due to the proximity to Washington, Lincoln forced Meade to rescind his order for French to reinforce Burnside in Tennessee. Meade eagerly did so, as he had never wanted to send French's men out in the first place, though his failure to stop Lee's advance during what would eventually become known as the Bristoe campaign would stain his career permanently, as there were many who claimed he had purposefully avoided pushing back or starting a major engagement in order to avoid having to lose French's command, though today this is seen as unlikely.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

October 12, 1863

The opening maneuvers of what would eventually be known as the Second Battle of Shiloh (Second Battle of Pittsburg Landing), were, much like the Third Battle of Chattanooga a few weeks prior, marred by poor communication and lack of general coordination. Longstreet's plan, featuring a number of corps moving independently of one another in an attempt to flank and overwhelm Sherman's forces, was immensely complicated, and while he had improved considerably in independent command following the nearly disastrous opening stages of the Third Battle of Chattanooga, a number of delayed messages would prevent Cleburne from beginning his march southwest until 10:00 AM.

Meanwhile, Wheeler's cavalry had already moved into a position in the woods south of Sherman, and had been harassing Union picket lines since 8:30 AM. However, the local Union commander, Col. Joseph R. Cockerill, was convinced that the cavalry he was encountering were simply a small diversionary unit, intended to draw Union forces away from an attack from the Confederate center, and only mentioned them in passing while reporting his status to the division commander, Brig. Gen. Hugh B. Ewing, who similarly disregarded the Confederate cavalry, but nonetheless shifted two regiments south on the chance that it was something larger.

At 12:00 PM, Longstreet's center, under the command of D.H. Hill, began an enormous artillery barrage on Sherman's forces, causing much of the XV Corps to pull towards the center in preparation for a massive assault. This happened to coincide with a thrust by Wheeler's cavalry from the south, which, upon finding almost no resistance, continued sweeping forward, brushing aside the small force left behind by Ewing to protect the southern flank and sending them into a rout. They progressed nearly to the Union center before being stopped by a fierce counterattack by two brigades under Brig. Gen. John M. Corse and Col. John M. Loomis.

With Wheeler's surprising and luckily timed attack stalling before it could deal serious damage to the Union lines, Sherman readjusted his forces to face towards the center and south. He moved a division under Brig. Gen. Morgan L. Smith around his right, with the hope of flanking Wheeler's isolated corps and killing a potential Confederate advance against his center before it could begin. As they arrived, Wheeler's cavalry began to get pushed east, allowing Sherman to reform much of his line into a more cohesive shape.

As Wheeler began to make preparations to retreat towards the southeast, the forward elements of Cleburne's Corps collided with Sherman's northern flank, causing brief disarray before being repulsed by vastly larger numbers. Sherman, forced to shift some of the forces from his center yet again, sent a division under Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus to deal with Cleburne's advance from the north.

While Cleburne's Corps began to materialize in the north, D.H. Hill dispatched three brigades under the command of Brig. Gen. Marcellus A. Stovall to ford the Tennessee River a ways north of Diamond Island and assault the weakened Union center. In conjunction with this, the remaining Confederate center made final preparations to cross the Tennessee on previously prepared pontoons.

Meanwhile, Sherman was desperately shifting units around. While he had been prepared for an assault from numerous sides, the poor timing of Confederate appearances had made his position a dangerous one. Cleburne, having repulsed an attempted counterattack from Osterhaus, had begun advancing southwards, threatening to cut off Smith's forces and, along with the Confederate forces on the other side of the Tennessee, surround the Union center. Sherman attempted to attack Wheeler's forces from two sides, the Union center and Union far right, while Osterhaus held off Cleburne. While this movement saw initial success, quickly resetting the progress made by Wheeler during the disarray of Cleburne's initial attack, the forces under Stovall which had been fording the river would soon attack the Union center from behind, sending many of the forces guarding the rear into a rout. The remaining Confederate center would then launch a massive assault, crossing the Tennessee and easily defeating what little Union resistance remained nearby.

Sherman, now aware of the attack from the Confederate center, quickly realized how dire the situation was, ordering Osterhaus back in an attempt to form a strong defensive line and slowly fall back to higher ground. However, this would fall apart as Cleburne took advantage of the withdraw to put Osterhaus's disorganized forces into a rout, circling around in an attempt to surround and trap Sherman himself. As Wheeler and D.H. Hill continued to pursue the south and center, Sherman's forces were nearly surrounded. Sherman, however, would launch an attack and break through part of Wheeler's line, retreating hastily through the gap towards the only open direction- southwards. A desperate, fierce rearguard action managed to prevent Wheeler's cavalry from forcing Sherman's forces into a rout, though they would continue pursuing and harassing the retreating Union army until well after nightfall.

Aftermath

The Second Battle of Shiloh was, much like the Third Battle of Murfreesboro, a massive success that came at an enormous cost. Roughly 10,000 of Longstreet's 34,000 men, nearly a third, lay dead, wounded, or missing. Shiloh, and with it, much of the Tennessee river, had been seized, along with an enormous cache of supplies and munitions. Grant and Sherman were prevented from combining their forces, an act which would have left the Army of Tennessee in an impossible position. Sherman had been forced to retreat southwards, eventually settling his exhausted army in Florence, Alabama, which had served as one of the final major Union bastions on the Tennessee river. This, in conjunction with Forrest's victory in Murfreesboro, had effectively reset the Union position in Tennessee to roughly what it had been in mid-1862, essentially erasing an entire year and a half of Union progress.

However, this had come at an enormous cost. The Army of Tennessee, which had peaked during the battle of Chickamauga in terms of total numbers, with roughly 65,000 men, had been reduced to 24,000 men, a little over a third of that. Even counting Forrest and Hood's isolated forces, that placed the Army of Tennessee at around half the size of what it had been. On top of that, the men of the Army of Tennessee were exhausted to the point of breakdown. They had been fighting and marching nearly nonstop for nearly an entire month straight. They had outrun their supply lines a number of times, and many sported uniforms and shoes that had been nearly torn to shreds with wear. Sherman still commanded roughly 15,000 men in Florence, while Grant approached from the west with 32,000 men. That, along with Burnside and the various garrisons across the state, meant that there were roughly 73,000 Union soldiers in Tennessee to 39,000 Confederate soldiers. While the Army of Tennessee was in a much better strategic position than it was prior to Chickamauga, in many ways, it was beginning to bleed itself dry. Longstreet himself would record in his journal on the day following the victory that he felt, "[M]uch like Pyrrhus after his victory at Heraclea... one more such victory, and we are undone."

