Major General William Starke Rosecrans

Rather than recap each battle, I recommend William Lamers’ Edge of Glory. The book is available in Community Library and in the Myers Inn Museum Gift Shop.  Whitelaw Reid's Ohio in the Civil War is also a good source.  They have spent hundreds of pages dissecting each battle so there is no need for me to do it again.  Instead, I will offer comments from others which will help you decide what is the truth.

A Nutshell View of Rosecrans' Role in the Civil War

August 31, 1861

Colonel Rosecrans

• June 7, 1861, Governor Dennison appointed Delaware County native, Rutherford B. Hayes Major in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Army under the leadership of Colonel William J. Rosecrans, another Delaware County native.

• The war broke the state of Virginia apart. The big plantations in the south and east needed their slaves and were all for secession.  
• The people in western Virginia found themselves without a government and law and order.
• Rosecrans addressed them on August 22, 1861 saying:

                  "Loyal Citizens of Western Virginia.

See More Frank Leslie Drawings of the
Civil War

Brigadier-General
     Rosecrans

Photo of Rich Mountain from  
Family Things
by Mim
and the state of
West Virginia

• The Battle of Carnifax Ferry was also to be a victory for Rosecrans.  By dusk on September 10, 1861, Rosecrans' men had been marching since 3 a.m., climbing a slippery cliff, through blackberry thorns and laurel thicket attempting to turn the enemy's right. 

 Rosecrans'
Headquarters
drawn by Henri Lovie

• Rosecrans said he had never seen more exhausted men so he decided to withdraw and await daybreak.  When the tired men doubled back on its line, they mistakenly shot their own men.  Rosecrans ordered some of his men to pretend to be attacking, while the remainder crept back to sleep.  The enemy fell for the ruse and Confederate General Floyd retreated leading his men down the cliff on a steep, single track road.

• A devout Roman Catholic, Rosecrans understood the importance of religion to his soldiers.  He did everything he could to help the men worship in their own traditions.

• On September 18, 1861, Rosecrans appointed Rutherford B. Hayes judge advocate for the Army of Western Virginia.
• On October 24th Hayes was relieved of duty as judge advocate and appointed Lieutenant Colonel Hayes of the Twenty-third.
• On Sewell Mountain in November 1861 it was so cold 40 horses froze to death.  This was recalled in the Charleston's Virginia Free Press in 1869.
• On November 11, 1861, General Rosecrans wrote to Governor Dennison of Ohio to tell him the condition of the troops in Western Virginia.  Rosecrans explained the reports were not entirely true and while they had been without the necessary items, it was more to do with the movement of the troops and not lack of supplies.  He suggested supplies continue to be collected and sent to the State Quartermaster so they could be gotten as needed.

• Following Rich Mountain, Rosecrans went to Washington to give McClellan his plans for Western Virginia but McClellan was ill with typhoid.  Finally General Fitz-John Porter interviewed him.  Both Porter and McClellan were former students of Rosecrans at West Point. 

• Rosecrans was not given any orders so he returned to Wheeling to discover McClellan had reduced his troops from 22,000 to 2,000.

• Rosecrans got word his mother, Jemima, who made her home with her son Charles in Keokuk County, Iowa, had died.  As soon as the children recovered from whooping cough in Yellow Springs, Anne would joined Rosecrans in Wheeling.  G. P. A. Healy painted their portraits.

• Wintering in Wheeling was rough on Rosecrans' troops.  McClellan had reduced from 22,000 to 2,000.  Cold winter with heavy snowfall brought misery to the remaining troops.  A typhoid epidemic struck so Rosecrans moved the men from crowded houses to clean hospital tents which reduced the number of sick from 300 to 30.

• Rosecrans concentrated on building a mule train to get them over the mountains. 
• He designed a light four wheeled ambulance with springs to carry the wounded troops.  This was immediately adopted throughout the Union Armies
• Brigadier-General Rosecrans' letter of March 12, 1862, to General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-General concerned  his plans for moving forward in Virginia, controlling railroads, and providing materials for his men
• Rosecrans' letter of the 18th of April 1862, which he wrote to Secretary of  War Edwin W. Stanton, says his men are idle and ready to move.

Rear View

Photo of Fire Scars
Brady Photo
 

Side View

• General Fremont replaced Rosecrans in Western Virginia, and Rosecrans was transferred to the western theater,

• Rosecrans letter from headquarters of  the Army of the Mississippi. He wrote,
  "For more than a year we have engaged in this struggle, into which an arrogant and dictatorial slave-oligarchy has driven a free, happy, and peaceful people, fighting for the rights of all.  With true bravery and invincible patience our citizen soldiers have stood on this ground to the present moment, against violators of the laws of war and humanity.  Remaining true to their principles, they have said, by words and actions, to their fellow citizens in the South, We fight for common rights.  If we win, you win.  If the government is maintained, you will dwell under protecting shadow as freely as we.  And there we stand, and thus we say, to-day.
  
  "But if the Confederates prevail, farewell peace and safety to us;  farewell freedom forever!  Their principles and leaders are known to us.  They cheated us, crying out, No coercion; holding out false hopes and deceitful assurances of friendly regard, while, assassin-like, they were preparing to destroy our Government and reduce us to anarchy and servitude.  The past year's experience renders it certain that if they triumph, blood and desolation, fire and sword, or arbitrary subjection to their will, awaits every white man who has manhood enough to dislike their system of slavery.
  
  "They will omit no means, honest or dishonest, to insure success.  Misrepresenting, calumniating our motives, ridiculing our honest efforts to mitigate the horrors of war, and inflaming the passions of the populace by low epithets, are among the milder and more ordinary means resorted to by this pseudo 'chivalry,' the meanest aristocracy that ever stood at the head of a civilized society."

Iuka-Corinth, Mississippi, Campaign

• Geologist Andrew Brown, portrayed Rosecrans as a master cartographer.  While at Corinth, Rosecrans staff under his close supervision,  developed an excellent set of maps of Northern Mississippi. These were printed on site.   Later U. S. Grant would use these maps.

