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Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: October 5, 2020 at 4:14:28 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-CivWar]: Pittman Jr. on Belcher, 'The Union Cavalry > and the Chickamauga Campaign' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Dennis W. Belcher. The Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign. > Jefferson McFarland, 2018. Illustrations, tables, maps. 325 pp. > $45.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4766-7082-9. > > Reviewed by Walter E. Pittman Jr. (Professor Emeritus, University of > West Alabama) > Published on H-CivWar (October, 2020) > Commissioned by Susan N. Deily-Swearingen > > An area of relative neglect among the overly numerous Civil War > studies has been the western theater and, in particular, Union > cavalry operations there. Dennis W. Belcher undertook to correct this > neglect in a series of books on the cavalry arm of the Army of the > Cumberland: General David A. Stanley, USA: A Civil War Biography > (2014), The Cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland (2016), The > Cavalries at Stone's River: An Analytical History (2017), and now The > Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign (2018). Earlier general > histories of the Chickamauga Campaign had treated the role of Union > cavalry in the campaign superficially, as only incidental to the > battle: Thomas L. Connelley, Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee, > 1862-1865 (1971), Glenn Tucker, Chickamauga: Bloody Battle in the > West (1961), Stephen Woodworth, Six Armies in Tennessee: The > Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns (1998), Peter Cozzens, This > Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga (1992), and others. Stephen > S. Starr, in his monumental three-volume work, The Union Cavalry in > the Civil War (1979, 1981, 1985) briefly sketches the Union cavalry > employment at Chickamauga and its earlier evolution. The most > influential study of the battle, including cavalry involvement, is > the new three-volume work, The Chickamauga Campaign (2014-16), by > David A. Powell. > > Until 1863, Union cavalry forces were usually outnumbered and > outfought by their Confederate opponents. In the western theater, the > commanding general of the Army of the Cumberland, William S. > Rosecrans, learned a hard lesson about cavalry during the Stone's > River Campaign. With his cavalry commander, David Stanley, Rosecrans > set out in the first half of 1863 to build a cavalry force that could > beat the rebel horsemen and make possible the invasion of the deeper > South. By late June an enlarged and more effective cavalry wing of > the Army of the Cumberland existed. The newly augmented force of > horse soldiers were instrumental in Rosecrans's successful and almost > bloodless Tullahoma Campaign, which drove the Confederates out of > Middle Tennessee. After a lengthy delay, which angered the Lincoln > administration, Rosecrans had amassed supplies and strengthened his > cavalry enough to feel confident to cross the Tennessee River and > drive on to Chattanooga in September 1863. > > General Braxton B. Bragg's rebel Army of Tennessee was centered on > Chattanooga. Rosecrans used his newly powerful cavalry to decoy Bragg > into believing that the Army of the Cumberland intended to cross the > Tennessee River northeast of the city and to attack the outnumbered > Confederates from that direction. Instead, Rosecrans crossed the > Tennessee southwest of Chattanooga. Here it was undefended due to > serious command failure on the part of General Joe Wheeler commanding > a division of Confederate cavalry responsible for that area. > Attacking from the southwest, Rosecrans's army threatened Bragg's > primary line of communication, the railroad to Atlanta. This forced > Bragg to abandon Chattanooga when he belatedly discovered Rosecrans's > movements. Rosecrans hopefully pushed south and east hoping to trap a > disheartened and outnumbered Confederate army before it could escape. > Only Bragg was not beaten and he was not retreating. Instead, he was > concentrating his forces around La Fayette and reinforcements were > being rushed to him from all over the South. Most of an army corps > was coming from Virginia (General James D. Longstreet's First Corps) > and troops were moving from Mississippi and elsewhere. Three lengthy > mountain masses separated the Tennessee River from the valley through > which the rebel railroad line ran. There were only a few narrow, > widely separated, passes over the hills. Bragg was intending to > assault the vulnerable individual Union corps with his massed army as > they emerged from the passes of Sand and Lookout Mountains, too far > apart to offer assistance to each other. > > Rosecrans knew little of this, for his cavalry was not providing the > necessary and customary reconnaissance for the army's advance. He had > been responsible for developing the Army of the Cumberland's cavalry > and it had fought effectively while operating independently in the > Tullahoma Campaign. However, as the army approached Chattanooga, > Rosecrans reverted to his earlier unsuccessful practices and parceled > out cavalry units to individual infantry corps where they were more > closely tied or else were assigned to secondary roles like guarding > the army's immense wagon trains, hospitals, headquarters, and supply > dumps. > > Confederate plans to concentrate attacks on individual Union army > corps and crush them in turn failed because of the failure of Bragg's > subordinate commanders to