The Tullahoma campaign (or Middle Tennessee campaign) was a military operation conducted from June 24 to July 3, 1863, by the Union Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans, and is regarded as one of the most brilliant maneuvers of the American Civil War. Its effect was to drive the Confederates out of Middle Tennessee and to threaten the strategic city of Chattanooga.
The Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg occupied a strong defensive position in the mountains. But through a series of well-rehearsed feints, Rosecrans captured the key passes, helped by the use of the new seven-shot Spencer repeating rifle. The Confederates were handicapped by dissension between generals, as well as a lack of supplies, and soon had to abandon their headquarters at Tullahoma.
The campaign ended in the same week as the two historic Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and Rosecrans complained that his achievement was overshadowed. However, Confederate casualties had been few, and Bragg's army soon received reinforcements that enabled it to defeat Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga two months later.
Following the costly but tactically inconclusive Battle of Stones River (December 31, 1862 – January 2, 1863) between Rosecrans and Bragg at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Bragg withdrew his army about 30 miles to the south, along the Duck River and behind the ridge known as the Highland Rim, which encircles the Nashville Basin. Small groups of pickets protected the passes through the Highland Rim and cavalry protected each flank, a front of almost 70 miles. Bragg, headquartered in Tullahoma, was concerned that Rosecrans would advance to seize the strategic city of Chattanooga, a vital rail junction and the gateway to northern Georgia. His cavalry was spread over such a wide front because he was also concerned at a tactical level that Rosecrans might be able to turn his position, forcing him to retreat or to fight at a disadvantage. Bragg assumed that any attack would be made against his left flank through the easy-to-cross Guy's Gap in the direction of Shelbyville, so he placed his larger infantry corps commanded by Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk in strong entrenchments at Shelbyville. Eight miles to his right, the corps of Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee was fortified in Wartrace, protecting the main road to Chattanooga and positioned to reinforce the other three passes through the Highland Rim—(from west to east) Bell Buckle Gap, Liberty Gap, and Hoover's Gap. Hoover's Gap was almost undefended; it was a four-mile-long pass between the 1100-foot ridges separating the Stones and Duck Rivers. The pass was so narrow that two wagons could barely pass side by side and was commanded by the surrounding ridges. Strong entrenchments were constructed, but they were manned by only a single cavalry regiment. After the campaign, Bragg was criticized for the inadequate nature of his Tullahoma position. Hardee told him that it was subject to both frontal and flanking attacks.
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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