• Rosecrans leading the Army of Mississippi defeated General Sterling Price in the battle of Iuka, Mississippi on September 19, 1862.  Rosecrans' Army approached the city from the southwest. Army of the Tennessee under Major-General U. S. Grant  and General Edward O. C. Ord  approached from the northwest and were to commence firing when they heard Rosecrans.  After fighting through the afternoon Rosecrans defeated General Price without assistance of the other two.  Why did Grant stand by during the fight?  If Grant modified the plan, why did he not inform Rosecrans?  Grant failed to give Rosecrans any credit for the victory. Now there was more bad blood between the men.

• Rosecrans defeated General Van Dorn and General Sterling Price in the second battle of Corinth on October 3rd and 4th, 1862.  Union casualties were 2,520 (355 dead, 1.841 wounded and 324 missing)  Confederates lost 8,691 (1,423 dead, 5,000 wounded and 2,268 captured or missing).

• Here is where historians disagree as to what happened next.  Grant's Memoirs maintain Rosecrans "failed to follow up the victory, although I had given specific orders in advance of the battle for him to pursue the moment the enemy was repulsed; he did not do so, and I repeated the order after the battle." 

• Rosecrans maintained he was never given these orders.  No orders of this kind appear in the Official Records.  The day after the battle, Rosecrans pursued the retreating Confederate army but was recalled by Grant despite protests from Rosecrans.

• In Bickham's account in the Cincinnati Commercial,  dated October 9:  And now, to whom is due the honors of the battle of Corinth?  The verdict of the whole army is in favor of General Rosecrans.  Officers universally assert that it was he who planned the whole series of operations by which the enemy were entrapped under the forts of Corinth.  He found the position  unprepared for attack, and without orders he made a powerful place.  By skilful manouevering he deceived the enemy.  By pretending to be beaten on Friday, he drew them into a place in which he gave the terrible punishment, and almost destroyed their army.  It would seem from General Grant's dispatches that he claims the honors.. . . He did not assist General Rosecrans.  After the enemy was defeated he sent General McPherson to Corinth with two thousand men. . . . That is all he did.
  
  By rights, Rosecrans should have been promoted following all of his successes but he was passed over. 
  
  Rosecrans was made Major General on September 17, 1862.  Lincoln back-dated the commission to March 21, 1862.

• On October 16, Department of Tennessee was created with Grant in command.

• Family news was not good.  Anne and the children were staying with Mrs. Eliakim Parker Scammon in Yellow Springs, Ohio. During the battle, Rosecrans received word that Annie had been dangerously ill but was recovering.  Their baby (Charlotte) was dead. 

• To cheer Annie, Rosecrans wrote a detailed letter of the truce with Van Dorn at Holly Springs.  Lamers says he bragged a little like many husbands when he wrote, "[The Confederates] have a wholesome regard for me, praise very highly the style of our troops and the tactics on the field of battle. They are more afraid of me than any other general in service.  Thanks be to God for that."

• Click on the window at the left.  It is from the house in Yellow Springs.  Below is a page from 2014 Historical Tour forwarded by Tom Wolke.

• Grant and the politicians may not have liked Rosecrans but the men under him were a different matter.  Cyrus Boyd wrote,  "Genr'l Rosecrans, our commanding General came around this evening and was almost taken from his horse by the soldiers.  The wildest enthusiasm prevailed and every man seems ready to pursue the enemy.  We have had but few battles so well managed as old "Rosa' has managed this one."

• Years later on June 2, 1895, The San Francisco Call, had a front page article by James Gilmore entitled Rosecrans' Battle:  He Held His Own Against a Vastly Superior Force

• At Rosecrans interment in Arlington National Cemetery, David B. Henderson, Speaker of the House of Representatives said:  

  " I had the pleasure of serving under his command at the battle of Corinth, and also served with him in the House of Representatives where our relations became intimate and most friendly.  He was one of the most fearless officers that I ever saw in battle.  He seemed to be unconscious of danger.  On the fourth of October, 1862, when the armies of Price and Van Dorn were pressing our lines and symptoms of our falling back were manifest, he suddenly dashed between the Federal and Confederate lines like the very spirit of war.  He passed but a few steps in front of where I was.  I can feel his presence yet.  His hat had blown off.  His firmly set face seemed as though he was made for a god of battle.  Swinging his sword he called out to us:

  " Stand by your flag and country, my men!"

  " How he escaped, God only knows.  It seemed as though the very air was full of lead, and death was holding high carnival along his pathway, and yet fearless he rode into the very teeth of death, rallying successfully his men for the mighty struggle before them.  That splendid, fearless, heroic dash was the death-knell to the armies of Price and Van Dorn."
   

• Corinth in the Civil War  by Timothy B. Smith  on  the Mississippi Historical Society site, shows a print of the battle and a photo of the dead outside Battery Robinette the morning following the battle.

Army of the Cumberland

• In October  Lincoln antedated Rosecrans commission to March 21, 1862 thus giving him recognition for his Western Virginia victories.  This cleared the way to make Rosecrans Commander of the Department of Cumberland and he was sent to replace Buell. Grant was glad to be rid of him.  Major General Thomas was mortified that he was passed over for the position.  In typical Rosecrans fashion, he wrote to Thomas, "My command came to me unsought.  Had the government so willed. I would gladly have served under you"  and gave Thomas his choice of commands.

• Rosecrans changed the name to Army of the Cumberland.

• Rosecrans set up headquarters in a private residence in Bowling Green.  Daniel notes, "The ungrateful, Southern sympathizing hostess promptly tinctured his drinking water with soft soap, confining him to bed for a day."

• Major General Rosecrans found his new command in a very sorry state.  He obtained permission to muster out officers guilty of pillaging, drunkenness, misbehavior and other offenses.  Absenteeism among the troops was rampart.  He got permission to muster out these men.

