Bragg Sees an Opportunity, September 9-11, 1863

With four railroads and access to several natural passes through the Southern Appalachian Mountains, Chattanooga was the gateway to the deep South. The Union army's objective — to capture and destroy the Confederacy's industrial centers in central Georgia and central Alabama - could not be accomplished without securing Chattanooga. Throughout the fall of 1863, the Blue and the Gray clashed in bloody contests for control of Chattanooga.

In the early fall of 1863, Federal commander Major General William S. Rosecrans planned a three-column attack on the city where General Braxton Bragg's Confederate army guarded the railroad crossing. While Rosecrans and Major General Thomas L. Crittenden's columns maneuvered to confuse Bragg as to the Federals' true point of attack, the real threat was a third column made up of Major General George H. Thomas' 14th Corps and Major General Alexander McDowell McCook's 20th Corps. They moved up from the west and south to threaten the Western & Atlantic Railroad. Recognizing that his supply line was in peril, Bragg pulled his forces out of Chattanooga by September 9 and withdrew to LaFayette, Georgia, where they met reinforcements from Virginia and Mississippi. With the Union Army vulnerable — split into three columns and spread dangerously thin over 40 miles — Bragg decided to attack. His first opportunity occurred here, in McLemore Cove, September 9 - 11, 1863.

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