Chickamauga Campaign #3

Union General William S. Rosecrans had 70,000 men, according to a quartermaster report submitted on the eve of the Chickamauga Campaign. Most of us, trying to imagine what that number of people looks like, equate it to the capacity of sports venues. But I’ve been trying to imagine what 45,000 horses and mules look like. That’s the number Rosecrans had to deal with.

His army’s lifeline stretched more than 300 miles from the Ohio River at Louisville. It consisted of railroad transportation for most of that distance, to the depots at Stevenson and Bridgeport, Alabama, and wagon trains to haul the supplies from the Tennessee River, over Sand Mountain, then Lookout Mountain to the front.

It required 60 train cars daily just to handle supplies for the quartermaster department, some 964,000 pounds worth. The Army of the Cumberland also employed 4,000 six-mule wagons. The road networks in the region generally necessitated that outbound and inbound wagon trains use different routes. Rosecrans’ strength was reduced by detachments to garrison supply depots and towns along the lifeline so that his strength at the front was an estimated 58,000.

While Braxton Bragg’s army had the home team advantage in supply, the Confederates still faced logistical problems. When Ambrose Burnside’s Federal forces took Knoxville, Confederate reinforcements coming from Virginia had to ride the rails for hundreds of additional miles to reach Bragg’s front.

Because of space limitations on the trains, troops from Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, as well as reinforcements from Joe Johnston in Mississippi, could not bring their animals and wagons with them. When E. P. Alexander’s artillery arrived, animals to pull the guns and caissons had to be borrowed or otherwise commandeered. Alexander’s animals would not arrive until October, long after the battle.
Another event complicating Bragg’s logistical concerns was a head-on train collision that killed or injured more than 65 men and temporarily halted supplies and reinforcements from Atlanta along the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Bridges destroyed by the Confederates to gain advantage during one phase of the campaign, hindered them during a later phase when trains bringing reinforcements could not get through.
For these reasons, among many others, this third issue in the Chickamauga Campaign series is dedicated to, “The unsung heroes in Blue and Gray who built the bridges, and kept the trains running.”

Dr. William Glenn Robertson, author of the series, is the Deputy Director of the Combat Studies Institute, U. S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth. Until February his boss was Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, presently the commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq. Dr. Robertson mentioned to me recently that when General Petraeus left to take command in Iraq, with him went a copy of Bruce Catton’s Grant Takes Command (1968). And some think Catton isn’t relevant anymore . . .

editor