• When Rosecrans took over the Army of the Cumberland supplies were very low and often non-existent.  He requested John W. Taylor who had served him as Quartermaster of the Army of Mississippi be transferred to the Army of the Cumberland to serve as Chief Quartermaster.  Even when the river was unnavigable and the railroads were not operating, he made sure to anticipate the needs of the army.

• Rosecrans also brought Samuel Simmons from the Army of the Mississippi to serve as chief of the Commissary Department which contracted and found food for the soldiers making sure a full supply was on hand.

• Rosecrans built up his cavalry.  Requested General David Stanley be transferred to the Department of the Cumberland to command the cavalry.  They are "the eyes and feet of my army, and will be its providers."

• Under Rosecrans' personal care and  inspection, the Medical Department conceived and planned this field hospital at Murfreesborough while the Engineer Corps of the Pioneer Brigade laid it out like a village:  a city of tents, with broad streets humped in the middle, alleys and walks.  Gutters ran along the streets taking the rain water which ran off the tents into channels then to the gutters  The headquarters medical tents, surgery, house erected for a hospital, sanitary stores, the post-office, and news-depot were in the center of this tent city.

• Rosecrans built up the Topographical Department.  Mapping was a high priority of the army.  The cartographers were given every resource possible.  Using pre-war State Geological Survey Maps as their base, they supplemented these with cavalry reconnaissance, civilian informers, and other sources for areas still under Confederate control.  Then all the information was quickly incorporated in usable maps.

• Engineering Corps and Pioneer Corps (the latter was half mechanics and half laborers) were needed to build roads, railroads, bridges and other structures needed to sustain the army.

• He established bases and lines of communications to keep constant communication between the different parts of the army and the different commanding generals.  He adopted the signal system and reorganized the Army Signal and Telegraph Service

• Established an Army Directory to locate each command and join the thousands of stragglers left behind when the army moved.   Colonel Truesdail set up a tent and installed an agent to man it.  Handbills were posted to give the location of the tent where stragglers were dispatched to their respective camps.

• An Inspector General routinely inspected the troops.  Rosecrans personally reviewed the brigades demanding their best.  The men responded.

• Developed a thoroughly complete system of daily military mail  with the leadership of Colonel Truesdail.  Letters were addressed to Soldier, Company Regiment, Branch (Artillery, Cavalry, or Infantry), Army of the Cumberland.  Distributing officers had lists so they could find where the letter should be sent.  This was very popular with the soldiers. 

• Religion was a large part of Rosecrans' camp life. While there were 44 Protestant chaplains, there were only 3 Catholic priests although there was a large number of Irish and German Catholics soldiers. First and second generation Irish, German and Italian immigrants accounted for the high percentage of Catholics under Rosecrans' command. The mostly Irish 10th Ohio had its own Catholic chaplain, Father William T. O'Higgins. Nineteenth century church records note that Rosecrans "edified the army by attending the holy sacrifice of the masses." (To "edify" — an archaic term-means to "instruct or improve morally or spiritually by good example.") 
  
  "As commander of the U.S. Army of the Cumberland, Rosecrans recruited his own personal "confessor." Father Jeremiah Trecy not only looked after the general's spiritual needs while camped in Rutherford County, he also rode with the general under fire and tended to the wounded and dying during the Battle of Stones River and throughout the Tennessee campaign", notes a posting on Tennessean.com

• On October 30 he began his march to Nashville   Rosecrans concentrated on getting supplies as he waited for Bragg to bring the Confederate army to Nashville and for the river to rise. For 45 days he collected supplies and saw to his men.

An original copy of this newspaper is on display in the Myers Inn Museum

• On November 8th, 1862, Mathew Bradley's photo of General Rosecrans filled the entire front page of  New York's Harper's Weekly.
• On November 9th, Julius Garesché, a Catholic friend of Rosecrans', was appointed chief of staff to General Rosecrans.  He had was a kind, articulate man and a favorite among the men. His story is a sad one but one worth taking the time to read. 
• On Christmas night he met his corps commanders  for a "consultation" which ended with,  "We move tomorrow, gentleman! . . . Spread out your skirmishes far and wide.  Keep pushing ahead.  Expose their nests.  Fight and keep fighting.  They will not stand it."

Battle of Stone River

• On December 30, 1862 the four day battle of Stone River began. Rosecrans won.
• At the left the General is riding into battle with his Chief of Staff Garesché and Capt. C. Goddard.  This is to be the last ride for  Garesché.  Rosecrans' telegram to the War Department tells of his death.  He was buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Washington D.C. 
• Sometimes it helps to see an animated version of the battle. Battle of Perrysville and Stones River- Animated from HistoryAnimated.com
• Rosecrans rode Boney, his favorite gray, at Stone River

• W.D.B.,  (William Denison Bickham), a correspondent from  Cincinnati Commercial, a newspaper,  penned an account of the battle complete with battle maps.
   
• David Moore calls this battle the turning point of the Civil War.

• In an editorial in The New York Times on January 7, 1863, the editor noted,  "What, then, is his advantage? We believe it lies in his invariable practice of being personally present on the field of battle, where he sees for himself every movement, gives the appropriate command without delay, and, if necessary, takes an active part personally in the struggle." 
   

• "Have We A General Among Us?" asked Harper's Weekly on January 17, 1863.  The article carried high praises for Rosecrans.  "He saved the day, and repelled the enemy, by galloping into the thick of the fight, and reanimating his troops by the spectacle of his courage. He is a man of enthusiasm, as well as a man of calculation: when his army fights, he is with them."
   

• In December 1861, the Appleton Post-Crescent ran this American Heritage article  Who Won at Murfreesboro?

