The Battle of Ringgold Gap was fought November 27, 1863, outside the town of Ringgold, Georgia, by the Confederate and Union armies during the American Civil War. Part of the Chattanooga campaign, it followed a heavy Confederate loss at the Battle of Missionary Ridge from which General Braxton Bragg's artillery and wagon trains were forced to retreat south. The five hour Battle of Ringgold Gap resulted in the Confederate victory of Major General Patrick R. Cleburne and gave the Army of Tennessee safe passage to retreat through the Ringgold Gap mountain pass.
The disastrous Confederate rout at Battle of Missionary Ridge on November 25 forced the Army of Tennessee to retreat into northwest Georgia. On November 26, the army made its way south towards Dalton. To allow time for his artillery and wagon trains to safely pass through the gap, Confederate General Braxton Bragg sent Patrick Cleburne's unit of 4,157 men to defend it from the Union army. While Cleburne expressed doubt he could defend the gap adequately with his single division, Bragg refused to send any further troops to assist Cleburne. Cleburne and his men proceeded south and reached Ringgold around 10:00 p.m. After crossing through the East Chickamauga Creek, Cleburne's army made camp in the mountain pass known as the Ringgold Gap.
All accounts the Union received about Bragg's army suggested a hasty and unorganized retreat following the Battle of Missionary Ridge. The Union commander at Chattanooga, Ulysses S. Grant, had ordered a pursuit of the retreating Confederate army on the morning of November 26, but confusion over the orders prevented the Union forces from getting an early start. General Joseph Hooker was given command of divisions from the IV Corps, XI Corps, XII Corps, and XV Corps and sent to cut off the Western and Atlantic railroad in pursuit of the Confederate rear guard. However, when the Union forces arrived, they found that the Confederates had burned the bridges over Chickamauga Creek. Having finally reached Ringgold Gap around 10:00 p.m., Hooker halted two and a half miles from the Confederate army during the night of November 26–27.
Upon the Confederate army's arrival at Ringgold Gap, Cleburne deployed his men in three strategic locations — at Taylor's Ridge, White Oak Mountain, and within the gap itself. To the south, three Alabama regiments were stationed in the woods of Taylor's Ridge under the leadership of Major Frederick Ashford. Brigadier General Mark Perrin Lowrey and Lucius Polk's troops of the Confederate Reserve were sent to guard the passage at Taylor's Ridge. Further north, Brigadier General Hiram B. Granbury's Texas brigade was sent to defend against attack from White Oak Mountain. To his right, Major William Taylor was stationed with members of the 17th, 18th, 24th, and 25th Texas cavalry. Inside Ringgold Gap, Brigadier General Daniel Govan led four Arkansas divisions alongside Captain C.E. Talley of the 7th Texas. Cleburne's tactical position was completed with the placement of two cannons at the opening of the gap along with a regiment under the leadership of Richard Goldthwaite.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Battle of Ringgold Gap. A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.