The reaction in the North, however, was far more bleak. While both sides had lost a little under half of their forces since peak strength in the fighting since Chickamauga, this amounted to far, far more casualties for the Union. Nearly 60,000 Union soldiers had been left dead, wounded, or missing in the last month in Tennessee, which was quickly becoming the bloodiest front of the war. In the east, the Army of the Potomac had been deftly outmaneuvered by the Army of Northern Virginia, and the two sat worryingly close to Washington. Though there hadn't been a major battle between the two, the skirmishes had been decisively in favor of the Confederate forces. Meanwhile, in the far west, Union forces had been stripped to provide reinforcements for Grant's army, allowing Maj. Gen. Sterling Price to regain ground in northern Arkansas, particularly near the Delta. It seemed to much of the Union that the war which they had just begun winning was already beginning to turn once more in the Confederate's favor.

Lincoln would soon begin planning for a major multi-front offensive to begin in the spring. At the time, however, he ordered a general standing-down of Union forces to begin winter preparations, as he could not afford another major loss to Confederate forces. Union armies in Tennessee and Virginia entrenched and braced for a potential winter assault, though the Confederate forces were far too exhausted and weakened to even attempt such a thing. Burnside would march his army north to Nashville after a failed assault on Forrest's entrenched positions in Murfreesboro, the final noteworthy battle of the year.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

The winter of 1863 to 1864 was, in stark contrast to the prior fall, largely uneventful, with both Union and Confederate forces far too depleted and overstretched to attempt any major offensive. With Confederate forces finally pinned down due to the harsh weather, Union forces were finally able to replenish much of their numbers with fresh reinforcements. These new recruits, while unprepared and inexperienced, allowed for the armies under Grant and Meade to plug many vital gaps and strengthen already strong defensive positions into nearly impenetrable ones.

Confederate armies were not so lucky. Many areas had already been stripped bare in order to push the armies of Tennessee and Northern Virginia to their levels of strength they'd had earlier in the fall, and while the reinforcements that were arriving were generally far more experienced and proficient with aspects of the army such as firearms, camping, and horseback riding, there were vastly fewer of them. Particularly hurt by this discrepancy in reinforcements was the army under Forrest, still stationed in Murfreesboro. Over the winter, his forces received only 3,300 reinforcements in total, putting the size of his army at 11,900 men at the end of the winter, after the large number of deaths to disease. Meanwhile, Burnsides army had received 8,500 reinforcements in preparation for a spring offensive, and combined with his already larger army, as well as the garrison of Nashville, this put his total forces at 26,500 men. Other fronts saw similar disparities in troop counts, and while the average quality of soldiers in the Union army had decreased somewhat, the sheer numbers were enough to concern even the most optimistic Confederate generals and politicians, despite the incredibly successful campaign season prior.

The only major movement to occur during the winter began slightly prior to its' onset, and involved the majority of Longstreet's remaining forces moving south to lay siege to Sherman's army, which had retreated to Florence, Alabama following the Second Battle of Shiloh. The remainder of his men remained north, occupying the heights along various parts of the Tennessee river and preventing supplies or reinforcements from arriving to aid Sherman. Over the winter, the men began to run out of food, and with Grant nowhere in sight, morale was low.

In the east, the Army of the Potomac had been reinforced heavily to contain 105,000 troops in comparison to the Army of Northern Virginia's 62,000. Meade sat impatiently over the winter, wishing to strike at Lee while he possessed an enormous numerical advantage, and despite Lincoln's orders not to launch an offensive until later in the spring, Meade ordered French's corps to perform reconnaissance in force, in the hope that such a maneuver would draw Lee out into a major battle, something which had escaped Lee throughout the Bristoe Campiaign. However, this movement, performed with little cover during the daytime, was almost immediately spotted by a large contingent of the Army of Northern Virginia in Centreville, and quickly repulsed after a brief skirmish. Casualties on both sides were low, but upon Lincoln receiving word of French's movement, Meade was ordered directly, in no uncertain terms, not to attempt any kind of offensive maneuver against any Confederate army until the spring.

Meanwhile in the west, Grant was stationed miles away from the nearest army, friendly or otherwise. Sherman's forces were under a desperate siege, and by now the majority of the Tennessee river lay in Confederate hands. Shiloh, the location of what was possibly Grant's most important victory ever, had seen his trusted subordinate beaten by a Confederate army and driven into retreat, making combining the two armies impossible for the time being. Dozens of important towns had been recaptured by Confederate forces, resetting nearly all of the progress of the last year over the course of a few months. In Arkansas, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, who had previously been pushed back with ease, had begun seizing a number of small forts and towns in Northern Arkansas, particularly in the Delta, as many Union troops were pulled out of the area to reinforce Grant. His forces were edging dangerously near the Mississippi, and while they were small, it was yet another thorn in Grant's side. With the sources of frustration seemingly endless, no solution apparent until the spring, and no movements that required his management, Grant would begin to spend long stretches of time alone in his tent, drinking. Over the course of the winter, his habits would grow continuously worse.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

As the winter began giving way to spring, the Union commander with the greatest degree of numerical superiority over his opponent began to grow restless. That commander was Ambrose Burnside, who had attempted immediately before winter set in to attack the smaller Confederate forces stationed in Murfreesboro. With the reinforcements he'd received over the winter, Burnside was eager to march south and quickly drive out Forrest, seizing the vital railway depot of Murfreesboro, relieving potential pressure on Nashville, and once more threatening Chattanooga.

Forrest, meanwhile, had been preparing all winter for an inevitable attack from Burnside. He'd heavily fortified the town, as well as the heights to the north, and along much of the river. By early March, Confederates had established a deep series of trenches, palisades, and stone-covered dugouts throughout and near the city. The men themselves were the veterans of 3 years of fighting on the eastern front, and were relentlessly drilled over the course of the winter. There were some who had been in all four battles in Murfreesboro. Their federal counterparts consisted largely of inexperienced garrison troops and fresh recruits- however, they outnumbered Forrest's forces roughly two-and-a-half to one, and were receiving progressively advanced, powerful arms in comparison- Joslyn M1864 carbines, Moore M1864 revolvers among cavalry, and interestingly, two new Gatling guns purchased directly by Burnside. Union commanders had viewed the weapon with some interest since 1862, but it was not officially accepted by the upper command, and had yet to be tested in combat. Burnside had requested the government purchase a number of them to assist Union forces across all fronts, believing that it was in the Union's best interest to leverage its large economy and production capabilities to focus on overwhelming firepower and military hardware, rather than expending large numbers of men in combat, which would, and had, made the populous of the Union war-weary. When his request was refused, Burnside personally spent money to acquire two of them, hoping to prove in battle the effectiveness of the weapon.