• Following the Battle of Stones River, the Indiana Legislature sent a proclamation to General Rosecrans and his men thanking them for protecting them.  In response, General Rosecrans wrote a very stirring letter to thank Indiana for its kindness and to apprise them of conditions his men were facing.  The New York Times carried this letter in March 1863.  He tells of some of the atrocities of war and praises his men for continuing to stand up for their nation.  The General writes,  "I speak the conviction of the officers and men of this army, when I say we fight to secure equal rights to all, under the Constitution and the laws -- we fight in defense of our homes and hearths, sure to be invaded, if the rebel despots who began the war, can get the power. But we long for peace -- we pray for peace, and we fight for peace -- not for a dishonorable peace -- not for a hollow truce. We have once been deceived by the cry of "No coercion," and of "State rights." and have seen how the rebel leaders practice, in East Tennessee, Missouri, Western Virginia and Kentucky. We have met the masses of the South, and are witnesses of the falsehood, calumny and perfidy by which they have been led to wage war against us. We have seen flags of truce violated -- hospitals, ambulances and boats, bearing flags, fired upon, and our sick and wounded stripped of their blankets and robbed of their food and medicines -- we have been approached in battle by rebels wearing our uniforms and carrying our colors."    

• John Fitch added the following testimony of Rosecrans ability and worth from an enemy, a correspondent of the Commonwealth in Atlanta, Georgia, who wrote this two months after the battle of Stone River:
  "General  Rosecrans is a man of more than ordinary ability.  In all the various positions in which he has been placed, he has exhibited the most untiring industry and indomitable energy.  He is an accomplished engineer, a wily strategist, and a brave and prudent leader.  He is undoubtedly the ablest general now in the Federal army.  He is very different from the native Yankee, being bold, frank, outspoken, and possessing the dash and  manner of the Western people.  He is the idol of his officers and men, and possesses their entire confidence to an eminent degree.  He will fight; and he impresses it upon those about him that hard licks alone will end the war.

• "Socially, General Rosecrans is modest, refined, polite, and affable.  He would command respect and confidence in any community.  In person he is five feet ten inches, and in weight about one hundred and sixty pounds.  He stands very erect, with military dash and bearing strongly depicted in his person.  His features are mild, but there is striking expression in his clear gray eyes.  His complexion is florid, hair slightly tinged with gray, and his features and person would be called handsome.  General Rosecrans is a devoted member of the Roman Catholic Church."

• General Rosecrans was a letter writer.  Two of his letters written during this time back to Ohio were published in a book titled,   A Savoury Dish for Loyal Men

• General Rosecrans at High Mass on the Battle-field of Stone River.  The priest in the woodcut  looks a lot like his brother, Father Sylvester H. Rosecrans.  From Cincinnati Bishop Rosecrans often visited his brother during the war to pray with him and with his soldiers before battles. Religion was such a strong part of General Rosecrans life and his men remembered him taking time to pray with them and even his ordering men to fast so they could take communion before battles.

• Two events of this battle are recounted annually.  Around the end of October, the press tells the story of the Headless Horseman. 

• Around Christmas, the animals are remembered in A-Civil-War-Christmas-Story-from-Stones-River.

• A bugler with the army known as Frank Martin, was a woman but the men did not know it.  Her story is told by Larry Eggleston in his book, Women of the Civil War.

• Pauline Cushman was an entertainer who narrowly missed being hung as a spy for General Rosecrans in March 1863.                                            Pauline Cushman

• Dr. James P. Streeter wrote home to his sister in Michigan in April 1863.  He says his unit is building a railroad station in Murfreesboro.  General Rosecrans came every day to check the progress of the station.  The men thought that was "right smart of him."  James goes on to tell about the food and the living conditions of his unit.

Tullahoma Campaign

• The Battle of Stones River had left both armies tired and hungry.   Rosecrans had lost a lot of men and needed reinforcements which meant more new men to train.  When Rosecrans was ready to move he had 50,017 men to Bragg's 46,665.

• Railroads were heavily damaged cutting off supplies.  Confederates were taking supplies from the boats on the Cumberland River.  Wagon trains were organized to carry supplies.

• Rosecrans needed horses for his cavalry as well as draft horses to pull the supplies. Because of the shortage of good horses needed by the cavalry,  Col. John Wilder formed a mounted infantry using locally found horses and Spencer repeaters.

• Morale became a big problem. The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed during the the battle of Stones River and the soldiers who were fighting for the preservation of the United States were not sure they should be risking their lives for for people of another race.  Rosecrans, an abolitionist, convinced his men other countries would not support slavery and therefore not help the South.  He urged them to become "Pragmatic Abolitionists."
   

• Weather was also holding Rosecrans back. According to William Wood  Rosecrans reported:  "The winter rains made the roads impassable for large military operations..... Meanwhile we hardened our cavalry, drilled our infantry, fortified Nashville and Murfreesboro for secondary depots and arranged our plans for the coming campaign upon the opening of the roads, which were expected to be by 1st of May 1863."  In Washington, Stanton and Halleck saw a relaxed army commander stalling for time until he was good and ready to move.
   

• Rosecrans also used this down time to prepare maps for the next campaign and learn all he could about the terrain.
   

• On June 22, Confederate General Morgan with 2,300 cavalry began his second raid which would lead him through Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio and into the Ohio penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. Rosecrans chose this time to move after 169 days of rebuilding his army.  While he angered his superiors by waiting, he was well prepared when he moved. 
   

• Rosecrans had full accurate descriptions of Bragg's defenses and knew frontal attacks would be costly and hazardous. Lamers  writes Rosecrans feigned in one direction and thrust elsewhere.  Had it not been for days of heavy rain which made roads impassable, mired wagons and smothered horses when they sunk in the mud, it is very likely Rosecrans would have overtaken and destroyed Bragg's army.
   

• Instead from June 24 through July 7, 1863, Rosecrans drove Bragg out of the middle of Tennessee in the least bloody of any major victory of the war.  On the Union side 83 were killed, 473 wounded and 13 captured or missing.  1.634 Confederates were captured including 59 officers.  616 claimed they delivered themselves voluntarily and 96 joined the Union army.  The Reno Evening Gazette remembered this in 1913.
   

