It was the Federals, however, who opened the fight, Thomas sent two divisions forward on the morning of the 19th in order to trap what was reputedly a lone Rebel Brigade on the west bank of the creek. Instead Thomas' men ran into dismounted cavalry around Jays Mill. Almost immediately, Walker's Reserve Corps was drawn into the action, followed in turn by another Union division. The surprise of finding Federals on his own northern flank instead of flanking them disrupted Bragg's plan. Bragg suspended the main attack and began feeling out Union positions. The net effect of this suspension was to produce a confused, incoherent action throughout the day of the 19th, with each side feeding divisions into the fight one at a time. While the terrain greatly complicated the situation -- the field was heavily wooded and hilly -- Bragg's failure to commit his main force early in the morning let another opportunity slip away. Rosecrans did not have sufficient troops to cover the whole line from Lee and Gordon's up to Cloud Church, and for most of the morning a mile-wide gap existed between Thomas and Crittenden's commands. Had Bragg chosen to drive forward then with all three corps, he might well have seriously damaged the Union army. Instead, neither side gained much advantage, though at least twice strong Rebel attacks badly dented Rosecrans' vulnerable center. Night ended the action, but both sides braced for a renewed fight in the morning. Bragg's plan for the 20th remained unchanged: Pivot with his right wing and drive the Federals away from Chattanooga. What had changed was just about everything else, including the armys basic command structure. Longstreet's arrival that night induced Bragg to re-organize his army from five corps into two wings, with Longstreet and Polk as the two wing commanders. Hill, despite also holding a Lieutenant General's rank, was left in a subordinate capacity, a fact that likely rankled him. Bragg was talking a huge risk in re- arranging his army: Longstreet had never seen the ground in daylight and had not previously worked closely with half his wing, comprised of his Corps, Buckner's Corps, and Hindman's Division. Polk, who had already proved himself capable of ignoring any orders he didn't like - especially attack orders - was given no less than half the army, including Hill and Walker's Corps and Cheatham's Division. Additionally, Polk carried the main burden of opening the attack the next morning, as his men were on the northern flank. In making such a dramatic restructuring in the middle of a major battle, only topnotch staff work and the closest attention to detail would avoid the numerous pitfalls inherent in such a scheme. Unfortunately for the Army of Tennessee, their staff proved inadequate. The first indication of trouble was the fact that Longstreet arrived at Ringgold at 4:00 p.m. on the 19th, only to find that no one was present to lead him to either the field or to Bragg's Headquarters. Longstreet had to find his way alone, almost running into Union lines, and not finding Bragg until 11:00 p.m. When he was given command of half the army that night, he had no real idea where any of his troops were, or where the enemy was. The failure to meet Longstreet proved surmountable. Longstreet did finally reach Bragg and get his orders. The next failure was as inexcusable, and more costly. Bragg gave Polk orders to attack with his whole wing at daylight. Hill commanded the largest single element of Polles new wing, and was also fresh, both his divisions having seen only minor action on the 19th. Clearly Hill's corps would be the centerpiece of any effort Polk made on the 20th. Hill, however, never reached Polk's headquarters or got his orders. Polk told Hill's chief of staff to report to him that night, but did not mention the dawn attack. A courier was given a written message telling Hill about the attack, but never found Hill that night and returned without informing Polk's staff of that failure. Breckinridge, one of Hill's two division commanders, spent the night at Polk's headquarters, but incredibly, the Bishop never told Breckinridge about the impending attack. Finally, a private stationed along the Alexander's Bridge Road was supposed to keep a fire burning for Hill and guide him into Polk's Headquarters, but gave up the vigil about 2:00 a.m. without seeing Hill - subsequently, when Hill finally came looking for Polk, he could not find him. Bragg, expecting the attack to begin at dawn, became enraged when it failed to go off An aide sent to find Polk did nothing to help matters when he came back bearing what was clearly a malicious lie: Far from attacking, Polk was having a leisurely breakfast three miles behind the lines. He had found Polk eating a quick breakfast, but only a few hundred yards behind the lines, and he was heading forward momentarily. Polk, equally frustrated, sent word to Hill to attack immediately. Hill's reply did nothing to assuage matters: Hill told Polk that his men were drawing rations and not ready to attack. Polk passed this onto Bragg and rode off to get some sort of attack underway. Bragg, in turn, finally found Hill, with Polk's note about the rations in hand, and demanded why the dawn attack never went off. Hill's reply was simple - this was the first he had heard of a dawn attack. Finally, Polk's men went into action in series of uncoordinated divisional attacks during the late morning, all of which were repulsed, though Breckinridge did succeed in briefly turning the Union flank. Lack of support let this opportunity pass untaken. Fortunately for Confederate fortunes, Longstreet proved a better organizer. By 11:00 a.m. he had not only located his command, but had drawn them up in a powerful assault column aimed at the Union right. When Longstreet's wing advanced, a piece of luck finally turned the Confederate way: equally poor staff work on the Union side had opened up a division-sized hole in the Union line directly opposite the center of Longstreet's column. The resultant attack smashed through the gap and drove half the Yankee army