Meanwhile, most of the arms among Confederate troops were about a decade old, with a small number even sporting ancient smoothbores from around the time of the Mexican-American war, though by this point they had nearly been entirely phased out of the Confederate military. The arms were inferior, but familiar to the men who wielded them, who generally possessed enormous experience in hunting prior to the war- in fact, a large number of men within the Confederate army under Forrest had been using the same weapons since the war started, and even before.

These were the circumstances leading into the Fifth Battle of Murfreesboro- Burnside, desperate to dislodge Forrest to turn the tide of the war, open up a path to Chattanooga, restore his reputation, and prove the value of not only the guns, but his doctrinal idea of hardware supremacy, and Forrest, desperate to repulse Burnside in order to leave a large buffer protecting the deep south, decrease the numerical advantage of Burnside, and keep federal morale low, with the hope of finally causing the Union to come to the negotiating table. Burnside held an overwhelming advantage in numbers and weaponry, but commanded inexperienced, demoralized men. Forrest was severely outnumbered and outgunned, but commanded hardened, experienced veterans, and occupied some of the best defensive fortifications of the war up to that point.

The battle would begin on the dawn of March 7th, with Burnside maneuvering a large portion of his forces to the northwest of the city. An artillery duel would begin at around 10:00 AM, and despite the larger number of superior Union pieces, Confederate artillery, stationed in high positions on the ridges north of the city, held a major advantage, and were able to delay a Union advance for hours, harassing Union engineers as they attempted to build pontoons to cross Stones River. Burnside, having learned from his failure at the Battle of Fredericksburg, would attempt to flank Forrest's fortifications and attack from multiple sides, preventing him from focusing his smaller forces on guarding a single lane of approach. Forrest, however, was prepared for the possibility of such an attack, and had stationed a large force under the command of John Bell Hood near the Lebanon Turnpike. They would encounter Union forces at roughly 1:30 PM, who had expected little resistance until reaching the city's fortifications, and would be quickly repulsed. Hood's men would pursue the retreating federal forces, inflicting a large number of casualties before halting at a position between two ridges to the northeast of the city.

Meanwhile, Burnside's forces would cross the shallower portion of Stones River to the north of the town. They were initially repulsed, but another assault allowed them to secure holds at multiple points on the Confederate side of the river. They quickly encountered Confederate trenches among the ridges north of Murfreesboro. By this point, the Union advances in the west and northeast had almost entirely stalled, and Burnside decided to funnel the majority of his forces to the north of the city, where they were making slow but costly progress. As Union troops troops crossed the river, Hood launched a sudden assault to cut off their retreat. Facing fire from both the south and east, Burnside was faced with the difficult decision to pull out or risk his troops being encircled. Desperate to secure a victory, he halted the advance from the east and pulled a large number of troops to reinforce his men that had crossed the river in the north.

As Burnside's lines in the east grew thinner and weaker, Forrest would launch a counter-attack. While it initially pushed Burnside's lines back, they quickly recovered, and with the Confederate forces outside of their fortifications, it dragged into a stalemate. Meanwhile, federal troops pushing southwards had stalled, as the Confederate trenches were proving immensely difficult to push through. As the fight devolved into a bloody, close-quarters affair on all fronts, all elements of strategy began to break down, and the battle simply became a brutal, violent contest of wills.

After 2 more hours of fighting, the inexperienced, demoralized recruits under Burnside broke, and fled. Hood's forces swept across the north, cutting off many of the federal forces that had advanced beyond Stones River. The remainder of Hood's men attempted to pursue Burnside, but were repulsed by a desperate, last-minute rearguard action. Meanwhile, the men that had been surrounded and trapped by the river and ridges surrendered, though by that point most of Burnside's army had escaped.

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The first major battle of 1864 had been a disaster for the Union. What had seemed as though it would be an easy victory to begin a successful offensive season, and swing momentum back in the Union's favor, had been a costly, pointless failure. Burnside, for yet another humiliating loss, would be demoted and sent out of service for the remainder of the war. Taking his place was Brig. Gen. Robert Brown Potter, who would rapidly fortify Nashville in preparation for a Confederate attack. The Gatling guns which Burnside had staunchly campaigned for had shown little value during the battle, and due to both pieces being captured by Confederate forces during the battle, would not get another chance for some time to prove their worth.

Meanwhile, Forrest's army was in absolutely no shape to advance. While they had dealt a hefty blow to Burnside's forces, inflicting roughly 10,500 casualties, most of whom were prisoners captured during the encirclement, in comparison to the 4,000 received by his own men, that left Forrest with a mere 7,500 men, a pale shadow of the roughly 19,000 men he'd commanded upon splitting from the greater Confederate Army of Tennessee. While regarded by some as a reckless butcher, the victories he'd won were stunning. He'd beaten larger Union forces time and time again, in offensive and defensive battles, seizing and holding Murfreesboro from a number of federal threats to southern and eastern Tennessee. He'd inflicted enormous casualties on a number of Union commanders, and captured thousands of prisoners. In a way, it felt to many like a return to the days of T.J. Jackson- a constant string of incompetent Union generals coming in, one after the other, only to be defeated and replaced by the next in line. While there were few who weren't at least somewhat wary of Forrest's small force being in such a vulnerable position, hopes remained high among the Confederacy, especially as Gen. Price continued to retake more of Arkansas from the skeleton garrison left there, and Confederate forces in the Indian Territories scored a decisive victory at Cabin Creek after launching a surprise campaign northwards.

As Forrest's men experimented around with their captured Gatling guns and continued to harden their defenses, the Union forces of the region simply diverted most reinforcements and supplies elsewhere, primarily to Grant's army. The hope among federal forces was that Grant would sweep through Tennessee, defeat Longstreet and force an unconditional surrender, re-unite with Sherman, and continue east, crushing the remains of Forrest's remaining army, seizing Chattanooga, and either move into Georgia and wreak havoc, or move into southern Virginia and force Lee to divide his men. Regardless of the ultimate decision of which route would be taken, the hopes of the west lay on Grant, and it seemed to many that little stood in his path towards ending the war.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

Sherman's forces, which were heavily demoralized and nearing starvation in Florence, Alabama due to Longstreet's siege, began to grow increasingly desperate. They had received no reinforcements, and had no news of Grant's army approaching. With each day, the Union forces occupying the city grew weaker. Sherman found himself with few options. He was certain Grant was on his way and would eventually arrive- his faith in the general was enormous, and further, it only made sense for Grant to push east and relieve Sherman. However, he had no way of knowing when those forces would arrive. If they were to arrive soon, it was in Sherman's best interests to remain as-is, and let Longstreet's forces be entrapped like Caesar at Alesia. However, if they were not to arrive for a while, Sherman's forces would continue to starve and eventually be too weak to hold off an attack from Longstreet.