• Stanley said:  "If any student of military art desires to make a study of a model campaign, let him take the maps and General Rosecrans' orders for daily movements of this campaign.  No better example of successful strategy was carried out during the war than in the Tullahoma Campaign."

• 
  Geologist, Andrew Brown claimed Rosecrans' military genius came from obtaining and using topographic information.   During the Tullahoma Campaign, Rosecrans used his geological perspective to allow the Union forces to outflank the Confederate defensive position without giving battle.  This is one of the best planned and executed achievements of the war.
   

• Meanwhile on July 4th, Grant was victorious. Vicksburg surrendered.  Confederate General Lee was defeated at Gettysburg.  But Bragg still had his army and Rosecrans' operation was ignored.

• Instead from June 24 through July 7, 1863, Rosecrans drove Bragg out of the middle of Tennessee in the least bloody of any major victory of the war.  On the Union side 83 were killed, 473 wounded and 13 captured or missing.  1.634 Confederates were captured including 59 officers.  616 claimed they delivered themselves voluntarily and 96 joined the Union army. 
   

• Stanley said:  "If any student of military art desires to make a study of a model campaign, let him take the maps and General Rosecrans' orders for daily movements of this campaign.  No better example of successful strategy was carried out during the war than in the Tullahoma Campaign."

• 
  Geologist, Andrew Brown claimed Rosecrans' military genius came from obtaining and using topographic information.   During the Tullahoma Campaign, Rosecrans used his geological perspective to allow the Union forces to outflank the Confederate defensive position without giving battle.  This is one of the best planned and executed achievements of the war.

• Meanwhile on July 4th, Grant was victorious. Vicksburg surrendered.  Confederate General Lee was defeated at Gettysburg.  But Bragg still had his army and Rosecrans' operation was ignored.

• July 7th to August 11 was used to rebuild railway bridges and trestles, and put roads in order.  As soon as the corn had ripened for food and forage, Rosecrans made his move to cross the Tennessee River. By concealing his crossing points and misdirecting Bragg's attention, he forced Bragg  from `Chickamauga.  Due to faulty intelligence, Rosecrans thought Bragg's army was retreating in disorder then in reality, it had taken a strong position behind Chickamauga (a local Indian word meaning "river of death") Creek.

• Photo link at the left will take you to the identification of the General's Staff.

• By now the princely rations of hard-tack, bacon and coffee were gone although the memory of it was left.  It was replaced with parched corn and cobs.  Then the rains came and the men walked their beats in summer blouses and worn out shoes.  They could see the Confederates were in the same shape.

• At the 1896 Reunion of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland. Captain Charles Belknap's  address told how the Cracker Line came to be.   On September 23, Rosecrans sent for Captain Perrin V. Fox and told him "I want a pontoon bridge across the river east of Cameron Hill as soon as possible.  You have carte-blanche to take anything you can find for it."  Fox found some resawed planks suitable for boats, balks, side rails and roadway planks but they were too short to make boats of the regular size so he designed a wider boat with a triangular bow to resist the current and perpendicular sides so it would settle evenly in the water when it was loaded. He had a support from bow to stern on which to fasten the balk could be locked and fasted by ropes to keep them in place and sustain the weight when loaded. The timber was long enough to give space between the boats.  When Fox took his plan to Rosecrans, the chief engineer General Morton ridiculed it but Rosecrans saw the merit and told Fox to carry on.  They made two boats the next day which held well when Rosecrans got in one.  The calculated weight for each boat to hold was 7,800 pounds. 
  
  There was no lumber strong enough to go across the boats to make a bridge so Fox took down houses to get the beams and by October 7, wagons began to pass over the bridge. The Cracker Line was born. Rosecrans ordered another bridge and gave Fox the sawmills and men he needed to do the job.  The boats for this second bridge were used to ferry the troops before the bridge was constructed.

• Meanwhile, on October 3, Rosecrans wrote to President Lincoln with a proposal:  "If we maintain the position in such strength that the enemy are obliged to abandon their position, and the elections in the great States go favorably would it not be well to offer general amnesty to the officers and soldiers in the  rebellion?  It would give us moral strength and weaken them very much."   Lincoln replied, "If we can hold Chattanooga and East Tennessee, I think the rebellion will dwindle and die."  Rosecrans' letter gave his enemies more fodder.  

Battle of Chattanooga, Chickamauga

• Gordon Mansion at Crawfish Springs, Georgia, was the  Headquarters for General Rosecrans for a few days in September 1863.  Unfortunately the Confederate troops were closer than his Union troops.  During the battle it was a Federal field hospital.

• Lee and Gordon Mills was the scene for a battle.

• General Rosecrans alternately rode Boney, his favorite gray horse, and Tobey, a mettlesome dappled gray, during the battle.

• Confederate General D. H. Hill wrote in Chickamauga, Great Battle of the West that "At the beginning of the Civil War I was asked the question,  "Who of the Federal Officers are most to be feared?"  I replied,  "Sherman, Rosecrans, and McClellan.  Sherman has genius and daring, and is full of resources.  Rosecrans has fine practical sense and is of a tough, tenacious fiber.  McClellan is a man of talents, and his delight has always been in the study of military history and the art of science and war."  Grant was not once thought of."

• Wood in Rosecrans and His Chickamauga Battle  states Bragg said "Rosecrans must not capture Chattanooga."  It was the line to the southern cities.

