Battle of Chickamauga
type: Event
type: Thing
type: Q1656682
type: SocietalEvent
label: Batalha de Chickamauga @pt
label: Bataille de Chickamauga @fr
label: Битва при Чикамоге @ru
label: Slaget vid Chickamauga @sv
label: 奇卡莫加战役 @zh
label: Slag bij Chickamauga @nl
label: Batalla de Chickamauga @es
label: Schlacht am Chickamauga @de
label: Bitwa nad Chickamaugą @pl
label: チカマウガの戦い @ja
label: Battaglia di Chickamauga @it
subject: Category:Conflicts in 1863
subject: Category:William Rosecrans
subject: Category:Battles of the Western Theater of the American Civil War
subject: Category:Walker County, Georgia
subject: Category:Braxton Bragg
subject: Category:Catoosa County, Georgia
subject: Category:1863 in Georgia (U.S. state)
subject: Category:Confederate victories of the American Civil War
subject: Category:Battles of the American Civil War in Georgia (U.S. state)
subject: Category:Chickamauga campaign
subject: Category:September 1863 events
architect: War Department; National Park Service
added: 1966-10-15
nrhp type: hd
refnum: 66000274
nocat: yes
commander: Alexander McDowell McCook
commander: George Henry Thomas
commander: William Rosecrans
commander: James Longstreet
commander: Gordon Granger
commander: Thomas Leonidas Crittenden
commander: Leonidas Polk
commander: Braxton Bragg
align: right
width: 30.0
strength: ~65,000
strength: ~60,000
is part of military conflict: Western theater of the American Civil War
place: Walker County, Georgia
place: Georgia (U.S. state)
place: Catoosa County, Georgia
result: Confederate victory
conflict: Battle of Chickamauga
result: Confederatevictory
partof: the Western Theater of the American Civil War
place: Catoosa and Walker counties, Georgia
map type: Georgia #USA
source: Confederate Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill
source: Telegram to U.S. War Department, 4 p.m., Charles A. Dana
source: The Edge of Glory, Rosecrans biographer William M. Lamers
source: Six Armies in Tennessee, Steven E. Woodworth.
source: Confederate Brig. Gen. Bushrod Johnson
source: Six Armies in Tennessee, Steven E. Woodworth
quote: It seems to me that the elan of the Southern soldier was never seen after Chickamauga.... He fought stoutly to the last, but, after Chickamauga, with the sullenness of despair and without the enthusiasm of hope. That 'barren victory' sealed the fate of the Confederacy.
quote: The land between Chickamauga Creek and the LaFayette Road was gently rolling but almost completely wooded. ... In the woods no officer above brigadier could see all his command at once, and even the brigadiers often could see nobody's troops but their own and perhaps the enemy's. Chickamauga would be a classic "soldiers battle," but it would test officers at every level of command in ways they had not previously been tested. An additional complication was that each army would be attempting to fight a shifting battle while shifting its own position. ... Each general would have to conduct a battle while shuffling his own units northward toward an enemy of whose position he could get only the vaguest idea. Strange and wonderful opportunities would loom out of the leaves, vines, and gunsmoke, be touched and vaguely sensed, and then fade away again into the figurative fog of confusion that bedeviled men on both sides. In retrospect, victory for either side would look simple when unit positions were reviewed on a neat map, but in Chickamauga's torn and smoky woodlands, nothing was simple.
quote: The scene now presented was unspeakably grand. The resolute and impetuous charge, the rush of our heavy columns sweeping out from the shadow and gloom of the forest into the open fields flooded with sunlight, the glitter of arms, the onward dash of artillery and mounted men, the retreat of the foe, the shouts of the hosts of our army, the dust, the smoke, the noise of fire-arms—of whistling balls and grape-shot and of bursting shell—made up a battle scene of unsurpassed grandeur.
quote: While Rosecrans went to Chattanooga, Thomas and two thirds of the Union army were making a desperate yet magnificent stand that has become a proud part of the military epic of America. Thomas, Rosecrans' firm friend and loyal lieutenant, would thereafter justly be known as the Rock of Chickamauga.
quote: My report today is of deplorable importance. Chickamauga is as fatal a name in our history as Bull Run.
quote: Whether he did or did not know that Thomas still held the field, it was a catastrophe that Rosecrans did not himself ride to Thomas, and send Garfield to Chattanooga. Had he gone to the front in person and shown himself to his men, as at Stone River, he might by his personal presence have plucked victory from disaster, although it is doubtful whether he could have done more than Thomas did. Rosecrans, however, rode to Chattanooga instead.
quote: Taken as a whole, the performance of the Confederate right wing this morning had been one of the most appalling exhibitions of command incompetence of the entire Civil War.
architecture: Bungalow/craftsman, Single-pen log cabin
built: 1890
map label: Chickamauga
causalties: 16,170 1,657 killed
causalties: 4,757 captured or missing
causalties: 9,756 wounded
casualties: 4757
casualties: 9756
casualties: 1468
casualties: 161701657
casualties: 14674