No Bragg, just fact

            Among the most vilified figures in the saga of the American Civil War is Confederate General Braxton Bragg. A West Point graduate and veteran of the Mexican War, Bragg usually goes down in history as a failed army commander and a political favorite of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

          Fair enough. Bragg managed to give up nearly the entire state of Tennessee without a fight during the summer of 1863. Out maneuvered constantly by Federal General William Rosecrans, Bragg repeatedly retreated that summer and capped his non-violent military methodology by giving up the key railroad city of Chattanooga through abdication.

          There is plenty to criticize in the body of Bragg’s work. He was not popular with his troops or with his unit commanders.

          But closer scrutiny reveals something else about Bragg’s tenure as commander of the Confederate of the Army of Tennessee: He was not well served by either his Commander-in-Chief or the men Bragg commanded.

          Bragg’s request for help from Confederate President Jefferson Davis was answered when Davis sent General Daniel H. Hill from the Army of Virginia, Robert E. Lee’s army, to Bragg’s Army of Tennessee.  There Hill joined, among others, the unhappy General Leonidas Polk.

Polk, it turned out, was disinclined to follow orders. First at the botched affair at McLemore’s Cove and then days later at Chickamauga, Polk routinely ignored direct orders from Bragg or obeyed orders so slowly as to render his service non-existent.

The pair managed to delay the Confederate attack scheduled for daylight on September 20, the second day of the battle of Chickamauga. They delayed the attack for hours. That delay may have cost the Confederates a chance to cut off the Federal retreat toward Chattanooga.

Finally, both Hill and Polk signed a letter to Davis requesting the president remove Bragg from his post after the victory at Chickamauga. Other commanders in the Army of Tennessee, including James Longstreet, signed the letter as well, sure, but it strikes the observer that Hill, Polk and even Longstreet performed at a level below what could have been expected from them by their commander.

The soldiers in Bragg’s army fought with great tenacity when their wing- and corps-level leaders finally started following orders. No Civil War battle was harsher or more difficult than the blood-soaked struggle at Chickamauga. Even the soldiers of Polk’s right wing, when they finally moved forward, fought very effectively and drove the Union troops in front of them from the field.

But the Army of Tennessee’s costly victory at Chickamauga could have won much greater results had Polk and Hill been in the mood to follow direct orders from their commanding officer. That those orders were ignored probably cost thousands of Confederate lives and might have cost the gray coats a chance to retake the important city of Chattanooga.

Even Longstreet, who spent his years after the end of the war sounding wisely critical of Bragg, Lee and other Confederate leaders, could have performed better at Chickamauga.

Braxton Bragg was not a wise leader of men. But had his wing- and corps- level commanders served with a better level of professionalism in September of 1863, Bragg might have a better reputation today.

Thanks for reading.