Wauhatchie was a Civil War engagement fought in Tennessee, 1863. It was a Union victory.
In an effort to relieve Union forces besieged in Chattanooga, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant initiated the "Cracker Line Operation" on October 26, 1863. This operation required the opening of 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. Union Chief Engineer, Military Division of the Mississippi, Brig. Gen. William F. "Baldy" Smith, with Brig. Gen. John B. Turchin's and Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen's 1st and 2nd brigades, 3rd Division, IV Army Corps, was assigned the task of establishing the Brown's Ferry bridgehead. Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, with three divisions, marched from Bridgeport through Lookout Valley towards Brown's Ferry from the south. At 3:00 am, 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. Hooker, while his force passed through Lookout Valley on October 28, detached Brig. Gen. John W. Geary's division at Wauhatchie Station, a stop on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, to protect the line of communications to the south as well as the road west to Kelley's Ferry. Observing the Union movements on the 27th and 28th, Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet and Gen. Braxton Bragg decided to mount a night attack on Wauhatchie Station. Although the attack was scheduled for 10:00 pm on the night of October 28, confusion delayed it till midnight. Surprised by the attack, Geary's division, at Wauhatchie Station, formed into a V-shaped battle line. Hearing the din of battle, Hooker, at Brown's Ferry, sent Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard with two XI Army Corps divisions to Wauhatchie Station as reinforcements. As more and more Union troops arrived, the Confederates fell back to Lookout Mountain. The Federals now had their window to the outside and could receive supplies, weapons, ammunition, and reinforcements via the Cracker Line. Relatively few night engagements occurred during the Civil War; Wauhatchie is one of the most significant.
Fought over the nights of October 28 and 29, 1863, the clash at Wauhatchie unfolded across Hamilton and Marion counties in Tennessee along with Dade County, Georgia, as part of the wider conflict between the states. Federal troops had recently taken control of Brown's Ferry on the Tennessee River, establishing a route to keep the besieged army at Chattanooga supplied. In response, Confederate soldiers moved to drive off the defenders holding the crossing and sever this vital line once more, yet the effort ended in failure. Notably, this engagement stands as one of the rare instances during the war when armies clashed after dark.
Following their crushing loss at Chickamauga, Union troops commanded by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans pulled back into Chattanooga, Tennessee. Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army of Tennessee then surrounded the city, hoping to starve the Federal garrison into submission. From their positions atop Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, Bragg's men could watch the city, the river below, and the routes that fed Union supplies. Confederate raiders struck every wagon train bound for Chattanooga, forcing the Federals to search for another way to keep their soldiers fed. Grant soon stripped Rosecrans of command, installing Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas in his place, and upon arriving at Chattanooga made resupplying the army his foremost concern.
On October 26, 1863, Grant and Th
Bragg instructed Longstreet to push back the newly arrived Union troops. After spotting a wagon train halted close to Wauhatchie, Longstreet decided the moment was right to overwhelm Geary's command. He gave Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins's division the task of striking under cover of darkness. Law would take his own brigade along with that of Brig. Gen. Jerome B. Robertson to keep Hooker from sending help to Geary, while Jenkins's South Carolina brigade of 1,800 men, under Col. John Bratton, was tasked with striking Wauhatchie Station itself. Brig. Gen. Henry Benning's brigade stayed back under Law's direction, ready to back up both his own effort and Bratton's. The assault had been set for ten o'clock on the night of October 28, but muddled coordination pushed it back to midnight. Geary and his officers had anticipated trouble and posted pickets accordingly, yet the abruptness of the strike still caught them off guard. Bratton's men closed in from the north, forcing the Union troops into a V-shaped defensive line oriented toward the north and east. During the fighting, Geary's son, who served as an artillery lieutenant, was mortally wounded and died cradled in his father's arms.
The noise of combat reached the XI Corps, which quickly assembled near Brown's Ferry. Hooker skipped over Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard in the command structure, directing Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz instead to march toward Wauhatchie Station with reinforcements. Amid the disorder, it was Brig. Gen.
A story spread among the Federal encampments claiming that mules, panicked by the clash, stampeded in a way that convinced the Confederates cavalry was upon them, prompting the Southern withdrawal. Soldiers on the Union side quipped that the animals deserved to be "breveted as horses" for their part in the affair. The real effect was smaller: the Hampton Legion fell into disorder because of the mules for only a brief spell. Even so, that pause gave the 137th New York enough time to close a gap that had opened in the Federal line.
Casualties on the Union side numbered 78 dead, 327 wounded, and 15 unaccounted for. The Confederates listed their own losses at 34 killed, 305 wounded, and 69 missing. Another version of events puts Bratton's losses at 408 men, compared with just 52 for Law. Geary noted burying 153 Confederate dead and taking more than a hundred prisoners, which suggests the true Confederate toll might have exceeded 900. With this fight decided, the Union army finally gained its opening to the outside world, allowing supplies, arms, ammunition, and fresh troops to flow in along the Cracker Line. This cleared the path for the Battles for Chattanooga to begin on November 23.
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