In that case, the better option might be to launch a massive sortie from the fortifications and try to drive off the Confederates. This was risky, however, as not only were they outnumbered, but Longstreet's men occupied high ground to the north of the city, and had an overwhelming advantage in artillery due to the large number of pieces captured from Union forces after the Second Battle of Shiloh. An attempt to retreat across the Tennessee river would be pointless, as the Confederates would easily spot it and attack their rear, and while Sherman was tempted to fake retreating across the river to draw Longstreet into attacking Sherman's fortified positions, this was also a risky move, as it would force him to split his forces and give Longstreet ample time to prepare and assault the city in the exact manner he wanted to.

There was, of course, also the option of surrender. However, Sherman wanted to avoid that at all costs- the recent surrenders of numerous Union armies across Tennessee had left federal forces extremely demoralized, and the surrender of yet another large force might begin to lead to even more widespread desertion and straggling. Further, surrendering the city of Florence would be tantamount to ceding nearly the entire Tennessee river back to the Confederates. It was the last Union stronghold along the river, and if the Confederates were to control it, shipping supplies, reinforcements, and even entire armies from one part of Tennessee to the other would become possible. It would allow the Confederates to shuffle around their smaller forces to achieve momentary numerical advantages, as they had done numerous times so far in the war, particularly with the battle that had seemingly changed everything- Chickamauga. The Confederates had recently made enormous gains at the cost of enormous casualties. If Florence fell, this moment of weakness for them would be made much shorter.

Still, he had his men to consider. If his army was doomed to be lost during the siege anyway, sacrificing thousands of people to drag it out would be pointless, and he simply didn't have it in him to do so. Sherman made up his mind to launch a surprise sortie from the city, but rather than pour out in all directions, would instead concentrate virtually all of his forces on the western portion of Longstreet's line in an attempt to break through and escape to Grant's army.

The First Battle of Florence would begin on the early dawn of March 11th, with Sherman massing up a large force on the west side of town in preparation to sally out and surprise the Confederates before Longstreet's forces were arrayed. However, Confederate skirmishers spotted this movement and alerted their commander, who would then inform Longstreet of the buildup. The Confederate army was quickly scrambled into place as Sherman would begin advancing towards the northwest. Confederate artillery, however, would immediately begin firing an enormous barrage of shells before the Union forces could approach enemy lines, scattering them. They would continue advancing despite the heavy artillery fire, though as an incohesive mass, before a wall of Confederate infantry fired from close range, along with a number of smaller pieces of artillery loaded with cannister, dealing enormous casualties and blunting the attack. Confederate artillery fire came to a halt as the Union advance began to falter and fall back, and the Confederate forces on the western side rose from their lines and charged as the Confederates in the center and right moved to encircle the now routed Union forces. Pursued into the city, the Union forces would take immense casualties before surrendering in isolated pockets.

A small number escaped the Confederate encirclement during the gaps created after the first charge from the Confederate left, but the vast majority were either dead, wounded, or had surrendered. Sherman, who was killed during the chaos as Union forces fell back into the city, had severely underestimated the fortifications of the Confederate forces surrounding Florence, particularly in terms of artillery. This miscalculation, combined with the desperateness of the situation, had lead him to launch an attack which was virtually doomed from its inception, and would result in the effective loss of 12,300 men. A mere 600 Union troops would escape from the battle and arrive at the safety of Grant's army. Out of the 15,000 men which had arrived in Florence, 2,100 had died over the winter from disease, augmented by poor nutrition, 4,900 had died or been wounded during the sortie, and 7,400 had surrendered to the Army of Tennessee. Grant's army would arrive at Florence on March 15th, 4 days later.

This defeat would leave Union forces in Tennessee in a much worse position. Rather than the overwhelming numerical advantage which they'd possessed at the beginning of winter, with 73,000 Union men to 39,000 Confederate men, they now possessed a much closer edge of 46,000 men to the Confederate 34,000. Longstreet was also no longer threatened with overwhelming numerical superiority. The plan, which was to decisively defeat Longstreet with a much larger force, and then push west, defeating the other Confederate forces in detail, was no longer possible, and with nearly the entire Tennessee river now back in Confederate hands, it would be much harder to isolate and destroy Confederate armies. With the Union defeats at Florence and Murfreesboro, the hopes for a quick, easy Union victory in the west had been dashed, and the realization that yet more months of bloody, exhausting slaughter lay ahead set in on both sides.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

With news of a string of costly failures in the west reaching Washington, it seemed that Lincoln's planned 1864 multi-front offensive had died in the water. Lee was mere miles away from Washington, having outmaneuvered Meade into a poor position around Chantilly, and Confederate forces in the west had succeeded in not only taking back much of the Mississippi delta from the skeleton garrisons that had been stripped bare to reinforce Grant, threatening Memphis in the process, but also nearly pushed Union forces out of Oklahoma entirely, with the Union army under James Monroe Williams fortifying its camp in Brennan (present-day Grove), in order to prevent Confederate forces from entering Missouri, which was a mere 2 miles away. Despite Union forces in Tennessee still having maintained a relatively substantial numerical advantage, morale was dangerously low, and neither the two main armies in the region were in a good position to make major gains against the heavily entrenched Confederate forces. Further, with the Tennessee river under Confederate control, shuffling supplies and forces between rebel positions had been made possible, and as had been made clear by the battle of Chickamauga, fit well within Confederate doctrine. An assault on Forrest's army in Murfreesboro, which by this point had been transformed into a heavily fortified stronghold, could potentially be met with a far greater number of defenders than Union command estimated, due to this strategy of shifting reinforcements around. With the destruction of Sherman's army after the Siege of Florence, Grant had similarly lost much of the potential numerical superiority that would have allowed him to crush Longstreet, as well as the morale that had been growing as he approached from the west.

However, this view of the war was not entirely accurate. While Meade had been outmaneuvered in northern Virginia, he still possessed massive numerical superiority, and with the winter fully over, was finally in a position to advance on the overstretched Confederate line. In Arkansas, despite Price's advances in the delta and proximity to Memphis, his forces were still heartily outnumbered by the garrison of the city and were in no position to offer anything but a token threat towards the Union position there. In Oklahoma, despite Confederate forces under Stand Watie having advanced nearly to the Missouri border, the Union army still outnumbered them, and after having been caught by surprise by Watie's sudden offensive, had fortified, making Confederate entry into Missouri extremely unlikely outside of small raids near the border itself. Meanwhile in Tennessee, the theatre which had suddenly and explosively found itself as the most important front of the war over the course of 1863 and early 1864, Confederate forces were in no position whatsoever to advance. Exhausted and severely depleted of men, supplies, and munitions after their string of costly victories, they were both extremely vulnerable.

