Prelude to the Battles for Chattanooga
After the calamity, which was the Battle of Chickamauga, the Federal Army of the Cumberland would retreat into Chattanooga, Tennessee. There, Major General William S. Rosecrans would find his army bottled up. He was very much stuck in place, with the Tennessee River, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Raccoon Mountain surrounding the city. With the exception of Raccoon Mountain, all the other natural barriers were occupied by Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. One month after retreating here, from the Chickamauga battlefield, supplies were running low and army morale was waning quickly – empty stomachs driving most of the misery. Major General Ulysses S. Grant was ordered to Chattanooga to assess the situation, get it under control and either retain Rosecrans or replace him with Major General George H.Thomas. After arriving, and assessing Rosecrans’ demeanor and understanding of the tactical situation he faced, Grant replaced him with Thomas on October 19. On October 27, Grant had opened a supply line to Nashville – the Cracker Line. It was a long, tenuous wagon route, but it fed the Army of the Cumberland. The biggest issue was whether it could be held.
Holding the “Cracker Line” – the Battle of Wauhatchie
In late September 1863, after the bloody Confederate victory at Chickamauga, the Union Army of the Cumberland, under Major General William S. Rosecrans, withdrew into Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s army then occupied the high ground around the city, including Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, effectively placing the Federals under siege. Short on food, forage, and ammunition, the Union troops faced a grim prospect as the days passed and supplies dwindled.
Ulysses S. Grant, newly placed in overall command of all western Union armies, arrived in Chattanooga on October 23. He quickly moved to break the blockade. Working with Major General George H. Thomas, and the army’s chief engineer, Brigadier General William F. “Baldy” Smith, he approved a plan to open a new supply route known as the “Cracker Line.” The scheme called for seizing Brown’s Ferry, on the Tennessee River, establishing a pontoon bridge, and linking it with roads running through Lookout Valley, to the railroad at Bridgeport, Alabama. Supplies could then move by wagon and steamboat into the city without running the gauntlet of Confederate artillery on the river.
On the night of October 26–27, Union forces under Smith successfully crossed the river and secured Brown’s Ferry. The following day, Major General Joseph Hooker led two corps—elements of the XI and XII Corps, recently arrived from the East—through Lookout Valley. To protect the southern end of the new line and a wagon train, Hooker detached Brigadier General John W. Geary’s division of the XII Corps (roughly 1,500–1,600 men) at Wauhatchie Station, a stop on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad several miles south of the ferry.
From their vantage on Lookout Mountain, Bragg and Lieutenant General James Longstreet watched the Union movements. Longstreet ordered a night attack to crush Geary’s isolated force and close the Cracker Line, before it could fully open. Brigadier General Micah Jenkins’s division (formerly John Bell Hood’s) would lead the assault. Colonel John Bratton’s South Carolina brigade would strike Geary directly, while brigades under brigadier generals Evander M. Law and Jerome B. Robertson moved to block any reinforcements coming from Brown’s Ferry.
Confusion and delays pushed the attack past its planned 10 p.m., start on October 28. Around midnight, or shortly after, on the morning of October 29, Bratton’s men advanced through the darkness. Union pickets from the 29th Pennsylvania gave warning, and Geary’s troops hastily formed a V-shaped line facing north and east. Fighting became a chaotic affair lit only by muzzle flashes. Soldiers on both sides often aimed at the flashes themselves. Geary’s artillery—Knap’s Pennsylvania Battery—poured canister into the attacking ranks, but the battery suffered heavily; one of its lieutenants, Edward R. Geary, the general’s 18-year-old son, was killed while serving one of the artillery pieces.
For roughly three hours the combat raged. Bratton’s brigade pressed hard and at times nearly enveloped the Union position, but the defenders held. Meanwhile, Hooker, hearing the firing, ordered reinforcements from the XI Corps, under Major General Oliver O. Howard, to march toward Wauhatchie. Law’s and Robertson’s brigades engaged some of these troops and delayed them, but the approach of additional Federal forces, combined with the stubborn resistance at Wauhatchie, and the growing risk of daylight, prompted Jenkins to order a withdrawal. By dawn the Confederates had pulled back toward Lookout Mountain.
Casualties were roughly equal – and relatively modest for a Civil War engagement: the Union reported about 420 (78 killed, 327 wounded, 15 missing), while Confederate losses were listed near 408 (34 killed, 305 wounded, 69 missing). Some accounts suggest higher Confederate losses in Bratton’s brigade alone. The fighting was small in scale compared with Chickamauga, or the later battles around Chattanooga, yet its consequences were large. The Cracker Line remained open. Within days, steamboats and wagons began delivering food, ammunition, and reinforcements into the city, restoring the morale and combat effectiveness of the Army of the Cumberland.
Wauhatchie stands out as one of the few significant night battles of the war. It also marked the Confederates’ last realistic chance to sever the Union supply route before Grant could accumulate the strength needed for the offensive that followed. In late November, Union forces would drive the Confederates from Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, lifting the siege and reversing the strategic situation in the West. The night fight at Wauhatchie, costly in personal terms for Geary and his men, helped make that outcome possible.
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