follow his orders. Similarly, Rosecrans had > plans to send most of his cavalry south on a raid toward Rome and cut > the rebel railroad line and trap the retreating army. His plans > failed because Stanley failed to follow his orders. > > Gradually, as his infantry advanced, Rosecrans became aware of the > Confederate threat and hurriedly massed his troops along the > Chickamauga Creek, barely in time to avoid being crushed in detail. > Bragg continued to try to attack and a bloody two-day (September > 19-20) struggle ensued, resulting in thirty-six thousand casualties > among the sixty-five thousand men of each side. On the second day of > battle, a Union command error left a huge gap in Union lines through > which Longstreet's newly arrived veterans of the Army of Northern > Virginia poured, collapsing the Army of the Cumberland. The defeated > force fled to Chattanooga, their retreat covered by the heroics of > General George Thomas's Fourteenth Army Corps (the Rock of > Chickamauga), which made a historic stand on Snodgrass Hill to allow > the army to escape. > > Union cavalry generally played an undistinguished but often useful > role at Chickamauga. There were two remarkable exceptions. The First > Brigade (Second Division) of Colonel Robert G. Minty played a key > role in deceiving the Confederates into believing that the main Union > thrust was coming from the northeast of Chattanooga by using truly > imaginative techniques. Remaining on the northern edge of the > battlefield, Minty's men provided timely and accurate reconnaissance > throughout the battle, which was ignored by higher command. It later > helped to successfully cover the army's retreat to Chattanooga. > Colonel John T. Wilder's Brigade of Mounted Infantry (not classified > as cavalry until October) was a formidable force armed with repeating > Spencer carbines. Wilder's men also played a role in misleading the > rebels to anticipate an advance northeast of Chattanooga. During the > battle Wilder's troops were used on several occasions as an emergency > force to slow the Confederate advance or cover a retreat. But the > most important role played by Union cavalry at Chickamauga was the > defense of two bridges over the Chickamauga Creek, Reed's and > Alexander's, by Wilder's and Minty's brigades in the face of the > advancing Confederate army. Their heroic stands for nearly a day > (September 18, 1863) bought the critical time needed by Rosecrans to > concentrate his army ahead of the Confederate attacks. > > Otherwise Union cavalry generally played a subsidiary role in the > battle. General Stanley and his replacement, General Robert B. > Mitchell, held the bulk of the cavalry corps inactive on the southern > flank of the Union army. Many cavalry units were tied down elsewhere > guarding unthreatened mountain passes, wagon trains, headquarters, > supply bases, hospitals, and so on. Belcher considers this employment > of Union cavalry to be a serious misuse of its combat power caused by > Rosecrans's ignorance of its proper usage. However, Belcher seems > sympathetic to Stanley's strong belief in the combat power of massed > cavalry saber charges. It was not a widespread view among cavalrymen > of either side then, or historians now, in the face of rifled > weapons. Stanley's men were successful in maintaining the security of > the flanks and rear of the Union army in the face of General Joe > Wheeler's halfhearted forays. On the northern flank, General George > Crook's Second Division, including Minty's brigade and usually > Wilder's, held their own against the redoubtable Confederate States > army general, Nathan Bedford Forrest. > > _The Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign_ is an excellent > contribution to the widespread literature of America's greatest war. > It is thoroughly researched, well written, tautly organized, and > supplied with numerous applicable tables and photographs. One > positive feature is the abundance of extremely well-made sequential > maps of the campaign. It is basically an organizational history of > the Union cavalry at Chickamauga. Short biographies of the leading > Yankee cavalrymen are interlarded in the text where appropriate. As > would be expected there is a great deal of repetition with Belcher's > other books on the cavalry. The primary influences on the author's > viewpoints are his knowledge of Stanley's papers and Major John J. > Londa's MA thesis at the US Army Command and General Staff > College.[1] A further influence is Powell's _Failure in the Saddle: > Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in > the Chickamauga Campaign_ (2010), an analytical study of the > Confederate cavalry and their commanders. Belcher uses the same > approach as Powell and his conclusions are similar. > > Belcher's judgment is that the Union cavalry failed at Chickamauga in > carrying out its basic functions of reconnaissance and battlefield > employment. This is because, Belcher feels, Union commanders > (particularly Rosecrans) did not understand cavalry operations and > failed to employ cavalry units appropriately or to assign clear > missions. > > Note > > [1]. John J. Londa, "The Role of Union Cavalry during the Chickamauga > Campaign" (MA thesis, US Army Command and General Staff College, > 1991). > > Citation: Walter E. Pittman Jr. Review of Belcher, Dennis W., _The > Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign_. H-CivWar, H-Net Reviews. > October, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53120 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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