from the field in panicked retreat. Only a desperate stand by some of Thomas' men and the timely arrival of the Union Reserve Corps (really a division in size) prevented a complete rout, though by nightfall the Union army had given up the field and was in full retreat to Chattanooga. Virtually all of the postwar memoirs and accounts by Rebel participants have found reason to blame Bragg for the lack of meaningful pursuit that night or the next day. While Bragg makes a convenient scapegoat here, the reality of the matter was that few of the Rebel Generals initially realized the magnitude of the victory. Longstreet and Polk both expected to have to renew the fight on the 21st, not realizing that the Union army had withdrawn. Longstreet's memoir is particularly scathing, accusing Bragg of thinking he had lost the battle; however, none of the messages that Longstreet sent his commander on the 20th indicate a pursuit was needed. A few Rebel Cavalry followed Federals, but the bulk of the army felt they would have to finish the job the next day. Over time - especially after the war, when all Southern "lost opportunities 11 were examined in detail - the participants came to view this failure to pursue immediately as one of the great missed chances of the war. In fact the opportunity was small. Rebel losses approached one third of the army, Longstreet's entire corps was not yet present, and the Federals might have been defeated but had not collapsed. Rosecrans' retreat to Chattanooga was made in good order; once his troops had recovered, they would have given the Rebels a stubborn fight had they been followed. The cabal that formed when Bragg removed Hindman and Polk on September 30th has often been misunderstood, partly because of postwar politics. After the war, many viewed Longstreet as the instigator, scheming for Bragg's job. While Longstreet's prestige and senior rank made him a much sought-after co- conspirator, the core of the anti-Bragg coalition resided in Buckner, Breckinridge and Cheatham, along with the deposed Hindman and Polk. Even before Polk was officially relieved, he had met with Buckner, Hill, and Longstreet to suggest they work to remove Bragg. According to the plan, Polk and Longstreet would begin a letter-writing campaign to Richmond to influence the government while Buckner and Hill were to galvanize the other generals. On October 4th, the senior officers of the Army of Tennessee met secretly and agreed to draft a petition to Davis asking that Bragg be removed for reasons of health. Buckner probably wrote the petition, and it remained at Hill's headquarters for several days so officers from the army could sign it. Not everyone signed: Polk and Hindman were away. Breckinridge refused, not from any sense of military loyalty but because he had requested a court of inquiry over Perryville that had not yet been resolved, and he felt his motives might be misconstrued! Several others refused for fear of reprisals. In all, however, twelve general officers signed the letter, including all the corps commanders save Cheatham, acting commander of Polk's Corps. Both Bragg and Davis were aware of the depth of feeling in the army, and Davis decided that he must come to Tennessee to resolve the issue. His arrival precipitated one of the oddest scenes ever to play out in an army headquarters. On October 9th, Davis refused Bragg's offer to resign, and what followed was a frank and doubtless uncomfortable discussion of Bragg's failings as an army commander between Davis, Bragg, and the assembled senior officers of the army. In the end, however, Davis sided with Bragg. Bragg now took the opportunity to cleanse the army of many of his internal enemies. Hill was relieved of command with no written explanation, a shadow that followed him for the rest of the war. Polk agreed to a transfer to Mississippi in exchange for the return of Hardee. Forrest, who was an extremely vocal critic of Bragg's despite not being in the inner circle of conspirators, demanded a transfer after Bragg subordinated his command to Wheeler's Cavalry. Hindman and Cheatham returned as divisional commanders, but Cheatham's large Tennessee Division was broken up and scattered through the army. Longstreet posed a special problem, since he was merely loaned from Virginia. In late October, Bragg decided to send him on an expedition into East Tennessee, taking his corps with him. Buckner, reduced to division command, was also removed at the same time, tasked to join Longstreet. Neither the officers nor the troops were ever to serve with Bragg's army again. In short, Bragg was both dismantling his command structure and significantly weakening his army at a time when the Union was doing all it could to strengthen his opponent. Rosecrans was still besieged in Chattanooga, but heavy Federal reinforcements were pouring in from Virginia, Mississippi, and Missouri. More importantly, Major General U. S. Grant was given overall direction of the Federal effort. At the end of November, Grant badly defeated Bragg in a series of actions culminating in the fight on Missionary Ridge, routing Bragg army back into Georgia. Missionary Ridge was the final blow to Bragg's tenure in command. In December, President Davis finally relieved Bragg and replaced him with Joseph E. Johnston. With Bragg's departure, the political whirlpool faded away, though its legacy would never leave the army entirely. Hood would scheme his way to command of the Army of Tennessee a year later, replacing Johnston. In the end, no single officer could claim to be free of the political cesspool that marked life in the Army of Tennessee, and which Bragg in large part created. Chickamauga The Army of Tennessee Introduction Union on Offensive Bragg Acts: McLemore's Cove Battle of Chickamauga Chickamauga as Simulation Back to Table of Contents -- Against the Odds vol. 1 no. 2 Back to Against the Odds List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by LPS. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com * Buy this back issue or subscribe to Against the Odds direct from LPS.