While the atmosphere about the war was extremely gloomy among the general populace of the Union, it was clear to the majority of military planners and strategists that they remained in a prime position to take advantage of Confederate vulnerability. Conversely, the average Confederate citizen was immensely hopeful about their prospects in the war. They had proven, to themselves, at least, that the string of Union victories in mid-1863 had been a fluke, and that it was possible for them to turn the war completely around. Confederate military strategists, on the other hand, noted the massive numerical discrepancy and declining economy of the Confederacy. Both sides nervously eyed Meade, who would almost certainly be the next to launch an attack. Meade, who had spent the entire winter itching for an offensive, and who had even attempted to go against Lincoln's wishes and force Lee into pitched battle, was more than eager to comply. However, he was nervous. His string of failures in late 1863, and near-insubordinate actions over the winter, had left him in a precarious political position. Not only did he need to advance quickly, but he desperately needed to succeed as he had at Gettysburg, take Confederate pressure off of Washington and take back the momentum of the war for the Union. It was with this in mind that he began to mass many of his forces on his eastern flank, preparing for an advance on the town of Centreville. Lee, like most observers on either side, was aware that an attack from Meade was almost certainly imminent, and with the town of Centreville being the only immediate target of significant strategic value, had heavily reinforced and fortified all approaches, as well as the town itself.

On March 21st, 1864, the principal Union thrust, consisting of the 3rd and 5th corps under William H. French and George Sykes respectively, began towards Centreville, quickly slowing down as it was met by heavy resistance before falling back due to an attack on their western flank by Confederate forces under Richard S. Ewell. Another thrust was mounted and repelled, followed by an attempt to flank around the town from the east, which, due to miscommunication, as well as a counterattack by the Cavalry Corps under J.E.B. Stuart, was nearly cut off from the main Union army. With this attack falling back as well, it was clear to Meade that Confederate lines were powerfully entrenched. However, the casualties he had sustained in these failed approached were minimal. To him, a Union victory at Centreville was absolutely necessary, for a number of reasons. Yet another major loss would send morale plummeting further below, grant the Confederates time to repair and rebuild their damaged armies in Tennessee, allow Lee to continue to threaten Washington, and would almost certainly lead to Meade being sacked and either being forced to resign or assigned a minor post in the west. With this in mind, he ordered a large scale assault from both the north and east, which quickly bogged down before being repelled yet again, this time at a more severe cost in casualties. Getting more desperate, he ordered a fifth major assault, during which Major General John Sedgewick was severely injured. The attack pressed on, with Horatio G. Wright taking command in Sedgewick's place before suffering a fatal injury himself, at which point Henry D. Terry took command. Similarly, Major General John Newton was killed during the Union approach from the east, with Lysander Cutler taking command in his stead.

This pattern of repeated, costly Union advances would continue throughout the day, with Confederate lines remaining generally untouched due to deep entrenched fortifications and poor Union coordination, partly caused by the deaths of a large number of division and brigade commanders. As the sun began to set, it was clear to Meade that without a victory on that day his offensive would be over, as would his military career, and any hope of a major Union victory in early 1864. He gathered his remaining forces and ordered a final assault, this time from the far west, where Confederate fortifications were far less present. The advance initially began to make major gains, as the flanking maneuver caught Lee entirely by surprise, but as Confederate forces from the east reinforced the lines, the Union advance slowed significantly. Meade pressed on, continuing to pour more of his forces into the area, before a sudden attack from the Third Corps under A.P. Hill nearly split the Union's western flank from the main army and forced them to pull back. It was at this point that Lee ordered a massive counterattack on Union forces as they were falling back. It was only with the Union Second Corps sustaining enormous casualties in a rearguard action that a rout was avoided, with Confederate forces pulling back to their defenses as night fell.

(Side note: I'm focusing on the west, so my description of action taking place in the East is going to be fairly limited and mostly come in the form of basic summaries like this post. It's important to know what's happening in the East to contextualize the events in Tennessee and with the Union war effort in general but generally I'm avoiding going into too much detail on it, hence the battle itself getting significantly less description and buildup than even relatively insignificant battles like the Fifth Battle of Murfreesboro despite obviously being far more important in the grand scheme of the war. I just didn't want to leave the East as merely "Meade tried to attack but failed. Anyway, back to The 94th Battle of Murfreesboro!")

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

Even as Lincoln's multi-front spring offensive, known among many discontent Union soldiers as 'Lincoln's March Madness', seemed to sputter out, there remained an opportunity in the far west to cripple the Confederate war effort. Union forces had seized control of the Mississippi river and vital port of New Orleans, effectively splitting the Confederacy in two. However, the Trans-Mississippi Department remained a relatively large force, and the river required substantial garrisons along its course to avoid being vulnerable to Confederate capture. Guns, food, and supplies still regularly made their way from Texas to the eastern portion of the Confederacy. Further, rebel forces in Arkansas and Oklahoma had made significant progress against their Union counterparts and were in positions to threaten Memphis and Missouri, respectively. Henry W. Halleck had devised a plan that would secure Union control of the Mississippi, fully separate Texas from the rest of the Confederacy, and severely damage the Trans-Mississippi department by taking control of the Red River valley and Shreveport, the city in which it the department was centered.

The plan involved a combined movement from the Department of the Gulf under Nathaniel P. Banks, the Mississippi Flotilla of the US Navy, and a contingent of men from the Department in Arkansas under General Steele. It was intended to take a number of small forts by surprise and trap the small Confederate force in the Red River valley under Richard Taylor, which would then most likely surrender. It began on March 10th as Major General William B. Franklin, commanding the advance divisions of Banks's Army of the Gulf, began his march from southern Louisiana. However, this campaign would quickly begin to fall apart due to miscommunication and poor timing among the three principal Union forces. The Mississippi Flotilla was halted from entering the Red River by Fort de Russy, which could potentially have been caught by surprise by a land force but spotted the flotilla at great distance and quickly prepared their heavy artillery. Meanwhile, Taylor's force, alerted by the failed attempt by the flotilla to break through, quickly made its way south to deal with a potential advance, clashing with Franklin's divisions along a road a small ways south of Marksville. Franklin's force, outnumbered and caught by surprise, was easily repelled, and continued to suffer enormous damage as it retreated to Mansura. Over the next few days, large contingents of cavalry from the District of Texas would arrive to reinforce Taylor's army as it arrived in Simsport (present-day Simmesport). Meanwhile, the badly battered divisions under Franklin were finally re-united with the rest of the Department of the Gulf under Banks, in a position opposite Taylor on the other bank of the Atchafalaya River.

