150 years ago this week

          It was 150 years ago this evening that a group of roughly 2,500 men crossed a creek in northern Georgia, crossed by a farm and bedded down in a wooded area for the night.

          These men were Confederate soldiers in the Army of Tennessee. This particular bunch was under the command of Brigadier General Archibald Gracie. Gracie’s Brigade was in Brigadier General William Preston’s Division and a part of Major General Simon Buckner’s Corps. General Braxton Bragg commanded the Army as a whole.

          Bragg’s men had spent the previous months retreating without fighting much

The present day South Carolina
monument on a hill near
Horseshoe Ridge.

and had largely given up the state of Tennessee to the Federal Army of the Cumberland led by General William Rosecrans. But now, near the banks of Chickamauga Creek, the Confederates stopped to fight.

          The ensuing battle of Chickamauga was a brutal, costly affair. Few units paid a higher price than Gracie’s Brigade.

          On the evening of the 18^th, Gracie’s brigade crossed the Chickamauga at Dalton’s Ford, which sounds like the name of a car dealership. That night, Gracie’s men were Preston’s only soldiers across the creek. The following day, Preston’s other brigades crossed the creek.

          There was some scattered, small scale fighting in the area on the 18^th, but the fighting was in earnest on the 19^th and 20^th. This was a brawl, a vicious heavyweight bloodletting that resulted in roughly 35,000 killed, wounded and missing. The casualty count at Chickamauga was the highest of the war, outside of Gettysburg.  

          Gracie’s men were mostly held in reserve on the 19^th and much of the 20^th. Few had combat experience and General James Longstreet, who commanded the Confederate right wing on the 20^th, hesitated to use the untested men.

          Finally, Gracie and his command were committed. Longstreet had done them no favors. They were sent to attack the Federal position atop Horseshoe Ridge.

          By the time Gracie and his men started toward the Ridge, US Army General George Thomas was the senior Federal commander still on the field. Rosecrans and others had left earlier in the day.

          Thomas’ men had spent the night of the 19^th/20th knocking down trees to create

Today's view of the top of Horseshoe Ridge.

breastworks which protected them from the Confederate advance on the 20th. It was an informal fortress, but a stout one.

          Gracie’s brigade included three components: The 43^rd Alabama Infantry Regiment (the only unit in the brigade which had seen fighting), the 63^rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment and Hilliard’s Legion.

          The Tennessee regiment did little fighting on the 20^th but the 43^rd Alabama and the Legion (which was made up mostly of Alabamians) stormed up the side of the Ridge and dislodged the Federals. The Federals, a combination of several regiments, fell back from the berm of the Ridge to a wooded area and continued shooting at their attackers.

          For about an hour, Gracie’s men engaged in a rifle duel with the Federals. Eventually, both sides exhausted their ammunition. Gracie finally ordered his men to pull back down the hill as they ran out of bullets, but some stayed at their hard-won posts as darkness fell. The Federals also started pulling away, but hundreds were captured by a sweeping, two-pronged attack made by two Florida outfits commanded by Colonel Robert Trigg, another of Preston’s Brigade commanders.

          For reasons too complicated to detail here, about 50 of Gracie’s men, members of both the Legion and the 43^rd Alabama, were part of Trigg’s Floridian encirclement.

          Buckner wrote in his report, “Few troops who have suffered so heavily have been victorious on the field of their losses.”

          Regular readers of this blog know of the interest here in the fighting on Horseshoe Ridge. It was a hard place to be a soldier on either side.

          We’ll be thinking about them this week.

         
          Thanks for reading.