The Battle of Wauhatchie was fought October 28–29, 1863, in Hamilton and Marion counties, Tennessee, and Dade County, Georgia, in the American Civil War. A Union force had seized Brown's Ferry on the Tennessee River, opening a supply line to the Union army in Chattanooga. Confederate forces attempted to dislodge the Union force defending the ferry and again close this supply line but were defeated. Wauhatchie was one of the few night battles of the Civil War.
After their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga, Union forces under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee besieged the city, threatening to starve the Union forces into surrender. Bragg's troops occupied Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, both of which had excellent views of the city, the river, and the Union's supply lines. Confederate troops launched raids on all supply wagons heading toward Chattanooga, which made it necessary for the Union to find another way to feed their men. Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant relieved Rosecrans of his command and replaced him with Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas. Grant's first priority upon reaching Chattanooga was to resupply the Union army.
Grant and Thomas initiated the "Cracker Line Operation" on October 26, 1863. It was designed to open the road to Chattanooga from Brown's Ferry on the Tennessee River with a simultaneous advance up Lookout Valley, securing the Kelley's Ferry Road. Brig. Gen. William F. "Baldy" Smith, Chief Engineer of the Military Division of the Mississippi, who conceived the overall Cracker Line plan, was assigned the task of establishing the Brown's Ferry bridgehead. He was assigned two infantry brigades from the 3rd Division, XIV Corps, to accomplish this: the 1st Brigade under Brig. Gen. John B. Turchin and the 2nd under Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen.
At 3:00 a.m. on October 27, portions of Hazen's brigade embarked upon pontoons and floated around Moccasin Bend to Brown's Ferry. Turchin's brigade took a position on Moccasin Bend across from Brown's Ferry. Upon landing, Hazen secured the bridgehead and then positioned a pontoon bridge across the river, allowing Turchin to cross and take position on his right.
Col. William C. Oates of the Confederate 15th Alabama guarded the valley with his regiment plus elements of other units. Due to a command mixup, Oates did not know where three reserve regiments were positioned. After the Union surprise landing, Oates attempted a counterattack with his scratch force, but it failed after he was seriously wounded. By the time Brig. Gen. Evander M. Law turned up with those reserve regiments, it was too late; the Federals were too numerous and well entrenched.
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.
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