The Union naval flotilla and Department of the Gulf found themselves unable to support one another, seperated by a few dozen miles of land between their positions which neither found themselves capable of advancing from. Meanwhile, the thrust south from General Steele had provided the Confederate District of Arkansas with a substantial enough degree of numerical superiority to launch a new offensive with the goal of retaking the Arkansas River Valley. Steele would return north in an attempt to re-unite with the smaller force that had been left in defense of the area, but was delayed by a contingent of cavalry from Magruder's Texas District. On March 23, 1864, Major General Sterling Price defeated the Union garrison of Little Rock, re-occupying the city before swinging west and crushing the small forces in De Vall's Bluff and Clarendon. By this point, General Frederick Steele had reached Pine Bluff, and now was in a race to reach Little Rock and retake the city before Price could arrive to reinforce the garrison. Hampered by poor weather and harassed by Confederate cavalry, they arrived south of the city a little over a day after Price, who had quickly set about fortifying it and preparing for a Union assault. Steele instead opted to march Northeast to retake Clarendon, abandoning the Red River Campaign entirely.

Further south, Banks was faring only marginally better. His repeated attempts to assault Confederate lines across the Atchafalaya river were met with high casualties. Unlike Taylor, who was continuing to receive a steady stream of reinforcements from General Magruder, as well as a number of militias drummed up from the newly retaken stretches of Louisiana, Banks was limited by the men currently at his disposal. The forces at his command had also been stripped back somewhat by Grant, who had pulled heavily from the less vital reserves and garrisons of the far west in his attempt to crush Longstreet. Banks, unaware of the extent by which Taylor had been reinforced, launched another attack on the 25th of March which initially saw minor success before a large contingent of Confederate cavalry slammed into Bank's western flank, turning them heavily. It was at this point that Taylor ordered a general advance, crossing the Atchafalaya and dealing significant casualties to the Union lines, which were by now in complete disarray. Banks' men fell into a rout, pursued by Confederate cavalry all the way to Baton Rogue. The vast majority of Banks' command had been captured or killed, with Taylor's force quickly re-occupying vast swathes of southern Louisiana which had been left with few defenders in order to support the move north. It was only with their naval control of the Mississippi river that Union forces were able to prevent a complete Confederate breakthrough. These ironclads, however, did not prevent small points along the river which were relatively undefended from being crossed by small Confederate forces. With Baton Rogue and by extent New Orleans under imminent threat of Confederate assault, reinforcements were sent from the few remaining sizable garrisons in the region- Memphis and Jackson, the latter of which would quickly be re-taken by Joseph E. Johnston's forces outside the city.

It was clear to observers on both sides that the Union position in the far west was in complete disarray. It was also the opinion of many that, while a large part of the blame could be placed on poor communication and coordination between Union commanders, the principal reason for the disastrous failure of the Red River Campaign was that Grant had severely depleted the garrisons and reserves of the region. Combined with his failure to save Sherman's army and the consistent massive losses in his region under his subordinates, his image as the savior that would sweep east and retake the momentum of the war for the Union had begun to fade. Meade, on the other hand, was simply despised. His subordinates, Union high command, Lincoln, his colleagues, and his men had all grown sick of his seemingly endless string of failures in the east, and with the extremely costly, embarrassing failure in Centreville, which had seen thousands of pointless Union casualties and the deaths of dozens of relatively high ranking officers, from major generals to colonels, it had been made abundantly clear he was in need of replacement. The only question was who was the right man for the job. Two of his corps commanders were dead, and the remaining were seen by most as somewhat incompetent. Grant's reputation, while damaged, was still enormous. However, he was drastically needed in the west, both to deal with Longstreet and to clean up the complete disaster in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. It was with this in mind that the injured Major General George Sykes would be promoted to commander of the Army of the Potomac, under the informal understanding that Grant would take the role upon having cleared up issues in the west. However, due to an infection of one of his wounds, he would be rendered unable to hold the post, and Major General William H. French would assume what was essentially temporary command of a temporary command until either Sykes or Grant were able to take his place.

French, who was unpopular among both his peers and the army at large and possessed a poor track record throughout his military career, as well as generally poor tactical and strategic acumen, found it nearly impossible to get any of his newly subordinate officers to follow orders. They viewed him as an illegitimate and temporary commander from whom orders need not be considered. This would have disastrous effects as Lee easily stole a number of marches on the Army of the Potomac, which found itself completely paralyzed by poor communication and near-insubordinate corps commanders. Lee, eager to take advantage, had moved his left and right flanks around either side of Union forces, attempting to envelop the larger army in an imitation of Cannae. While this movement would ultimately fail, though not without inflicting severe casualties on the Army of the Potomac as it struggled and barely managed to break through Lee's right flank and prevent being separated from Washington. The Army of Northern Virginia managed to temporarily occupy Arlington and Alexandria before being pushed out by the Army of the Potomac, which formed its new position directly across the Potomac river from Washington itself. By this time, Sykes had died of his injuries, and it was clear that Grant was needed in the east. Grant, who had finally cornered Longstreet after weeks of maneuvers and skirmishes around the Tennessee river, was called to take command of the Army of the Potomac in place of William H. French, who had resigned in frustration.

With George Henry Thomas and Sherman both dead, however, he was left with few options as replacements, especially as McPherson had over the winter taken command of the Union army in Nashville. In his place, Grant left John Schofield as commander of the Army of the Tennessee, with John Alexander McClernand, who had recently been restored to command by Lincoln taking command of the first corps, James H. Wilson taking command of the second corps, Benjamin Butler taking command of the third corps, and Don Carlos Buell, recently restored to command, taking command of the fourth corps.

The departure of Grant came as an enormous relief to the Army of Tennessee, which had days before been faced with the immediate threat of attack from Grant. Longstreet gathered his chief subordinates- Daniel Harvey Hill, Patrick Cleburne, and Joseph Wheeler, to discuss a potential offensive against the Union Army of the Tennessee. While they were heavily outnumbered and in a poor position, their confidence was at an extremely high level due to the perceived incompetence of the Union commanders opposite them, who had established reputations as poor leaders and failures who only held high posts out of political considerations or friendships with Grant. This confidence was amplified by the recent performance of Confederate armies in Virginia and the far west. It seemed to many observers on both sides that the Confederacy had once again retaken the initiative, and that with only a few more major victories, the Union would finally decide the war was too costly and call for a ceasefire. It was with this in mind that Longstreet and his officers would begin drawing up their most ambitious, risky, dangerous battle plan yet.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

After the disastrous Red River Campaign, which saw nearly the entire Union presence in the Trans-Mississippi theater restricted to garrisoning southeastern Louisiana, General Joseph Eggleston Johnson found himself in a powerful position. He had retaken Jackson, the capital of Mississippi and a major transportation hub of the deep south, and proceeded to crush the small Union garrisons across central Mississippi, restricting Union control of the state to the small stretches directly along the Mississippi river. He had initially considered an offensive to retake Vicksburg, but after an initial probing attack on the city revealed the garrison to still be large and willing to fight, and the Union Mississippi flotilla rendering a siege nearly impossible, he begrudgingly marched north.

