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Bullet'n Backstory Bullet’n Backstory Volume 9, Issue 6 Joint Munitions Command June 2021 Standoffs and Skirmishes: The Siege of Chattanooga (September — November 1863) Following the Battle of Chickamauga (September 18-20, 1863), Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland limped back to Chattanooga, defeated but not destroyed. Credit for saving the ar- my largely went to Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, whose efforts to combine and rally scattered forces - after Rosencrans and other commanders fled the field - earned him the nickname, “Rock of Chickamauga.” Maj. Caleb B. Cox of the 84th Illinois Volunteer Infan- try Regiment, wrote to his wife immediately following the battle to de- scribe the situation and assure her that he had emerged from the clash largely intact. “I am still safe,” he wrote. “I received a slight bruise on one ankle, made by a piece of shell… Our regiment has lost about one hundred killed, wounded, and missing, up to this time.” Others faced more horrific injuries as well as unknown fates. Among the most harrowing accounts at Chickamauga came from Merritt James Simonds of the Ill. 42nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regi- ment. Receiving a shattered knee on the final day of the battle, he remained on the field with other soldiers who were too wounded to retreat. His daily diary, written as he lay helpless on the bloodied bat- tlefield for a full week, provides a heartbreaking record: Sunday 20th — I lay here until night. The rebs promise to take me off but do not. Monday 21st — The rebs carry off their wounded and bury their Maj. Caleb Brinton Cox dead, but do not take us off… the rebs give us some blankets 84th Ill. Vol. Inf. Reg. and water. We lay here all day suffering a great deal. Tuesday 22nd — We passed a restless night, do not know wheth- er our enemies intend to take us off or not. God help us to en- dure it. Wednesday 23rd — We have lain here now three nights and nearly four days and no signs of relief. Thursday 24th — Some of our men and a Doctor come to see us today. We are removed away from the dead bodies around us… My leg is much swollen and very painful. Friday 25th — Still alive. I bear up my sufferings as well as I can with God’s help… I know others are suffering with me. We get some soup and coffee from the Hospital and the promise of being taken off tomorrow. Saturday 26th — The morning dawns and two are taken from here. Myself and the 42nd are here yet. We patiently await un til noon and no relief comes. Simonds was finally moved to a Field Hospital at some point on the 26th and later transferred to the Military Hospital in Chattanooga, where he died on October 29, age 22. Occupying the heights of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, Confederate forces under Gen. Braxton Bragg commenced a Merritt James Simonds siege of Chattanooga that would continue for two months. This peri- 42nd Ill. Vol. Inf. Reg. od saw a combination of hard work and hardship for the Army of the Cumberland and the 84th Ill. Both Cox and regimental compatriot Louis A. Simmons described weeks spent fortifying their positions while continually harassed by Confederate artillery. Worse, rations were cut to half and then “less than half” as Confederate positions constrained Union supply lines to a single, muddy route. Maj. Cox fell ill within a week following Chickamauga. “Nothing serious,” he explained, “only wore out.” Re- fusing a hospital bed in favor of more seriously wounded men, Cox found accommodations with the Quarter- master for several days of convalescence. During the siege, mail was as restricted as food, meaning soldiers struggled to keep abreast of military and civilian affairs elsewhere in the country. However, widespread cele- brations erupted throughout the camp when news arrived in late October of favorable election results in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and especially Ohio. In the latter, antiwar Democrat Clement Vallandigham — who had escaped Confederate exile for candidate — lost his bid to became Governor of Ohio in a landslide victory by pro-Union War Democrat William Brough. In a letter to his wife, Cox reported that, “The army is now giving the news three cheers.” Simmons went further, writing, “this election extinguished the last lingering hope in the minds of the rebels that the North was divided and that they would receive assistance from the North- west. The result of this election proved the North to be no longer a distracted and divided people, but united indissolubly for the suppression of the rebellion, by force of arms.” The JMC Archivist has been given exclusive access to the personal papers of Caleb Brinton Vol. 9 Cox, an abolitionist Union soldier from Vermont, Illinois. For the next year, the Bullet’n Backstory Iss. 6 will trace Cox’s Civil War service. Special thanks to Thomas Evans for the Simonds materials. Pg. 2 At 2 a.m. on October 25, Palmer’s Division crossed the army’s narrow pontoon bridge over the Ten- nessee River and climbed to the summit of Walden’s Ridge. The 84th Ill. faced new leadership, however, as Maj, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant reorganized the Department of the Cumberland. Thomas officially took command of the Army of the Cumberland and recalled Palmer to Chattanooga to command the XIV Corps. That placed the 84th Ill. in the 3rd Brigade (Col. William Grose), 1st Division (Brig. Gen. Charles Cruft), IV Corps (Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger). Following this change, Cruft’s Division re-crossed the Tennessee Riv- er a few miles downstream from Chattanooga using a new pontoon bridge. Here, with Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen’s 2nd Brigade (3rd Division) and troops commanded by Maj Gen. Joseph Hooker at Bridgeport, the 3rd Brigade opened the river to Chattanooga, establishing a supply route known as the “Cracker Line.” Bragg attempted to prevent and later reverse the Union move several times, using Lt. Gen. James Long- street’s Corps. However, Longstreet twice ignored orders — First, failing to reinforce Lookout Valley in preparation for a potential Union crossing; Second, failing to move against the newly established Union bridgehead at Wauhatchie. A final effort to dislodge Federal troops came in a midnight raid by Longstreet who, though following orders to attack, committed too few men, resulting in a Confederate withdrawal from the valley to the heights of Lookout Mountain. By early November, the 1st Division held Bridgeport (1st Brig.), Shellmound (2nd Brig.), and Whiteside (3rd Brig.), effectively breaking the siege. If Bragg wanted Chattanooga, he would have to fight for it. (to be continued) ~ ~ PTF Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant This Month in Military History June 4, 1615: Following a siege, an army of the Council of Five El- ders led by Tokugawa Ieyasu cap- tures Osaka Castle from the Toyotomi clan, ending the last re- maining armed opposition to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan. June 11, 1776: The 2nd Continen- tal Congress establishes the Committee of Five, a group of rep- resentatives tasked with drafting a Declaration of Independence by 1 July. The committee included JMC Historical Document Collection Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sher- The JMC Public and Congressional Affairs Office (PCA) maintains man, and Robert R. Livingston. the JMC Archives, which collects and maintains historically significant June 18, 1815: Coalition British records, including: emails, manuscripts, letters, reports, studies, images, and Prussian forces under the videos, films, photographs, oral history interviews, briefings, SOPs, poli- command of Lord Wellington, de- cies, decision papers, memoranda, statistics, newspapers, newsletters, feat French troops at Waterloo, brochures, maps, blue prints, drawings, artifacts, and more. Such rec- effectively ending Napoleon Bona- ords are pertinent to the Army’s institutional knowledge of active and parte’s reign as Emperor. His final predecessor installations, the ammunition industrial base, and JMC mis- exile to the island of Saint Helena would last from December 1815 sions. JMC regularly uses these materials to research command history, until his death in 1821. and to answer research queries. When JMC workers leave positions or make physical moves, it is vital that their records be assessed before June 25, 1876: Sioux and Chey- enne warriors led by Crazy Horse disposal. If employees are uncertain about the historical value of materi- and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. als, the best policy is to make the items available to Command Historian 7th Cavalry under Brevet Maj. Keri Pleasant ([email protected]) or Archivist Paul Ferguson Gen. George Armstrong Custer at ([email protected]) in Room 661 for assessment. the Battle of Little Bighorn. .
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