Braxton Bragg

Braxton Bragg was a career United States Army officer who became one of the Confederacy’s principal generals in the western theatre of the American Civil War. A West Point graduate, he served with distinction in the Mexican-American War before leaving the army in 1856. After Louisiana seceded he entered Confederate service, commanding troops at Pensacola and then at Shiloh before taking charge of the force that became the Army of Tennessee.

Bragg led major Confederate operations in Kentucky and Tennessee, including the campaigns culminating at Perryville and Stones River. His army won a significant tactical victory at Chickamauga in September 1863, but bitter quarrels with senior subordinates undermined command cohesion. After the defeat at Chattanooga, Jefferson Davis accepted Bragg’s resignation from army command. Bragg subsequently served as a military adviser and held commands in the Carolinas, remaining a controversial figure because of his harsh discipline and difficult relationships with fellow officers.

Hourly History’s Battle of Chickamauga traces the movements of William Rosecrans and Braxton Bragg, the arrival of James Longstreet’s corps and the command error that opened a gap in the Union line. In Captivating History’s The Battle of Chickamauga, There were Confederate Generals James Longstreet, Braxton Bragg (considered by many to be the worst Confederate Army commander of the war), and Nathan Bedford Forrest (the Rebel “Wizard of the Saddle” who chafed under Bragg’s incompetent orders). In Jeff Shaara’s The Smoke at Dawn, the Army of the Cumberland retreats into Chattanooga, where Braxton Bragg’s Confederates occupy the surrounding heights and threaten to starve it into surrender. Ulysses S. Grant arrives to restore the supply line and reorganise the Union command. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and George Henry Thomas prepare attacks while Bragg and Patrick Cleburne confront division within the Army of Tennessee. Fighting at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge breaks the siege and sends the Confederate army back into Georgia.