Hoover's Gap was a Civil War engagement fought in Tennessee, 1863. It was a Union victory.
Following the Battle of Stones River, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, remained in the Murfreesboro area for five and one-half months. To counter the Yankees, Gen. Braxton Bragg, commander of the Army of Tennessee, established a fortified line along the Duck River from Shelbyville to Wartrace. On the Confederate right, infantry and artillery detachments guarded Liberty, Hoover's, and Bellbuckle gaps through the mountains. Rosecrans's superiors, fearing that Bragg might detach large numbers of men to help break the Siege of Vicksburg, urged him to attack the Confederates. On June 23, 1863, he feigned an attack on Shelbyville but massed against Bragg's right. His troops struck out toward the gaps, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's men, on the 24th, forced Hoover's Gap. The Confederate 3rd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, under Col. J.R. Butler, held Hoover's Gap, but the Yankees easily pushed it aside. As this unit fell back, it ran into Brig. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson's and Brig. Gen. William B. Bate's Brigades, Stewart's Division, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee, which marched off to meet Thomas and his men. Fighting continued at the gap until just before noon on the 26th, when Maj. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart, the Confederate division commander, sent a message to Johnson and Bate stating that he was pulling back and they should also. Although slowed by rain, Rosecrans moved on, forcing Bragg to give up his defensive line and fall back to Tullahoma. Rosecrans sent a flying column (Wilder's Lightning Brigade, the same that had spearheaded the thrust through Hoover's Gap on the 24th) ahead to hit the railroad in Bragg's rear. Arriving too late to destroy the Elk River railroad bridge, the Federals tore up lots of track around Decherd. Bragg evacuated Middle Tennessee.
On June 24, 1863, Union and Confederate forces clashed at Hoover's Gap in what became the central engagement of the Tullahoma Campaign. During this fight, Union commander William S. Rosecrans succeeded in pushing Braxton Bragg's Confederate army out of Central Tennessee. The victory grew out of a clever ruse: by making it appear as though his forces intended to strike the western portion of the Confederate defensive line, Rosecrans drew attention away from the mountain passes to the east, leaving them thinly guarded. Taking advantage of this weakness, Colonel John T. Wilder led his mounted infantry in an assault on Hoover's Gap that caught the defenders completely off guard. Historians credit this outcome to two factors working together, Rosecrans' skillful use of misdirection and the confidence running high among Wilder's men, known as the "Lightning Brigade" for their speed and their use of the newly introduced Spencer repeating rifle.
After the fighting at Stones River, Union commander Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans kept his Army of the Cumberland stationed around Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for more than five months. Hoping to halt any further advance by federal forces, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, who led the Army of Tennessee, built a defensive line stretching along the Duck River between Shelbyville and Wartrace. Detachments of infantry and artillery held the Confederate right flank, positioned at Liberty, Hoover's, and Bellbuckle Gaps in the Highland Rim near Beechgrove, Tennessee. Meanwhile, officials above Rosecrans worried that Bragg could pull troops away to reinforce the effort against the siege at Vicksburg, and they pressed Rosecrans to move against the Confederate lines.
Among the brigade commanders serving under Rosecrans, Colonel John T. Wilder had taken note of how effectively Confederate General John Hunt Morgan carried out raids deep within Federal-held Kentucky. Learning that Rosecrans hoped to expand his cavalry strength, Wilder suggested converting his own infantry brigade into mounted troops by sending them out to seize horses from the countryside. Rosecrans approved the plan, and by mid-April 1863 Wilder's men were completely horsed. Earlier, in March, Wilder had seen Christopher Miner Spencer demonstrate his new repeating rifle, and the experience convinced him that his brigade should be equipped with it. His troops backed the idea enthusiastically, each agreeing to sign a promissory note for $35 to help cover the cost. Wilder co-signed these notes himself and secured a loan from banks in his hometown. Before long, the brigade carried the new seven-shot repeating rifles and quickly gained a reputation for lively, aggressive service on horseback.
On June 23, 1863, Rosecrans ordered a diversionary movement against Shelbyville while concentrating the bulk of his army on Bragg's right flank, sending his troops surging toward the mountain gaps. The following day, George H. Thomas's command moved on Hoover's Gap, with Colonel Wilder's "Lightning Brigade" leading the way. Riding far ahead of the main column, Wilder's mounted infantrymen covered nearly 9 miles (14 km) more ground than Thomas's approaching force. Carrying the newly issued Spencer repeating rifles, Wilder's men brushed aside the Confederate 1st Kentucky Cavalry, joined with the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry and commanded by Colonel J. Russell Butler, without much difficulty. Butler's troopers retreated the full 7 miles (11 km) of the gap before colliding with Brig. Gen. William B. Bate's brigade, part of Maj. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart's division.
Wilder had been told that Bate's men held the high ground at the gap's summit, but upon arriving he discovered it empty
Bragg pulled his army out of Middle Tennessee entirely, retreating toward Chattanooga. By September 8, 1863, Rosecrans had followed him there and taken the city. From this point the two armies kept jockeying for position, a prelude to what would become the Chickamauga Campaign. For Rosecrans, though, satisfaction over what had been accomplished at Hoover's Gap and throughout the Tullahoma Campaign was tempered by frustration, since these achievements went largely unnoticed next to the two other major Union triumphs of that summer, the Siege of Vicksburg and the Battle of Gettysburg.
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