While it had been his desire to retake Vicksburg and repair his reputation after being blamed for Grant's capture of the city earlier in the war, Johnston was above all a practical man, and realized the opportunity presented by the lack of Union forces across the deep South. Grant had pulled heavily from the garrisons in the region, but it was in the wake of the Red River Campaign that they had become truly anemic and ineffectual, with Banks drawing from across the entire theater in his (perhaps justified) desperation to prevent the fall of New Orleans to Confederate forces. While it was indeed crucial to prevent the enormous port city from falling back into Confederate hands, he had left a number of cities of lesser importance, with the only true exception being Vicksburg, nearly wide open, with the hope that the Mississippi Flotilla would prevent a rebel force from retaking them.

It was a bluff that Johnston would call on April 12, 1864, as his men arrived near the city of Memphis, Tennessee, a critically important city both strategically and symbolically. Aside from New Orleans, it was by far the biggest city in the Confederacy along the Mississippi River, and control of it made passage by Union ships virtually impossible. As long as the Union held New Orleans, it could still move ships through the Gulf into the river, but retaking Memphis would deal a major blow to Union logistics in the theater. It was with that in mind that Johnston would surround the city, aside from the portions cut off by the river, with his overwhelmingly superior force and launch a simultaneous attack from all sides. Poor communication lead to the northern flank advancing far sooner than the rest of the army, causing it to get beaten back by artillery aboard Union gunboats, but with the Confederate center and south advancing soon after, the garrison was pushed further into the city until finally surrendering. Gunboats continued to fire into the previously evacuated city as Confederates swept through before quickly steaming southwards to avoid Confederate artillery counter-fire.

The Second Battle of Memphis was, as expected by both sides, a fairly quick and undramatic victory for the overwhelmingly larger Confederate force. The news of the victory, however, swept across the south like wildfire, with newspapers detailing the "swift and heroic triumph" of Johnston, who, in stark contrast to his overwhelmingly negative press coverage after Vicksburg, was quickly gaining a reputation as a decisive and intelligent commander due to his recapture of nearly all of Mississippi and much of southwestern Tennessee. In the streets of Memphis, he was constantly surrounded by cheering crowds, to the point where he was forced to establish his headquarters outside of the city. While he enjoyed the adoration, privately, he didn't view his recapture of much of the deep south to be overly impressive, as he was under no threat from a major army and consistently faced much smaller, isolated forces. The Northern view was much the same- that Johnston was merely a competent commander who had used the opportunity presented to seize barely defended territory back to the rebels. What the general, as well as both sides of the war did acknowledge, however, was the enormous impact that his movements would have on the Trans-Mississippi Theater.

With Mississippi largely retaken, as well as Memphis and much of southwestern Tennessee back in Confederate hands, General Nathaniel P. Banks was now completely isolated in southern Louisiana. He was outnumbered heavily by the Confederate army to the west, but protected by the Mississippi Flotilla and so safe from direct advances. However, with Johnston now free to move as he pleased, it would be little trouble to completely surround Banks and crush him, retaking New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy by an enormous margin, and its principal port. With Memphis and New Orleans both taken, the Mississippi Flotilla would be trapped, as would the Union garrisons along the Mississippi river. From there it would be easy to sweep across the river and re-take it in its entirety, reversing the entire progress of the Union in the Trans-Mississippi theater and allowing the Confederacy to fully draw from the wealth and manpower of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

The mood in the North was accordingly grim. With the repeated failures in Tennessee and Virginia, and the complete meltdown of the western front, it seemed that Lincoln's policy of simultaneous heavy offensives had resulted in disaster. Among the military and general populace, the idea now was that it was best to simply reinforce their gains and stop the Confederate resurgence, wait for the Confederates to run out of manpower bashing their heads against fortified Union positions, and make slow incremental progress. Lincoln, as well as general Grant, abhorred such a plan of action, but understood the political ramifications of continuing to push. This was especially notable due to the elections coming up later in the year, which the Peace Democrats seemed poised to win due to the overwhelming unpopularity of the war in the face of numerous Union defeats.

While Lincoln and Grant weighed the risks and rewards of various future moves against rebel forces, they were both keenly aware that if the war did not shift heavily in the favor of the Union, it would be over in January of 1865, and the Union would be forever torn asunder. They needed to win, and they needed to win soon. The Confederate command saw themselves in a similar rush. Union forces were in a significantly inferior position to the one they had been in only a year prior, but the overwhelming numerical and industrial advantage held by the North meant that they could replace those losses, whereas the Confederates could not. Even some of their most stunning victories could be considered Pyrrhic in nature and they'd paid dearly to push the Union as far back as they had. In their eyes, they needed to deal a heavy enough blow to the Union to force Lincoln out of office, whether by impeachment or by the election of a peace Democrat. It was with this in mind, and in the wake of Johnston's recapture of Memphis, that they agreed to a proposal sent by General Longstreet, who by now was known by many as the Hero of Tennessee, for an offensive against the Union forces under the command of the poorly-viewed John Schofield and his even more poorly-viewed subordinates, with the goal of crushing the remaining Union forces in Tennessee and recapturing Nashville. It was hoped that this would be the final blow to the Union war effort and force them into a surrender before the Confederates could be steamrolled by the North.

 

[Pulmonic_Consonant]

The departure of Grant to Virginia would prove to be a decisive moment in the eastern front of the war. His replacement of the incompetent, widely despised William H. French as commander of the Army of the Potomac had taken away Lee's license to do as he pleased in Northern Virginia. It wasn't long after his arrival in the east that the gears of war would begin turning once more, and as Grant and Lee jockeyed for position, clashing in a number of increasingly bloody skirmishes, one of the defining rivalries of the war would be birthed. As great as the influence of his presence in the east would prove to be, his absence in the west also had a profound effect on the theater as the increasingly aggressive and confident Confederate forces under Longstreet and Forrest would begin their most ambitious campaign yet.

