Chapter III. The occupation and battles of Chattanooga 155

The Battle of Lookout Mountain 194 Wisconsin troops in the Battle of Missionary Ridge 225

INDEX 235

MAPS

PAGE

The Chattanooga Campaign _Frontispiece_

Chickamauga, September 19, 1863 82

Chickamauga, morning of September 20, 1863 98

The fatal order to Wood, at Chickamauga 112

Chickamauga, evening of September 20, 1863 114

Chattanooga and Vicinity, November, 1863 194

WISCONSIN HISTORY COMMISSION

(Organized under the provisions of Chapter 298, Laws of 1905, as amended by Chapter 378, Laws of 1907 and Chapter 445, Laws of 1909)

FRANCIS E. McGOVERN _Governor of Wisconsin_

CHARLES E. ESTABROOK _Representing Department of Wisconsin, Grand Army of the Republic_

REUBEN G. THWAITES _Superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin_

CARL RUSSELL FISH _Professor of American History in the University of Wisconsin_

MATTHEW S. DUDGEON _Secretary of the Wisconsin Library Commission_

_Chairman_, COMMISSIONER ESTABROOK _Secretary and Editor_, COMMISSIONER THWAITES _Committee on Publications_, COMMISSIONERS THWAITES AND FISH

INTRODUCTION

After the battle of Gettysburg in the East, and the siege of Vicksburg in the West, attention was riveted during the later summer and autumn of 1863 on the campaign around Chattanooga. Seated on the heights along the southern border of Tennessee, that city commanded highways running through the very heart of the Confederacy. The result at Gettysburg had demonstrated that no Southern army could invade the North; the Union victory at Vicksburg determined that the Mississippi should run unhindered to the sea. The battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge not only decided that Kentucky and Tennessee should remain in the Union, but they opened the way for Sherman’s advance on Atlanta and his March to the Sea, which cut the Confederacy in two and made Lee’s surrender a necessity.

The War between the States saw no more stubborn fighting than raged on September 19th and 20th around the old Cherokee stronghold of Chickamauga. Two months later, occurred the three days’ battle around the hill city of Chattanooga. In all these events, the citizen soldiers of Wisconsin played a conspicuous part, which is herein described by a participant and student of these famous contests. In these battles the reputations of officers were made and unmade, and from them emerged the great generals who were to carry the Union arms to complete victory--Thomas, Sherman, Sheridan, and Grant.

Colonel Fitch, the author of this volume, began his service July 16, 1861, as Sergeant-Major of the Sixth Wisconsin; he was commissioned First-Lieutenant in October following, and in the succeeding April was appointed Adjutant of the Twenty-first; he became, in succession, Major and Lieutenant-Colonel of that regiment, and in March, 1865, was brevetted Colonel of Volunteers “for gallant and meritorious services during the war.” He served chiefly with the Army of Potomac, Army of Virginia, Army of Ohio, and Army of Cumberland. He commanded his regiment from July 1, 1864; and on the March to the Sea; and in the Carolinas headed a wing of the brigade, consisting of the Twenty-first Wisconsin, the Forty-second Indiana, and the One Hundred-and-fourth Illinois. Later, he was assigned to the command of the Second Brigade of the Fourteenth Army Corps. He now lives at Pueblo, Colorado.

The maps illustrating the text are adaptations from John Fiske’s _The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War_ (Boston, 1900), which we are permitted to use through the generosity of the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company.

The Commission is also under obligations to the editorial staff of the Wisconsin Historical Society for having seen the volume through the press. The index was compiled by Dr. Louise Phelps Kellogg, a member of that staff; the proof-reading has been the work chiefly of Misses Annie A. Nunns and Daisy G. Beecroft.

R. G. T. WISCONSIN HISTORICAL LIBRARY MARCH, 1911

The Chattanooga Campaign