• Rosecrans needed to get across the Tennessee River without alerting the Confederate General Bragg who was on the other side of the river at the important rail center in Chattanooga. Rosecrans decided to deceive the enemy to the Union point of crossing.  August 16, 1863, Rosecrans ordered  bulk of his army southwest where they could cross the river  while Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen was ordered to feint an attack on Chattanooga  from the north.  Using  Col. John T. Wilder's mounted Lightening Brigade (9,000 men) began making feints for forty miles above Chattanooga as though they were getting ready to cross the river.  "Details were made nearly every night to build fires indicating large camps, and by throwing boards upon others and hammering on barrels and sawing up boards and throwing the pieces in streams that would float them into the river, we made them believe we were preparing to cross with boats."  By the time Bragg realized he had been hoodwinked, the bulk of the Union army had crossed the river was poised at the rear making Chattanooga untenable for Bragg. On September 7th Bragg abandoned the railroad and Rosecrans reported "Chattanooga has been taken without a struggle.  Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans had just pulled off of the most brilliant strategic deceptions of the entire war.

• Rosecrans secured Chattanooga for the Union.  This map was published in New York Herald, September 29, 1863.  With it is a page of comments about the war. 
• In 1938, the residents of Walker County, Georgia, remembered the war from the view of civilians as they saw their homes and lives shattered. 
   
• During the battle of Chickamauga.  General Wood a division commander,  received conflicting orders and chose to follow one without checking to see why the orders did not make sense.  This made a hole in the line and Bragg took advantage of it, thus defeating the Union troops. Chickamauga  went to Bragg and Rosecrans fell back to hold Chattanooga.  
   

• Captain  Gaw, of Thomas' staff, was ordered to guide Rosecrans and his staff  to Chattanooga by the shortest possible route and took him over the ridges of the Day Valley road and then said "General this is the direct route to Chattanooga, I trust you will permit me to return to General Thomas."  Rosecrans agreed and started to give Gaw messages for Thomas but Gaw suggested he should send his Chief of Staff.  Thus Rosecrans  directed Garfield to return to the field and tell Thomas that Rosecrans had gone to Chattanooga to prepare for the reception of the Army when it should fall back. 

• Garfield was in position to write orders for Rosecrans.  Did  he sent the wrong order or fail to sent the right order?  Theodore Smith, a Garfield biographer, noted Garfield avoided putting anything in writing about that day. Perhaps he saw his opportunity for political gain.  It appears he and Charles Dana, sent by War Secretary Stanton to spy on Rosecrans, were slipping negative comments to Washington.  A letter from Garfield to Chase was very damaging.  Chase held the letter then finally took it on to Washington.  Unfortunately not until Volume XXX of the Official Records was published in 1890 did Dana's true role become public, then he tried to blame Garfield.

• Chaplain Thomas Van Horn, who wrote a history of the Army of the Cumberland and the Life of General George H. Thomas, told John Beatty Garfield was not the hero of Chickamauga and his presence had no influence on the battle, he made no important suggestion to Thomas, and was after his return simply a spectator.
   
• James M. Perry has a chapter on Chickamauga and how it helped make Garfield president. 

• As often happened in this war, politicians made the decisions and if the voters were unhappy, the generals had to go.  Rosecrans had already made enemies in high places so they were quick to relieve him of duty. 

• Rosecrans was under siege after retreating to Chattanooga, and when Grant was given overall command of the Western theater, Lincoln gave him two sets of orders.  One was to relieve Rosecrans and the other was to retain him. Grant chose to rid himself of Rosecrans, whom he hated. 

• Major General Thomas was given the command of the Army of the Cumberland.  He went to Rosecrans and said he felt this never should  have happened and would refuse the command.  Rosecrans told him he must not do that as the army needed a commander.  Rosecrans gave Thomas his plans for taking Wauhatchie.  The two men continued to be friends the rest of their lives.
   

• On October 22, 1863, the New York Times said his "removal had been contemplated for some time."
   
• On October 26, 1863, the Richmond Examiner carried the following:   Meantime, Lincoln is helping us.  He has removed from command the most dangerous man in his army, and put two fools in his place.  A variety of mean and damaging pretexts for Rosecrans' removal have been published by the yankee press.  But the true reason is that he failed at Chickamauga, and the abolitionist government adheres to its system of dismissing every general who incurs defeat.  Lincoln has, however, more reason than usual for the act, if it be true that he desired Rosecrans to stop at Chattanooga and if the latter attempted his Napoleonic operation in Georgia on his own responsibility.  That extraordinary slip can only be explained on the ground that the yankee's head had been turned by his success in Tennessee. 
  
  Rosecrans, thus retired, is unquestionably the greatest captain the yankee nation has yet produced.  His performances in the field are too fresh in the memory of reader to necessitate recapitulation.  We may mention in proof of his intellectual abilities that he graduated fifth in a class of fifty-six, in which General G. W. Smith graduated eighth and Longstreet fifty-fourth.
   

• On October 28, 1863, the Cincinnati Daily Gazette ran the following two items:
  
  News of the Day
  General ROSECRANS' removal from the command of the Army of the Cumberland has caused two sensations in Washington.  In the first place, the lying correspondents of some of the newspapers caused a sensation by their infamous slanders, manufactured, perhaps, for the purpose of creating a public opinion, to sustain an act  of  injustice.    The second sensation is caused by General Rosecrans' speech in this city, which upset the sensational and lying stories put afloat a few days ago.  Our correspondent says the public at the Capital now require some statement from the Administration as to Gen. Rosecrans' removal.  In the meantime the latter officer occupies a favorable position.  He stands before the country as one of our best and most successful generals who failed to win a complete victory at Chicamauga, because he was not properly sustained by the government; and who is now without a command because he thus failed.  This is the way the people look at it; and the blame that was sought to be cast upon the hero of so many victories, is now transferred in a  lump to Washington to be borne by the President, Halleck or Stanton.  When Congress  meets we  shall probably know the pair of shoulders destined to carry the load.

  LATEST BY TELEGRAPH
  General Rosecrans
  General Rosecrans' remarks at Cincinnati, produce a decided sensation here.  The friends of the Administration admit that his statements render some further explanation necessary, and at the same time leave him in a satisfactory position.