It was a possibility, it seemed, which Lieutenant General John Schofield had not anticipated. His camp continued to slowly reinforce in the days after Grant's departure, preparing to surround and eventually assault or starve out the rebel army around Florence. The general emphasis on passiveness he'd gotten in his correspondences from Washington only strengthened his desire to remain put. He had 32,000 men under his command, while Longstreet's army only possessed an estimated 23,000-25,000 men. This was a decisive advantage that made an attack by Longstreet virtually impossible, but was not quite enough for Schofield to feel comfortable attacking fortified Confederate positions in the high ground around Florence.

On the other hand, Longstreet and his generals, once they had been safe in knowing they were not under immediate threat of Union attack, had drawn up an extremely aggressive plan to dislodge Union forces from Tennessee entirely. Initially, it had hinged around a surprise flanking movement to the south, but with Johnston's victory in Memphis, a new opportunity had arrived. The vast majority of commanders on both sides had expected Johnston to then move south and lay siege to New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy. Longstreet, believing he could take advantage of this expectation, corresponded with Johnston, who quickly agreed to the plan and secretly marched his army east.

On May 28, 1864, a campaign which would eventually become known to history as the Longstreet's Tennessee campaign would begin as Confederate skirmishers probed the northern Union flank, which was under the command of James H. Wilson, who, expecting a large Confederate attack soon after, quickly requested reinforcements. Schofield granted the request, drawing from the corps under Don Carlos Buell and fortifying that section of the flank. As those forces dug in, a second, much larger Confederate advance began in the south, with Patrick Cleburne's forces emerging from the woods to storm Union lines under the command of John Alexander McClernand, who attempted to concentrate his forces in the center only to have his left and right flanks heavily pushed back and his center threatened with surrounding. He quickly pulled back further, attempting to consolidate his line before the Confederate corps under D.H. Hill suddenly sprung from the south, routing McClernand's command and rolling back a large portion of Union lines before stalling out.

It was at this point that Schofield, now aware that a full-on assault was taking place, began positioning troops to prevent the Confederate advance in the south, successfully repelling a second charge. Confederate cavalry under Wheeler had begun launching attacks on the Union center under Don Carlos Buell, who repeatedly repulsed the smaller Confederate force. Schofield re-oriented the army's overall position over the next few bloody hours of clashing, ceding much of the northern flank in order to box in Confederate forces that had been advancing to the west. With the Confederate advance seeming to sputter out in the face of numerical superiority, Schofield launched a counter-attack on the Confederate center. Due to an issue with communication, General Benjamin Butler would begin his attack much earlier than Buell, getting repelled a number of times before Buell's forces began to assist. Confederate lines slowly fell back under Union pressure before Wilson's reinforced flank suddenly assaulted the Confederate north, sending it reeling before rebel forces once more reached the high ground around Florence and stalled the Union advance.

As Schofield began preparing for a counter-attack on the now exposed Confederate southern flank, a large force under General Joseph E. Johnston emerged from the woods behind the northern flank of the Union army, launching a surprise assault that left the Union rear reeling. Schofield, caught entirely by surprise, wheeled his forces around to stop Johnston, who had stalled out after inflicting enormous casualties to Wilson's corps. The Confederate southern flank, now no longer under threat of being crushed, launched another attack on McClernand's lines, pushing him back before Butler's force swung south to stop their advance. With Butler's movement to stop D.H. Hill in the south, and Buell's corps now highly exposed, Cleburne launched yet another assault on the Union center.

The ensuing chaos would, in many spots, devolve into brutal hand-to-hand combat, as attacks and counter-attacks both stalled out into bloody stalemates and small wooded hills were captured and recaptured. Eventually, as Union forces slowly began to be surrounded by the Confederate forces to the west, north, and west, Schofield realized that his army was in danger of potentially getting annihilated. He disregarded the idea of a retreat southwards, as it would grant him little in the way of long-term safety, and concentrated Union forces in the north, launching a breakthrough attack northwest as Johnston's heavily outnumbered army unsuccessfully attempted to stop them. Johnston's force suffered extremely heavy casualties as Longstreet's army attempted to pursue them. Wheeler's cavalry inflicted heavy damage to the Union rear as it collapsed from an orderly retreat to a complete rout. Panicked Union forces arrived in Savannah, Tennessee, hastily throwing up defenses and managing to repel the then-strung-out Confederate advance.

The Second Battle of Florence was an incredibly costly affair for both sides, to a degree that surpassed even the typical expectation of battles in the Western Theater. Of the Union's roughly 32,000 men at the start of the battle, only 14,000 remained in fighting condition in Savannah after barely escaping the near-destruction of the Union army at the hands of a Confederate pincer attack. Of the Confederates' combined force of 34,000 men at the start of the battle, only 21,000 remained in fighting condition around Savannah after the repeated failed assaults on Union lines and the extremely costly Union breakthrough attack. Johnston's force of 10,000 that had entered the battle had been nearly annihilated during said attack, scraping by afterwards with only 4,000 men remaining. Despite the armies involved being of drastically lower size, there had been more casualties than Chancellorsville. More than 56% of the Union army had been destroyed, while more than 38% of the Confederate army had suffered the same fate.

With the addition of Johnston's force, badly mauled as it was, as well as the numerous catastrophic defeats of various Union forces in the state, the Confederates in the wake of the Second Battle of Florence actually found themselves with a slim numerical advantage of 31,000 Confederates to 28,000 Unionites. This, of course, could easily be mitigated by Union reinforcements in time, while the Confederates struggled to scrape together sizable reinforcements to provide their armies with. Even as Confederate forces around Savannah cheered at their victory, the thought lingering in the back of even the average soldier was clear- how many more victories could the Confederacy pull off before it bled itself to death?

Meanwhile, in the north, dejection was more outright, though by this point the people had almost grown accustomed to brutal, bloody defeats in Tennessee. More than anything, the defeat had proven to many military planners to failure in the doctrine of passivity, which had only really began to set in once more since the days of McClellan, who had warned the military of the danger of reckless offensives. While McClellan, busy running his campaign for president, had seemed to have been proven right by the utter failure of Lincoln's "March Madness" spring offensives, Union forces allowing the Confederates to pull of their surprise pincer movements with their inactivity, as well as Grant's ongoing moderately successful campaigns in Virginia, gave ammunition to the more aggressive planners, who believed the only way to win the war was to leverage the Union's greater population and industrial capacity to crush the Confederates completely. Proponents of both doctrines continued to bitterly feud in Washington as the election grew nearer and McPherson made plans to crush Forrest and save the Union's position in Tennessee, even as Schofield continuously sent telegrams demanding reinforcements or an all-out abandonment of Nashville to relieve Savannah. He was eventually forced to dispatch 8,000 men to assist Schofield, though he had not yet abandoned his plans to destroy the Confederate position in Murfreesboro.