The 150th Anniversary of the End of the Civil War is Today
COMMENTARY | Last week, the sesquicentennial of the Gettysburg Address took place to a lot of fanfare, as many of us remember having to memorize it, unless you lived in the South.
Less attention has been given to the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Chattanooga, even though it was a more important event. It was the battle that marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War.
The Battle of Gettysburg gets more attention as the turning point of the Civil War, but it merely stopped a Southern invasion of the North. It did nothing to resolve the status quo ante. Dixie was still not in Washington, DC’s hands, and the Union was no closer to taking Richmond, Virginia. Similarly, Vicksburg’s capture had symbolic importance, but Union warships had already been able to pass the besieged city before its fall. The Mississippi River was already in Northern hands. Vicksburg’s fall just make it official.
But the Battle of Chattanooga was the true turning point in the Civil War. It ended the biggest Southern victory in the West, saved a large Northern army, and provided a springboard for Sherman’s notorious invasion of the South, as well as cementing Ulysses S. Grant as the general the Union had to have to win in the East.
It began with a stalemate at Stones River at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where the Army of the Cumberland outlasted Southern forces under Braxton Bragg. Bragg retreated, even giving up Chattanooga. But Northern General William Rosecrans blundered into a trap. His scattered forces were hit hard by Bragg at the Battle of Chickamauga. An error in reinforcements, coupled with a dramatic charge up the middle by General James Longstreet, split Rosecrans’ forces in half and sent them fleeing to Chattanooga for their lives. Only Union General George Thomas, a Virginian, saved the Northern army, holding on and preventing a total annihilation with his brilliant defense. But the Army of the Cumberland was surrounded and starved at Chattanooga. Surrender was coming, perhaps faster than the approaching winter. Rosecrans was fired.
Grant’s forces arrived just in time with Generals Joe Hooker and William T. Sherman, and much needed food supplies. Bragg blundered by sending Longstreet to Knoxville to deal with the ineffective General Ambrose Burnside. The new Army of the Cumberland under Thomas responded by taking the Orchard Knob, a good spot to launch an attack on Bragg’s forces at Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga. Meanwhile, Hooker managed to take the imposing Lookout Mountain, where the museum for the Battle of Chattanooga exists today.
Grant called for Hooker and Sherman to hit Bragg at the flanks, but both failed in the job. Thomas’ troops did take the rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge. Then, eager to make up for Chickamauga, they kept charging up the hill. Bragg’s forces ran, much the way the Army of the Cumberland once did, and the battle was over. Sherman would take the armies to Atlanta the next year, burning his way through Georgia and South Carolina. Grant took charge in the East and led the campaign that took Richmond and eventually forced Robert E. Lee to surrender.
But it all came down to the brave Union soldiers on November 25, 1863 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who made a charge against orders to prove what they could do.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga. The photo of the Battle of Chattanooga National Military Park was taken by Beth Tures.