• After reading an account of Rosecrans' remarks in Cincinnati, James A. Connolly wrote  home to his wife on November 5, 1863 from Chattanooga:  "I am as confirmed an abolitionist as ever was pelted with stale eggs, but I rarely think of it except when I see the operations of old stay-at-home politicians to drag down and ruin every earnest man who, in these days of action and earnestness, is supplanting them in the affections of the people.  Rosecrans relieved!  Then comes the starveling crew of home politicians to defame his character, to defame a name that should stand bright on the pages of history, to steal away laurels that such as they can never win.  If such men and such reports are to mould public opinion, God help the Republic!  I have no patience to think about it, much less to write about it.  The scoundrels!  How can men be so depraved?  General Rosecrans was my beau ideal of a leader; I would follow him with the devotion of the crusaders for "Peter the Hermit."  This entire army was an army of crusaders under his leadership.  He was the light and life of this army.  When the order for his removal was made public this army said nothing, it was dumb, the blow was too sudden and too severe for speech; we all now pursue our way quietly, as soldiers bound to obey the orders of our superiors; we used to obey because we loved our leader, but let it be announced tomorrow that Rosecrans was to command us again, and every silent tongue in this quiet army would find a voice, whose loud acclaim would almost wake again to the deadly shock our sleeping comrades on Chickamauga's banks.  But enough; we'll triumph under Grant, just as well as Rosecrans, and perhaps it is right that Generals should be dealt with unjustly sometimes, as well as privates."

• In 1864 James Garfield took his seat in the House of Representatives and was re-elected every two years through 1878.  During that time a resolution was on the floor to honor General George H. Thomas for his part in the Battle of Chickamauga.  There was no mention of Rosecrans so Garfield moved to correct the error.  He felt Congress would dishonor Thomas if they failed to recognize Rosecrans for the campaign which culminated in the battle of Chickamauga.  After all, Rosecrans had organized and commanded the army of the Cumberland.  While Thomas deserves praise so did Rosecrans.  In 1882 David Hosterman in his biography of Garfield notes, "The nation now knows that Garfield was right, that Rosecrans was one of the ablest soldiers and purest patriots that  helped to crush the Rebellion."

• Hiram Grant, a.k.a. U. S. Grant continued throwing barbs at Rosecrans when he wrote his Personal Memoirs with Mark Twain in 1885-6.    This two volume set was immediately a best seller and thus the public accepted Grant's version as truth.
   

• Others such as Beadle accused Grant of not telling the truth.   Edward A. Pollard in Southern History of the War (1865), wrote:
  [Robert E. Lee's Western Virginia campaign], after its plain failure, was virtually abandoned by the Government. Rosecrans was esteemed in the South as one of the best generals the North had in the field. He was declared by military critics, who could not be accused of partiality, to have clearly outgeneraled Lee, who made the entire object of his campaign to "surround the Dutch General."

• I can not leave this battle without allowing Major General William Starke Rosecrans to tell us what really happened when Major General Thomas took over the command.  On March 21, 1882, he was asked to address the reunion of the Army of the Cumberland in Chicago.  How General Thomas Came to be the Last Commander of the Army of the Cumberland.  
   
• Then in July 1885, The North American Review carried an eighteen page article entitled  The Mistakes of Grant by William S. Rosecrans. 
   
• Whitelaw Reid said of Rosecrans, "The enemies whom he made by his sturdy honesty dealt him their fatal blow at the unkindest moment.  Rosecrans had never been more active, more enterprising, more skillful, than after Chickamauga."
   
• The marker to the Battle of Chickamauga.
   
• Should you feel this writer is biased, take time to read Lt. Col. Robert J. Dalessandro's Major General William S. Rosecrans and the Transformation of the Staff of the Army of the Cumberland:  a Case Study (2002).
   
• General Rosecrans went back to Cincinnati to wait for orders. Grant decided to assume personal charge of the Federal forces: but before he reached his command, Thomas, ably assisted by his chief engineer, General W. F. Smith, had begun to act on a plan which Rosecrans had conceived, and which proven in the end to be a brilliant conception.

• Ed Nice took a trip to Lookout Mountain in 2011 and sent me the following photograph of a park sign.  It tells the Chattanooga story.

• Father Sylvester was president of the school, Mount St. Mary's.  Following Chickamauga William's family was living next door in a stone house called "Roccabella" which had been the convent.   Sylvester would often spend  his afternoons at Roccabella playing and reading with the children.  Later when William was gone and the family could not go with him, Sylvester stepped in to help Anne.   Price Hill Historical Society says the home at 2935 Lehman Road in Price Hill is where General Rosecrans stayed.  Is this Roccabella?

2935 Lehman Road

• While Rosecrans could have sat around and felt sorry for himself, he organized the Great Western Sanitary Fair in Cincinnati which ran from December 21, 1863 until January 9th 1864.  It raised money for wounded and disabled soldiers.

Department of the Missouri

• January 1864 Rosecrans assigned to head of Department of Missouri in St. Louis.  The troops were reduced from 68,425 at the end of 1863 to only 660 officers and 16,323 men present for duty. Rosecrans asked for out of state troops to police western Missouri. Halleck approved the plan but could send no men.  Grant insisted Rosecrans had more men than he needed.  Four regiments marched to Mississippi to General E. R. S. Canby leaving Rosecrans without sufficient forces to guard the depots, railroads and communications he had.
• Rosecrans began recruiting all eligible men and slowly raised his own troops to defend St. Louis and insure fair elections.

Major General Rosecrans

• His predecessors in this post had encountered insuperable obstacles in administration but Rosecrans still tried to overcome them. 

• Although Rosecrans still had some friends in Washington his requests were usually refused.

• Even with this obstacles, Rosecrans "so managed and concluded a campaign against the Confederate General Price, that his army was defeated and driven  out of the state,"  noted in "The Union Army."
   

• Although the last public auction of slaves in St. Louis took place on Jan.1,1861, slaves continued to be sold in the city discreetly with traders sending slaves to auctions in Kentucky. General Rosecrans ordered the sale practice stopped on March 1, 1864.  He sent orders on procedures to allow former slaves to enlist in the army.
   

• In March 1864, there was a Sanitary Fair in Washington D.C. to raise money to support the troops.  From Missouri, Major General W. S. Rosecrans sent his signature to be used on this quilt.  In 2011 the quilt is on display in the Ford Theater Museum as the nation remembers the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
   
• After great success with the Sanitation Fair in Cincinnati, General Rosecrans was ask to help with the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair in St. Louis which opened in the middle of April 1864.  During his speech at the opening day of the fair, he urged people to allow raffles to raise money for relief of soldiers.  The event raised $614,782.28.  $554,591 was clear profit for relief of soldiers and their families as well as for freedmen and their families and for the Women's Relief organization who put on the fair.

• After great success with the Sanitation Fair in Cincinnati, General Rosecrans was ask to help with the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair in St. Louis which opened in the middle of April 1864.  During his speech at the opening day of the fair, he urged people to allow raffles to raise money for relief of soldiers.  The event raised $614,782.28.  $554,591 was clear profit for relief of soldiers and their families as well as for freedmen and their families and for the Women's Relief organization who put on the fair.
   

• In James Gilmore's biography of Lincoln he tells of Horace Greeley sending him to interview Rosecrans about serving as Lincoln's running mate. He remembers telling Rosecrans  of a proposal from nearly all the Republican leaders, Sumner, Conkling, and Wilson excepted, to make him a candidate for the Presidency.  Greeley had promised, if the mission should be successful, to "go to Lincoln and force him to resign." Hamlin." he said, "will give Rosecrans command of the armies, and there'll be a chance of saving the country."  Garfield highly approved the project but when it was opened to him, Rosecrans said:  "The good opinion of these gentlemen is exceedingly gratifying to me, and so is yours. . . . but my good friend, it cannot be.  My place is here.  The country gave me my education, and so has a right to my military services; and it educated me for precisely this emergency.  So this and not the Presidency, is my post of duty, and I cannot, without violating my conscience, leave it.  But let me tell you and I wish you would tell your friends who was moving in this matter, that you are mistaken about Mr. Lincoln.  He is in this right place.  I am in a position to know and if you live you will see that I am right about him."
   

• Garfield who controlled the Ohio delegation also suggested to Lincoln he ask Rosecrans to run for Vice-President .  By then people knew he had been unjustly handled after Chickamauga and he was a favorite among voters from both parties.  Garfield telegraphed Rosecrans and ask him to telegraph back a simple "yes."  Garfield never got the telegram.   L. W. Mulhane felt it was "pretty well established" that Stanton had intercepted and suppressed it.  At that time the telegraph line to Baltimore cleared through Stanton's office.  After Lincoln gave up waiting for an answer. Andrew Johnson was the nominee.
   

• In June 1864, the General wrote, "For several months I have been carefully considering your situation, influenced by a due sense of the responsibility of my position, and a sincere desire for your welfare. ... Daily appeals come to me from all quarters, invoking protection for person, property, industry and its fruits, accompanied by assurances from all, without regard to political or sectional sympathies, that the great mass of the people are ready and willing to unite for the preservation of the public peace, against those who, in violation to any law of war and humanity, under the title of Confederate soldiers, guerrillas and bushwhackers, invade, plunder and murder the peaceful inhabitants of your State." 
  
  As he had done in Western Virginia, the General recruited the support of the citizens to get control of their communities and restore law and order to the territory.  Orders 107 challenged the citizens to hold meeting, elect 3 people they trusted to set up a pyramid of command to unite with those of like position in other communities "for the preservation of the public peace, against those who, in violation to any law of war and humanity, under the title of Confederate soldiers, guerrillas and bushwhackers, invade, plunder and murder the peaceful inhabitants of your State."

• In September, 1864, General Price crossed the Arkansas to enter Missouri along the White River.  As Price moved towards St. Louis, Sherman asked Rosecrans to send Smith's division to him.  Rosecrans refused because he was arming every available citizen and militia man to defend St. Louis.  He pulled together 6,000 U.S. volunteers, some Missouri militia and a civilian legion to dog Price who had 15,000 men.  A starving Price was driven over the Arkansas River and Rosecrans returned to St. Louis in case there was trouble with the presidential elections.

Rosecrans' Pistol
in Wilson's Creek
National Battlefield Museum

• Grant was sure Rosecrans was concealing 6,000 to 8,000 troops so he sent a man to investigate.  Grant's friend and personal aide, Rawlins was to uncover the men.  Instead he found Rosecrans had sent them on as soon as the pursuit of Price had ended. Still Grant and Halleck were not convinced.  Once again Rosecrans was marked for removal.
   

• Grant wanted General Dodge to command Missouri. "Rosecrans will do less harm doing nothing than on duty,"  he telegraphed Stanton.
   

• On December 9 Rosecrans removal order came.  Rosecrans returned to Cincinnati to await orders. 
   

• Rosecrans ask President Johnson to assign him to California to look into gold mining for the government but the assignment was not made.  No orders were ever made nor was he ever told why he was relieved of duty.
   

• After sitting in Cincinnati for six months waiting for an assignment and on leave for six months following the end of the war, Major General Rosecrans was mustered out of the army December 28, 1865.

Events of the Civil War Remembered

• In 1938, residents of Walker County, Georgia, remembered the events at the time of the Civil War. 
   
• Although the number of men who died in the Civil War is thought to be 618,222, evidence shows the number was very likely many more and perhaps as high as 850,000 died. Francis Amasa Walker was head of the 1870 census and was accused of not taking an accurate record because the growth in population since 1860 was not in  line with previous growth by decade. 

Published by J. O. Kane, a well known publisher of the time who was best known for publishing Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge. 

Who anticipated the promotion, the General or the publisher?

Goto        Rosecrans Part 6:  Equestrian Statue of William S. Rosecrans
                                                on his horse Boney

Return to Bibliography

(04/11/2017)